Reconstructing Meredith (7 page)

Lying on our sides, we didn’t speak for a while. Fingers trailed over skin, long looks passed between longer kisses, but there were no words.

Eventually, after we’d both caught our breath, I broke the silence. “You doing okay?”

She gave a quiet laugh. “Scott, you just gave me three orgasms in a row. Of course I am.”

“You know what I mean.” I ran my fingers through her hair. “Since this was something you weren’t sure about…” I raised my eyebrows.

Meredith smiled and raised her head to kiss me. “Guess I was worried about nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say that. It obviously bothered you.”

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem in the future.”

“You never know.” I brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “But if it does bother you in the future, we’ll just take it slow, the same way we did tonight.”

She blew out a breath. “I’d hate to see how I’ll handle everything else if I’m still hung up on something this… simple.”

“There’s nothing simple about any of it, babe. You’ve been through hell and back. Some things will come easy, some won’t, and there may be some setbacks. This isn’t going to happen overnight.”

“I wish it would,” she muttered. “I hate feeling this way about sex, and I hate dragging you into something that’s going to take—”

“I’m in no hurry, Meredith,” I whispered. “This will take as long as it takes. You’re calling the shots. This is going to be at your speed.”

“So how do we balance me calling the shots with you being the Dom?”

“When we get to that point? Easily.” I shrugged. “Because the sub is the one who’s in control.”

She blinked. “Really?”

I sighed. “You have a lot to learn about kink, my dear.” I kissed her gently. “But yes, the sub is always in control. Your limits dictate how far I go. Sure, I’ll tell you to kneel, or strip, or suck my cock, but you have the power to stop everything with a single word.”

“Right, there’s the safe word,” she said. “But if I’m your sub, aren’t you the one in control?”

I shrugged again. “On the surface, yes.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And below the surface?”

I pulled her a little closer, laying my arm across her waist. “Here’s how submission works, babe. It’s a power exchange. Yes, you’re giving me power, but what you’re saying is you trust me enough that you’re willing to surrender control to me. We will have discussed your limits, and you’ll know I’m going to respect them. You’re saying you have no doubt that, on that incredibly off chance you need to use your safe word, I’ll honor it without question or hesitation.” I kissed her gently and caressed her face. “When you’re my sub, you’re not giving me license to do whatever the hell I want with no regard for you. Quite the opposite. You get to lie back and enjoy the ride I have planned for you, without worry, because you trust that I’ve planned it all out with your needs in mind. Yeah, I’m technically the one in charge, but by letting me take charge like that,
you’re
saying, ‘now do with me as I wish to have done.’”

Her eyes lost focus for a moment. “I never thought of it that way.” Then she smiled and met my eyes. “But I’m definitely glad I came to you for this.”

“Of course you are,” I said, chuckling softly. “I just gave you three orgasms in a row.”

She laughed. “And I made you cry.”

“Hey, you didn’t make me cry.”

“Then what was—”

“I was
not
crying.”

“Sure you weren’t, Scott.” She laughed again, but as her humor faded, something darker settled into her expression. “It’s kind of hard to think of the submissive being the one in control when my only experience has involved being locked in a dungeon and—” She paused. “Well, being treated the way Rich treated me.”

I cursed under my breath and rolled my eyes. “Obviously he took the term ‘dungeon’ and applied it a bit too literally. I can promise you no one has ever been held in mine against her will, and any woman who’s ever been tied to my Saint Andrew’s Cross has done so because she wanted to.”

“Wow,” she breathed.

“And yet you still wanted to do this?” I said. “Without knowing what I just told you, and only having your experiences with him?”

She nodded. “I knew I wanted to be a submissive, even if I didn’t understand it as well as you do. I knew what I went through with Rich wasn’t the same thing you were involved in. It couldn’t be.” Our eyes met. “There was no way someone like you would do to people what he did to me, so I knew it had to be different.” A faint smile curled the corners of her lips as she reached for my face. “And I was right.”

I put my hand over hers on my cheek. “You absolutely were.” We held each other’s gazes for a moment. Then she raised her head, drew me to her, and kissed me.

When we looked at each other again, she said, “So, tell me about this ‘dungeon’ of yours.”

I grinned. “Why tell you when I could show you?” I gestured at the bedroom door. “It’s right across the hall.”

“You sure you want to see this?”

Meredith laughed nervously. “It’s just a room. I can handle it.”

I kept my hand on the doorknob, but made no move to turn it. I’d offered to show her this place, but in the few minutes it had taken for us to get up and throw some clothes on, some second thoughts crept in.

“We can just keep things in the bedroom for now,” I said. “There’s no need to take it into the dungeon yet.”

“We’re not taking anything in there,” she said with a slight smile. “You’re just showing it to me.” I didn’t move. She sighed. “I’ll be fine, Scott. Are you just worried I’ll notice how unkempt it is?”

“Unkempt?” I scoffed. “There isn’t a room in this house that qualifies as unkempt.”

She nodded toward the door. “Prove it.”

“Nice try.” My humor faded. “Look, a place like this isn’t a big deal to me, but with what you’ve been through…”

She smiled. “I appreciate the concern. I can handle it, though, I promise.”

I let go of the doorknob and turned around, leaning against the closed door. “I know this isn’t something you probably want to think about, but before we go in there… Tell me about Rich’s dungeon. What was it… what did it look like?”

Meredith grimaced. “Do we really have to go there?”

“We don’t have to,” I said. “But I’d like to know ahead of time if I’m about to bring you into someplace that’s going to take you back there.”

“So you’re taking me back there yourself?”

“In a way, yeah, I guess I am.” I inclined my head. “But if what’s behind this door is the same thing that you lived with before, I’d like a chance to warn you about it.”

She hugged herself and shivered. “I’d rather take my chances with this. Somehow I doubt what you have is anything like what he did.”

I chewed my lip. “It’s your call.”

I turned the knob and pushed the door open with my back, watching her eyes the entire time. I flicked the switch beside the door, and the half dozen sunken lights in the ceiling came to life.

“This is it,” I said. “My dungeon.” I gestured for her to go in, and as she did, I didn’t close the door. Leaving it open meant my cat could get in here, something the little shit quickly took full advantage of, but it also meant the safety of somewhere else was close by for Meredith while she took in her surroundings. How familiar they were, I didn’t know, but I still worried it would be unnervingly close to the environment she’d lived and breathed for far too long.

She looked around. The hardwood floors creaked under our feet, and though I’d never considered the sound terribly eerie, it had that effect when Meredith shuddered. I’d painted the walls and ceiling black, and with only the dim sunken lights and what little light spilled in from the hallway, the place was dark.

Malia scurried across the floor, a black streak sweeping through shadows, and attacked one leg of my Saint Andrew’s Cross.

“Hey, hey, I don’t think so.” I grabbed her, popping her claws out of the wooden beam before tucking her squirming carcass under my arm. “You can be in here, but no scratching.” I shook my finger at her like she was a misbehaving child, and she took a swipe at me.

Meredith laughed. “She really does keep you on your toes, doesn’t she?”

“You have no idea.”

“You’ve seen the one I deal with.” Even as she spoke, her gaze tracked around the room, and she hugged herself as if the place was twenty degrees colder than it was. She eyed the Saint Andrew’s Cross. Looked over the rack of whips, floggers, and canes. A nervous ripple ran down the front of her throat and she recoiled slightly, probably at the sight of the three cat o’ nine tails hanging on one end of the rack.

Absently stroking Malia, I watched Meredith, and my chest ached with both anger and sadness. I’d seen new subs respond to the sight of a dungeon with nerves and apprehension. I’d watched their instinctive responses to something intimidating and unknown. The deep-seated fear etched into Meredith’s face and body language shouldn’t have been. This was a place to push limits, challenge senses, mix pleasure and pain. Not terrorize.

I hoped it was nothing like the one she’d endured under Rich’s control. I hadn’t exactly designed it to be a cheery environment, but I hadn’t had a traumatized sub in mind either.

She shifted her attention back to the Saint Andrew’s Cross. I watched her look over the vertical “X” formed by thick twin beams. She furrowed her brow as she checked out the ankle and wrist restraints at the ends.

When she looked over her shoulder at me, she grinned and nodded toward the Cross. “I’m guessing you built it?”

“But of course.” I returned the grin. “Why would I buy what I can build with my own two hands?”

She laughed. “You always did like building things.” Her smile faded, and she looked at the Cross again. “That and… fixing things.”

I cocked my head. “Meaning?”

She shrugged. Smiled. Glanced at me. Then she shook her head. “Nothing.”

I set the cat down and stepped behind Meredith. As I slid my arms around her waist, I said, “You don’t think I’m doing this just because I like fixing things, do you?”

“You
do
like a project,” she whispered.

I sighed and gently turned her around to face me. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, I said, “Baby, you know me better than that.”

Dropping her gaze, she nodded. “I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…” She trailed off and sighed. Finally, she looked at me again. “You don’t really have to do this, Scott.”

“You came to me for help.”

“I know, but I didn’t think you’d… we’d…”

I touched her face and kissed her lightly. “You know I would never turn my back on you. I want to help you, and that’s why you’re here.

Meredith looked away.

I pulled her into my arms. “After everything we’ve done so far, after everything I heard you tell Leslie today, do you really think I’m going to walk away?”

She rested her head under my chin and put her arms around my waist. “No. I know you wouldn’t. You’re not that kind of person.”

“Then why are you still doubting me?”

She released a long breath. “It’s not that I doubt you. It’s just, I spent so fucking long with… well, you know what I went through.” She loosened her grasp and lifted her head to look me in the eye. “I know you, Scott. I trust you. But I’m not used to being able to lean on someone like I’m asking to lean on you.”

I touched her face and held her closer. “Get used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she sank into my embrace again. We stood in silence for a long moment, completely still except my fingers running through her hair. I wondered if she caught on to the irony of seeking comfort in my arms in this room, in something that may have been eerily similar to another place she’d known too well. Whether she did or not, I didn’t point it out. I just held her.

“Do you have to work tomorrow?” I asked after a while.

“No, do you?”

“On a Saturday?” I snorted. “I’m an engineer, darling. They’re lucky they get me to work at all.”

She laughed.

I wrapped a tendril of her hair around my finger, then unwrapped it. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”

She looked up. “Your other girlfriends won’t mind?”

“Not at all.” I tucked the lock of hair behind her ear. “And I’ll be seeing both of them this weekend, so I’ll let them know I’ll be spending some time with you for a while. I don’t imagine it’ll be an issue, especially once they know what’s going on.”

Meredith pursed her lips. “What
is
going on, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I guess, what are we?” She paused, biting her lip. “Are we still just friends, or…”

“What should we be?”

Meredith sighed. “I’ll be honest, Scott, I’m not ready for more than a friendship. I can’t even remember what a normal relationship is, and I don’t think I can juggle figuring that out on top of what we’re already doing.”

“Then we’ll keep it the way it is,” I said. “Besides, we both know what happens when we try to make a relationship work.”

She shrugged, laughing softly. “I don’t know, I didn’t think we did too badly.”

“Maybe not, but it didn’t work out.”

“Most relationships don’t.”

“True. So maybe we should skip all of that.” I grinned. “We’ll just have the part of our relationship we always got right, and leave the rest in the past where it belongs.”

“So, all the sex, none of the bullshit?”

“Exactly.”

“Are you sure it’s not easier said than done?”

I put a hand to my chest, feigning offense. “Are you saying sex with me is a difficult thing?”

Meredith burst out laughing. “Yes, Scott. Sex with you is a terribly difficult thing.”

“Good thing you like a challenge, then, isn’t it?”

“Damn right I do.”

“That’s what I thought.” I kissed her neck, sliding my hand under the back of her shirt. “So, you think it’s too difficult and challenging to handle twice in one night?”

“Hmm.” She tilted her head back to expose more of her neck to my lips. “I think I can handle a little more.”

I nudged her back a step, inching her toward the door while I nibbled the side of her neck. “You
think
you can?”

She wriggled free of my embrace and grabbed my shirt. “I
know
I can. Now come here.”