Going Deep (30 page)

She didn’t know
where her insecurities were coming from. Yes, she did. She’d been blind, and
blindfolded for so long, she’d never considered other women in his life. She’d
never asked about them, and he’d never said. Now, not only was she confronting
vague shadows of his past lovers, but an actual one—one he considered a friend,
one who’d become part of his family. Megan seemed like a nice person. She even
seemed to genuinely want Carrie to work things out with Jason.

No wonder she
couldn’t make her feet budge. He was asking her to take a lot on faith. Until
she got some answers, she’d keep both her suitcase and her jeans zipped.

                                                                     *
* *

“Shit.” Talking
to his own fucking answering machine. What a pisser. Maybe she was in the
shower, or better yet, up to her nipples in the giant Jacuzzi tub in his
bathroom. Or maybe she wasn’t there at all. Tomorrow he’d reactivate the cell
phone he gave her, or at the very least find out what the hell her phone number
was so he could reach her.

The drive seemed
to take forever, as if the roads had somehow stretched since he’d driven them a
few hours ago, or perhaps time slowed. Either way, he was aware of every
heartbeat, every breath. He was adrift on a dark ocean all alone, where home
and the woman he loved were nothing more than wishful thinking. He knew about
anxiety. Had known sheer terror facing the best pitchers in the league in
clutch situations, but he hadn’t felt this alone, this terrified since he was a
kid.

Halfway home he
convinced himself he’d screwed up, though he didn’t have a clue what he’d done
to scare her away. With each mile that registered on the odometer, he
considered altering his course to her place, then thought better of it. Maybe
he was wrong and she was there. His thoughts bounced back and forth between she
was and she wasn’t faster than a ping pong ball in a championship tournament,
so when he finally pulled into his driveway and saw the lights on in his house
and her car in his driveway, he almost wept with relief.

He tossed the
duffel containing his dirty underwear into the laundry room and hung his keys
on the hook next to the side door. Following the light spilling from the
kitchen, his body thrummed with anticipation.

“Angel,” he
said, stepping into the kitchen.

She turned her
head, but her posture was rigid, and if she held that mug any tighter she would
crush it into dust. He took it all in, reading the signs. Her suitcase beside
her, the fact that she was dressed and kept her body turned from him, shutting
that part of herself away. Her full lips were nothing more than a pale slash
across her face, and though there weren’t any tears, the puffiness around wary
eyes suggested there might have been some earlier.

His gut
clenched. Had he caused this? If so, he had no idea how.

Aware he was
treading through a minefield, he weighed his options. He could walk in as her
master and order her to tell him what was wrong. He could get it out of her,
even if it meant hours of patient attention to her body. His other option, and
the one he leaned toward, was to simply ask like any other clueless guy would.

Just step on
the damned landmine and let it blow you to kingdom come. Get it over with.

Chapter Twenty

“What’s wrong?”
he asked from his strategic position near the exit.

“Megan told me about
you…and her…and Jeff.”

Kaboom!
 

There it was,
the explosion that rocked his world—not her words, but the single tear sliding
down her cheek. Damn. It wasn’t one of those artful tears, designed to
manipulate, but a tear straight from her heart. He thought he’d been doing her
a favor, not telling her everything, but all he’d done was hurt her. The question
was, had he done irreparable damage?

“Why didn’t you
tell me?” she asked, her voice small and unsure, and more deadly than any
bullet.

He wanted to
cross the room, take her in his arms, and tell her it would be okay, but he
wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

“A few reasons,”
he said, stepping carefully to avoid more explosive tears. “One, we haven’t
spent much time talking, so my past relationships haven’t come up, nor have
yours. Two, I thought I was protecting you by not telling you. I can see that was
a mistake.” He inched closer, considered it a victory when she didn’t bolt.“And
three, it’s in my past and has very little to do with my future. Our future.”
He eyed the coffee pot, decided caffeine wasn’t a good idea this time of night,
and opted for a water bottle from the fridge instead. “Four, my relationship
with Megan wasn’t real. It was just sex, and not very honest sex at that. She
was never what you are to me, and I was never myself with her. And last, but by
no means least, she’s my sister-in-law. I love her like a sister, and I don’t
go around telling people about our past relationship. Besides, Jeff can be
touchy about the subject, though it was his idea in the first place.”

“Really?” she
asked, her eyes wide with disbelief or curiosity. He wasn’t sure which.

“Honest to God
truth.” He held up one hand, swearing an oath on it. “His idea. I never would
have gone along with it if I’d known the two of them would fall in love. It’d
never happened before—the falling in love part.”

“She said she
wasn’t the first.”

He nodded. “That’s
right. There were others. Mostly during our college days. We both felt a few
girls up in high school, but we didn’t have a clue what we were doing.”

She smiled at
that, which gave him a glimmer of hope, but the smile faded, and so did her
questions. Her gaze dropped to her hands still wrapped around the coffee mug.

“What is it you
want to know?” he asked.

She took a deep
breath and squared her shoulders. He braced for whatever she was working up the
courage to ask. He’d asked her to be honest with him, and he was determined to
give her the same consideration.

“This morning in
front of the window…I was wondering…now that I know about your previous ménages,
is that something you would do with me? I mean…do you want to share me with
someone else?”

Jason drained
half his water bottle in one swig, never taking his eyes off her. Did he want
to share her?

“The truth? No.
Not really. But I told you when we first began that I would push your
boundaries, and I meant it. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the idea of being
watched because I know you did. Your body doesn’t lie. Right now, I want you
all to myself, but maybe in the future, if I think it would please you or please
me, I would consider sharing your body with another man, or perhaps a woman.
You’ve been with Todd and Brooke. Tell me about your experience with them.”

“It wasn’t much.
Todd likes to tease Brooke, make her watch him get other women off. He never…I
mean, it was always just touching, mostly. He’d bind us both then make us watch
while he touched us. He used his fingers, and once he used a vibrator.”

“He never fucked
you?”

“No!” She shook
her head. “Never. It was all for Brooke’s benefit. It made her crazy to watch
him touch me, but crazy in a good way if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know
what you mean.” He finished off his water and tossed the empty bottle in the
recycle bin under the sink. “Did you watch them fuck afterwards?”

“Yes. She likes
having an audience.”

“I see,” he
said, crossing his arms over his chest. “There’s something very primal about
two men fucking a woman at the same time. Rest assured, I won’t be inviting
another man into our bedroom anytime soon, but it is something I want you to
think about. There are ways I can give you a taste of what it would be like,
and you can always ask Megan. I don’t think I’d be lying to say she enjoyed it.
Very much. I don’t think Jeff is ever going to let it happen again, but I don’t
think he’d mind her talking about it with you. All I’m asking is that you keep
an open mind.

“At some point
in the future, I may bring another person, or persons to watch or participate
in some way, but it would be nothing more than sex, physical gratification. It
wouldn’t have anything to do with the way I feel about you, other than my
desire to give you all the pleasure you can accept.”

“I see,” she
nodded.

“Do you, Carrie?
I need to know you trust me to see to your well-being. Yes, I’ll push you, but
I’ll never push beyond your ability to accept. Yes, I’ll require things of you
that you can’t even conceive of right now, but I’ll never force you to do
anything you don’t want to do. You’ll always have a safe word, and I’ll always
respect it. That doesn’t mean we won’t talk about your reason for using it, and
perhaps try again based on that discussion.”

“I understand,”
she said. “I guess I’m just scared. You’re asking me to take a big step, coming
here.”

“You have no
need to be frightened. I’m asking a lot, I know, but I want you in my home. More
than that, I want this to be our home, a place where we can be ourselves. A
place where nothing we mutually agree upon is wrong.”

“I want that,
too.”

Jason inclined
his head in the direction of her suitcase. “So, why didn’t you unpack like I
told you to?”

“I was going to
then I got to thinking about you and Megan, and there were the empty drawers. I
wondered….”

“If you were
just the next one to have a panty drawer at Jason Holder’s house?”

“Yes, I guess
that’s what I was thinking.”

He pushed away
from the counter. “Come on and bring your suitcase with you.”

Jason
disappeared into the house. She slid off the barstool and followed like a
robot, pulling her wheeled luggage behind her. She caught a glimpse of his back
as he stepped inside the room at the end of the hallway—his bedroom.

He stood in the
center, facing the door with his hands resting on his trim hips. Waiting. She
stopped in the doorway, unsure whether to step inside or run for her life.

“Come here,
Carrie.”

His voice was all
the convincing her feet needed. She took a step forward, then another.

 “There, was
that so hard?” he asked when she stood before him like a wary child her first
day at the orphanage.

She tightened
her grip on her suitcase and shook her head.

“Tomorrow, go
buy new furniture for this room. Especially a new mattress and linens. My only
requirement is that the bed be either four-poster or otherwise have some way to
attach restraints. While you’re at it, you can replace anything in the house
that isn’t to your liking.” He stepped closer, taking her face between his
palms, capturing her gaze with his. “To answer your question…yes, before you,
there was a woman named Stacey. She ran for the hills at the mere suggestion
that she might like for me to tie her to the bed and have my wicked way with
her.”

“Were there
others?”

His hands fell
away from her face, and he stepped back. Carrie shivered. It was like he’d
flipped a switch, leaving her cold and alone.

“No. I bought
this house and everything in it after Megan, and before you. Stacey was a
mistake in many ways, but her revulsion at what she called my perverse ways led
me to you, and for that I can be nothing but grateful.”

She glanced at
the king-sized four-poster bed holding court in the center of the room. “She
left because you wanted to restrain her during sex?”

“That’s what she
said. But in the interest of honesty, I think that was just the last straw. She
wasn’t happy with the traveling I have to do, and she thought I had a woman in
every city. She’s a physical therapist and works with professional athletes.
She hears stories, some of which I’m sure are fabricated, and others I know
aren’t. I never could convince her I didn’t sleep around.”

“Did she know
about Megan?”

“Yes, she did.”

“How did you
meet her?”

“Jeff injured
his arm last season. She was his physical therapist.”

She eyed the bed
again. “You changed the sheets?”

He laughed. “She’s
been gone since before I met you, so yeah. I have a housekeeper who changes the
sheets twice a week.”

“Will you tie me
to the bed and have your wicked way with me?”

“Yes, but not
tonight.” He reached for her suitcase and headed for the door. “Tonight, you
get your own bed. Tomorrow morning, I’ll tell you my whole, sordid life story,
then you can go furniture shopping. If you want, you can come to the game
tomorrow night.”

“But—”

“No.” He parked
her suitcase at the foot of the bed and wrapped her in his arms. His body heat
seeped into her bones, melting and molding them to fit perfectly against his
hard frame. “It’s enough tonight that you’re here, that you waited for me so we
could talk.”

She slipped her
arms around his waist, drinking in his clean scent, the one that reminded her
of the out-of-doors. “I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t.”

“Thank you for
staying. It means a lot that we can talk about these things, work them out.”

She nodded. Her
cheek rubbed against the soft fabric of his T-shirt. She tightened her hold on
him, loving the feel of him in her arms. Here in his embrace, her fears seemed
juvenile, and she was glad she waited for him to get home. “Sir?”

“More questions,
angel?”

“Just one. Will
you make love to me tonight?”

A chuckle
rumbled through his chest, making her smile. His hands slid along her arms,
pushing her away from him. “Is my angel horny?”

“Yes, Sir.
Please?”

“Had you been
waiting for me in the way I expected, you would have been well satisfied by
now, but since you weren’t, I think not. You did disobey me, angel. You could
have followed my orders and still voiced your concerns before I touched you. I’ll
always listen to you. I know you don’t trust me enough to believe that yet, but
you will. I’m a man of my word, angel.”