Crossing the Lines (5 page)

“Never mind. When I wish to hear your voice, I’ll tell you so.”

Avoiding her gaze, Jay lowered his chin to his chest.

“You’ll feed everyone tonight, Alice. It’s more efficient, and you’ll fulfill an important function.” Henry tilted his head, eyes narrowing as they bored into hers. “That
is
what you need, isn’t it, Alice? The efficiency of a clear chain of command and the satisfaction that you have a proper place, a function to perform?”

Her fingers shook around the spoon handle. They’d had this conversation long before having sex. Harmonious function. Fulfilling a function tonight struck her as far from harmonious. Wedged and grinding, she waited like a gear with a stuck tooth. The force of the machine might shatter her, and the shards wreck the whole thing.

“Alice is gonna perform?” Jay peered at her with curious intensity behind his raccoon mask of bruises. “I wanna see.”

“Of course, my boy. This is all a performance for Alice. A bit of fun every other week. She attaches no deeper meaning to it.” Henry tossed the words off casually.

Six months ago, he would’ve been right, too. But not now.

“You and she are not the same, Jay.”

“Nope.” Jay rolled his head against Henry’s chest, staring straight at her as his expression turned sad. “’Cause I know you love me. I don’t hafta wonder. You tell me all the time.”

Henry’s breath hissed out.

Fuck. The difference between her and Jay slammed into her with blunt force. Henry loved Jay. Didn’t love her.

She wriggled her toes, breaking the deep yellow line in the patterned rug. A blip in perfection. Her emotions had become way too involved.
Really fucking uncomfortable socks, Henry.

She didn’t want to usurp Jay’s place. She just wanted more than every-other-week sex and playacting. She wanted enough that Henry would’ve let her hold him Wednesday night instead of sending her away.

The tail end of a wince flashed by on his face. Panic?

“Dinner, please, Alice.” A smooth expression accompanied his brisk tone. “Jay is less likely to say something dangerous when his mouth is full.”

The bowl heated her hand. By telling Henry she needed tonight, she’d taken advantage of him, of his sense of responsibility toward her. Pushed him to the verge of a breakdown in the kitchen. What the fuck was wrong with her?

He tipped his cheek against Jay’s hair, the brief touch twisting the knife. God, just, just fucking
that.
She’d never craved anyone’s attention like she craved Henry’s.

“Though nothing is guaranteed,” he murmured, more to himself than her. “He’s such a risk-taker.”

Taking her sister’s suggestion to find another guy would break the emotional misfire and let her go back to enjoying the hot sex. Except she wanted the friendship and the lust both, and she hungered for part of what Jay had. The knowledge that Henry desired her submission, not as a game but as a symbol of her respect for him.

She fed them in unnerving silence, every motion a potential mistake. An object of pity for Jay. A burden to Henry. She’d asked for the chance to take care of them, and he’d let her, but the reality proved an ill match to what she’d wanted and needed.

Then what do I need?

She gave Jay another bite and turned back to the tray for water.

“Alice.”

Please, God, let Henry show her the answer.

“You haven’t tried your supper yet.”

Nope. Fucked up again.

“Eat. I insist.”

The hearty fare delighted her taste buds, savory and baked to the perfect texture. Henry’s kitchen would produce no less. His acute, unwavering scrutiny as she ate jangled her nerves. Was the glint in his eyes satisfaction? Aside from her silence, nothing else had seemed to please him.

She cleared the tray and set the room to rights at his direction when they’d finished. Standing beside the couch, she shifted her weight and reminded herself not to fidget.

“Undress, Alice.” Nuzzling Jay’s ear and pressing gentle kisses to his head, Henry spoke without acknowledging her. “Jay asked to see a performance. I expect your nudity will suffice.”

Relief and distress warred in her. He hadn’t ordered her home, but he wasn’t watching her, either.

She grasped the hem of her shirt. The wrongness of the whole situation screamed at her. Henry’s face and voice revealed no tenderness, no desire. Not even lust.

Boredom.

He’d disengaged. As if their nights had become routine.

She yanked the shirt over her head before she could talk herself out of it.

Her hands wrapped around the soft waffle cotton, the henley she’d chosen because Henry said to dress comfortably. She’d thought he meant they’d relax together. Twisting the material, she held it to her breasts.

She could say her word. Her word. Henry hadn’t gone over safewords tonight. She hadn’t forgotten hers—her mind unhelpfully chanted
pistachio-pistachio-pistachio
—but why hadn’t he reminded her? He always did near the beginning of the night.

“Alice.”

She jumped at Henry’s voice, not distant or bored now but soft. Tender.

“Stop.”

Thank God.

“You’re anxious, my dear. Tell me why.”

Relief swept in like fresh air filling her lungs. He’d called her his dear.

“I don’t know what you want, Henry.” Tonight’s wrongness wouldn’t shatter the machine. He’d fix it, a patient tinkerer at the gears until they worked in smooth motion again. “I don’t know how to please you tonight.”

Jay shifted, mumbling about making Henry happy, and Henry shushed him, steadying Jay with his arms around him.

“I’ve given you instructions, Alice.” His gentle voice failed to accuse. “I’ve told you precisely what you were to do. Yet you haven’t enjoyed following those directives, have you?”

“I…” Her shirt bulged between her knuckles. Fabric spilled as uncontained as the chaos in Jay’s bedroom. “No, Henry.”

“No,” he echoed. “You haven’t found pleasure in fulfilling my needs and Jay’s tonight, not as you did Wednesday night nor as you’ve done on our other nights together. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes.” The truth stung more than the lingering confusion.

“Do you know why, Alice? Do you understand the difference?”

Not a chance in hell. Failing grade for this one. “It doesn’t feel right. It’s empty.”

“Because a full-time domestic submissive relationship is not something you want, my dear. You’ve been wondering about it, perhaps, about the things you sense Jay has that you do not.”

Panic swamped her. Oh God, did he pity her the way Jay seemed to? Henry was an honorable man. Even if he wanted her submission, he wouldn’t take it if giving him that control damaged her.

He lifted his hand in a calming wave. “Shhh, that’s fine, Alice. It’s natural you might compare your situation with Jay’s and be curious. But it’s important to realize that the things we believe will make us happy are not always the things that do make us happy.”

She wasn’t good enough, and she never would be. Paralysis gripped her.

“If submission itself made you happy, you would have enjoyed your tasks tonight. You would have taken my instructions at face value.”

The rug grated like ground glass under her feet.

“You would not—as I suspect you have been doing—have devoted your mind to considering what I might mean by such instructions, beyond cataloguing the differences as I asked you to do. You would not have been angry or confused. You would have been pleased to serve in whatever capacity I deemed fit.”

Henry didn’t want her mishmash of deeper feelings because he didn’t return them.

His smile seemed off. Tired. Thin. “It’s all right not to want those things, Alice. Simply because Jay has beliefs about summer vacations and about…about
love
…it does not constitute an obligation. One cannot force a feeling that is not present.”

Stand straight. Smile. Nod. A performance, like he said. Like his. He didn’t want her reading meaning into his act, but he’d make allowances for her substandard submission. He’d anticipated her disappointing performance. Knowing she wouldn’t like submissive socks, he’d let her try them on and learn for herself.

If she could get him into bed, she could salvage the night. She excelled at letting him lead there.

Jay squirmed and tipped his head against Henry’s chest. “Time yet?”

“Not for another two hours, my boy. We’ll have a bath first, and you may take your pills once you’re snug in bed.”

“But it hurts now.”

“I know, Jay. I’m sorry. Two hours.” Henry’s bleak gaze met hers. The inability to make everything better tortured him.

“Alice…” He sighed. He clasped Jay’s left hand, the distinction between comforter and comforted blurry at best.

“If you wish to go, my dear, I’ll dismiss you from your obedience for the rest of the night. You’ve seen…more than I intended to show you, I expect.” Lips tight, he searched her face. “There’s no need for you to be unhappy and uncomfortable in a situation you’ve discovered you don’t enjoy.”

She hated his distance, not the situation. Henry had fed her on her first contract night, and she cherished the memory of intimacy and sweetness. He’d bathed her on the night he’d spent alone with her. Same deal. She couldn’t play the full submissive and pretend to be happy, not when it made Henry cold. Maybe he should get socks, too.

Agree, and Henry would push her out the door, hide his vulnerability and leave her feeling like a failure. Fuck that.

“Do you want me to go?” Perfect. Enough brazen challenge to draw Jay’s attention, too. C’mon, c’mon, please let him be her ally here.

“Alice, the decision—”

“I want her to stay.” Jay bulldozed over Henry’s request, something he’d never do without the excuse of the drugs to hide behind. His lip curled in a smirk Henry wouldn’t see. “She’s pretty and soft and she can make the pain go away.”

“You want to forgo your bath and rest here on the couch with Alice for the rest of the evening, my boy?” Speaking to Jay, Henry held her gaze.

She gave a slight nod. She’d sit with Jay if he wanted. Chatting with him had been the highlight of her evening so far, and events damn well didn’t seem headed for improvement. If she’d had a chance to comfort Henry with sex, she’d missed it.

“Why can’t Alice help in the bath?” Jay’s smirk widened. “She’s seen it all before.”

“Alice is not a bath toy, Jay.” Henry’s weary voice carried a sharp edge. “Ask for something else.”

“But I want Alice.”

“It’s okay.” She jumped in before Henry could quash the idea. “I’d much rather help you give Jay a bath than sit at home by myself for the rest of the night.”

“Alice should be naked.”

“Jay.” Henry’s warning tone. Either Jay’d hit the limit of the night’s relaxed boundaries, or Henry suspected he was being played by a mischief-maker. Probably both.

“She should. Baths are wet.” Good God. The look Jay gave her. He knew his game to the last nanometer. “Don’t want her clothes all wet, too.”

He wanted her to stay and he wanted her naked. Whatever his reasons, they lined up with her own goal to perfection.

“I’m halfway there anyway.” She let her shirt fall to the coffee table. Nudity didn’t feel wrong now. Henry’s distance had done an about-face to vulnerability.

She and Jay played for Team Make Henry Feel Better. He held the only playbook, but she’d follow Jay’s lead. He loved Henry, and he liked her. He wasn’t likely to steer her anywhere she didn’t want to go.

“And I’ll need dry clothes to go home in later.” She unhooked her bra, pushed the straps down her arms, and dropped it on the shirt. Her hands went to the waistband of her yoga pants. Henry didn’t say a word.
This can work.

She stripped, pants and underwear at the same time, pulling socks with them as she stepped out of them. Fewer chances for Henry to object. She laid the bundle atop her shirt and bra. “Ready for bathtime whenever Jay is.”

“Thirty seconds,” Jay said. “I’m always ready for naked Alice in thirty seconds.”