Crossing the Lines (9 page)

“Yeah. A lot.”

“Did you like whips?” That’s why Henry was quick to praise him. To show Jay his approval. Make Jay feel safe to be himself.

“I liked pleasing people.” Jay gave her a rueful smile. “How didn’t matter so much. But I didn’t dislike them. At least, not before.”

She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. They weren’t so different. She enjoyed pleasing Henry in their games and his approval and praise afterward. Enjoyed the false feeling of closeness and intimacy that sex provided, the short-term rush.

“If Henry thought the others were right to stay away, why…” He’d approached Jay and asked him to play the submissive for him in such a fragile moment? Henry exercised dominance and control, but he wasn’t a predator. He wouldn’t have marked Jay’s vulnerability and leaped for the kill.

“He didn’t touch me.” Right eyebrow raised, he smirked. “That first night? Never fucking touched me, not once. Too clever, right? He gets me to promise not to play with anyone else, and he takes me downstairs and makes me switch out my green ribbon for a red one, and that’s that. He tells the girl at the desk she’s not to give me anything but a red ribbon from now on and he’s to get a phone call whenever I walk in the door. She looks at me, I nod like I know what the fuck is going on, and she makes a note. Done.”

Henry’s hand tightened against her back.

She pressed her head against his leg. The moment must’ve been comforting and terrifying. For Henry, not just Jay. To be able to help Jay, and to accept utter responsibility for him, too. Jay’s protector.

She might not know ribbons, but she understood stoplights, and Henry had tied a big flashing one on Jay. Jay’s eagerness to please made him a danger to himself.

“He took me upstairs, but only to the lounge. No sex. No shows, no demonstrations, nothing more kinky than people sitting around unwinding. We get juice—no alcohol at the club—and sit down, and he quizzes me for like four hours, and he sends me home with specific masturbation instructions. Homework!” He sounded more like himself now, with words bubbling out. Talking about Henry did that to him. He’d pushed through the hard part to reach giddy relief.

“None of the others…nobody had done that before. Tried to make it more than whatever they wanted from me for a few hours, I mean. I felt special. Because Henry gave me this task, you know?”

Responsibility. Henry’s trust. She’d been intimate with that feeling.

“He wanted me to think about it, too, so I’d be able to give him a report the next week.
Next week
. That whole week, I was so damn happy. Not worried at all. ’Cause I knew I’d see him, and he’d listen to my report, and I’d have done such a good job he’d give me another thing to do.”

“You wanted to make him happy, and he…” had made it easy. Given Jay a task he couldn’t fail at.

Their first night together, he’d told her they’d have to correct her feelings of inadequacy. Jay had been a project for Henry. And now she was, too. A sex hobby.

“I enjoy teaching,” Henry said with quiet patience. He’d seemed content to let Jay dominate the discussion, maybe because Jay didn’t talk about his past often. “What Jay needed most at the time was a teacher to show him how to have his needs met in a safe way.”

“Safe means
talking
.” Jay sighed. “That next night? Same thing. Except instead of sitting at a table, we walked around and watched some scenes. For every room, he’d ask what I liked or didn’t like and how I felt watching.”

Jay rolled forward, shifting his leg over Henry’s and rubbing his foot against Henry’s calf. “He was sneaky. Not in a bad way. Not a liar. That’s not Henry.” Jay’s unblinking stare unnerved her. Brown depths she’d never feared before. “He’s always honest, but what he did for me? He took it so gradual and subtle I didn’t realize at first how safe I felt in his hands—and how different that was from before.”

She flinched. Her fingers slipped free of Jay’s. His words could’ve belonged in her own mouth.

“Six months later, I moved in with him. So I guess we’d better—”

“Pause to clean up and fetch a snack, yes, Jay. An excellent suggestion.” Henry sent him to fetch washcloths and asked her to help replace the sheets for the night.

She couldn’t help but count the months. She’d reached her sixth as a project on Henry’s roster. She curled her tongue, desperate to keep her questions from spilling out of an unguarded mouth. Had Jay been about to make a joke? Confess fear that Henry would ask her to move in and displace him?

Henry might ask all of his submissives to live with him at some point. She’d no idea how many he’d trained. Was cohabitation in Jay’s contract? Living together sure as hell wasn’t in hers. She liked living alone. Being independent. Not answering to anybody.

Didn’t she?

She was losing her fucking mind. Sex with Henry killed brain cells.

Jay brought back warm washcloths. Henry tenderly cleaned them both and himself before asking Jay to retrieve the arnica cream from the nightstand.

“Lie on your stomach, sweet girl. I want a proper look at your back.”

She lay still, her face turned to the side. Henry’s touch heated her skin.

“Does that hurt, Alice?”

She’d be red for a while. Her skin was too fair not to bruise no matter how carefully Henry distributed the flogger’s tails.

“It burns a little.” Too, she’d feel the pull in her muscles when she stretched. “Not badly.”

But she wanted to keep that feeling. Like she carried Henry’s careful attention to her needs in her muscle memory. She didn’t have to leave it in this room when their time together ended.

Humming, Henry took the jar from Jay and handed off the washcloths.

Henry applied the cool cream with light, gentle strokes. She basked in the attention he paid to her shoulders and ass and upper thighs. He paused once, to kiss Jay and thank him for taking care of the washcloths.

Jay settled on the bed beside her and nuzzled her face as Henry finished his work. Replacing the cream in the nightstand drawer, Henry studied them. “Alice, please be so kind as to spare Jay’s wrist and fetch the snack tray from the kitchen while the arnica settles into your back.”

She slid off the bed and onto her feet. Henry laid his hand along her cheek and kissed her forehead. “Thank you, dearest.”

She went willingly, damn sure the choice of tasks had nothing to do with Jay’s wrist and everything to do with Henry needing a moment alone with him. Praising Jay for sharing or warning him not to tease her about moving in, maybe. That lifestyle wasn’t something Henry would offer her—or something she’d accept.

She wouldn’t be where Jay was in four years. Henry had grown deeply attached to him. Loved him. Even if Jay had started as a project, he wasn’t one now. Unless…

She stumbled over her feet and caught herself.

Henry had flogged her tonight. Jay hadn’t been upset like he had in November. What if her presence belonged to a subset of Henry’s project with Jay?

Henry wouldn’t use her, but her contract laid out her consent. If Jay had been a broken machine, Henry might’ve needed to find a replacement part or jury-rig a temporary workaround. Her.

Tray in hand, she ducked into the bedroom. Jay clung to Henry, resting against the headboard with their dark heads bent together. Comforting and comforted. She wouldn’t mind some of that action. Wrung out physically and emotionally, she’d let her head tie her in knots. And not those nice quick-release ones Henry knew.

“Lovely, Alice, thank you.” Henry gestured toward the nightstand, and she set the tray down. He patted the bed. “Sit, sweet girl, and tell me what’s on your mind. You’ve been processing things, I’m certain, and you’ve no doubt come to some questions.”

She passed Henry a glass of juice. He handed it to Jay to sip before taking a drink himself. Bringing the plate, she settled next to Henry and started to lean back.

He stopped her with a hand on the back of her neck, making her wait until he’d placed a pillow between her sensitive shoulders and the wood. He’d sent her out of the room to talk with Jay, yeah, but he’d also given her time alone to think, because he understood how her mind worked. So where to start?

“The games…the bondage, and the spanking, and the flogging. If it bothered Jay…was I…how could you…” She traced the edge of the square plate around a blunted corner. Three ripples decorated the gently sloping sides like a washboard. “Why?”

“Trust and desire, Alice.” Henry handed her the glass of juice. “Sip. It was trust, and desire, and patience.”

“It helped me,” Jay blurted. “I want those things, Alice. I wanted them before and I still want them. I’ve just been afraid. Seeing you all confident and brave and satisfied, knowing you enjoyed every minute and you weren’t scared or hurt after, it helped me. I don’t want to be afraid. I hate it. I hate that panic, I hate that my body sometimes still reacts that way. I watch you and I feel like I can do it. Like I’m okay because you are.”

“I’m…”
An example.
Nothing more. She dragged her finger across the ripples. Bump. Bump. Bump. He’d meant it as a compliment. “I’m glad I can help you, Jay.”

Henry issued a quiet challenge. Not quite a hum, not quite a grunt, but something that disagreed without disagreeing. Lifting her right hand in his left, he pressed the back of her hand to his chest.

“Everything was carefully chosen, Alice, with an eye toward your enjoyment, Jay’s fears, and my own skills.” He pursed his lips and rubbed his thumb over her palm in slow circles. “Think back to our first nights together. You were pinned, bound by my body even then. I would not have added physical restraints if I hadn’t been certain from your contract answers and your early responses that you would enjoy them.”

“But if I hadn’t, if I’d freaked out, it would’ve been a disastrous lesson for Jay.” Massively fucking risky. If she’d had to pick words to describe Henry, “risky” wouldn’t have made the top hundred.

“It would have been a
different
lesson for Jay, and for you. A lesson in using your safeword, and a lesson in how quickly I responded to your distress.” He raised an apple slice to her mouth. “Eat. You need the sugar.”

Jay had snatched pieces from the plate on his own. She’d gotten wrapped up in talking and thinking. And Henry still held her right hand pressed to his chest. She accepted the apple slice from his fingers.

Henry nodded. “The night with the cuffs, your first experience of true bondage—you tested the release and safety features, do you recall?”

He’d made her yank the strap free, and she’d been able to relax. She swallowed in a hurry. “I remember.”

“The demonstration comforted Jay as much as you, my dear. He had direct control of the scene, the ability to stop at any moment and reassure himself that you enjoyed the attention and the restraint. You’ll recall he was playing a role, Alice, imagining himself making a poor experience into a good one for you. A set task. He asked you several times if you were enjoying it.”

True. Jay had asked, and she’d taken his questions and hesitations as role-playing. Maybe Henry’s choices hadn’t been so risky.

“So this whole time, all of it has been a lesson for Jay.” Not the lesson she’d originally thought, not teaching Jay to please her. But her revised hypothesis matched. She was the temporary, jury-rigged solution to Jay’s fears.

“For
him
, in some ways, yes. For
you
, these months have been an exploration of unexpressed desires. An opportunity to find more complete satisfaction. Something your life has been missing.”

Missing? She wasn’t missing anything. Her life was fine, thank you very much.
Orgasms, idiot. He means orgasms.
Well, that and finding out she liked some minorly kinky shit.

She cleared her throat. “And you like the bondage games and the discipline because you like control. You couldn’t play those games with Jay.” The conclusion bothered her. Hurt deep and twisted her with confusion.

“Alice. Look at me.”

Instinct demanded she obey his command. Deep green eyes saw into her soul.

“Alice, you are not a substitute for Jay.”

Henry’s words landed like a blow under her ribs, stealing her breath. He’d named the fear she couldn’t even speak. She nodded, three times, slow and deliberate, before trusting her voice. “Okay.”

“Jay, the plate, please.” Henry’s soft voice promised understanding, and Jay leaned across him to lift the plate from her legs. Pale green ceramic floated away on Jay’s fingertips, the near-emptied glass following.