The Exhibitionist (The Submissive #6) (25 page)

“You’ve got it completely wrong. I don’t want Charlene. If I wanted to be with another woman, there are easier ways to go about doing it.
And
I don’t want to share you. I don’t want to bring anyone into our time. But I saw the look in your eyes. You needed more and more and soon you’d have wanted to try two men at a time and I
was willing to do that for you. Not because I liked it. I hate it. I would do it for you!
”

“Excuse me,” a Dungeon Monitor said. “Is everything okay here?”

Shit. I’d forgotten we were surrounded by people. The guy was looking at me, waiting for a response.

Of course a DM would stop by. Someone had safe-worded and then we’d been arguing.

“Everything’s fine.” I stood up. “We’re actually headed to our room.”

I started walking toward the exit, not checking to see if Nathaniel followed. I heard him say something to the DM and then follow behind me. He didn’t say anything, though. In fact, there wasn’t a word said until we made it into our room. Then I finally turned to face him.

“What the hell was that?” I asked once he had closed and locked the door.

He turned around and I was momentarily stunned. He was so pale.

“I’m so sorry, Abby.”

He was sorry and I was fucking furious. “You should be. You had no idea who that man was. How dare you let him tell me to
thank him properly
!”

“There’s no excuse for what I did. None.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what got into me. It was watching you dance with those men and they kept coming up to join in. And I knew you liked being watched and I thought since you were dancing maybe you wanted to try a threesome and the thought of it killed me.”

“Because I enjoyed dancing, I obviously want to have sex with a stranger? That doesn’t even make sense. I have no clue how you thought that because I was dancing with a man I also wanted his dick in my mouth.”

“I know. You’re right.”

“Damn straight, I’m right.” He walked to the couch and sat down. I kept standing. “And tell me one more time how you found out Charlene was a submissive.”

He exhaled deeply. “The weekend we moved, I was meeting with her about the nonprofit. She asked if we could have dinner and I told her no. She kept asking. I finally let her know, in no uncertain terms, that I would be eating alone and to stop asking about it. She replied back with a ‘Yes, Sir’ that left me with no doubt she was submissive. Just as I’m sure she had no doubt I was a Dominant.”

“If that’s the whole story, I still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me.”

“It seriously didn’t cross my mind. It was that unimportant to me.”

“Then why were you staring at her scene like you were last night? That’s hardly the behavior of someone who finds the entire subject unimportant.”

“I wanted to make sure it was her.”

“And you didn’t want to wait until she wasn’t in the middle of a Dom sandwich?”

“Like I said just now, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

It would be so easy to forgive him. To say the words and go on with our weekend. Sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen. But I couldn’t do that. We’d worked too hard at our communication for me to let him go that easy. “You not thinking clearly could have put me in a dangerous position. What if I’d done it and he had a disease?”

I didn’t think it was possible, but he went even paler. “I called a stop to it.”

“I was seconds away from doing it myself. That’s beside the point.” I held a finger to his chest. “You’re the Dominant. It’s up to you to make sure we’re doing what we want to do, not just guess and throw something together at the last minute.”

I’d rarely seen him so dejected and part of me hated it because I knew how deep his self-loathing could go. But the bigger part of me wanted him to hate what he’d done. What he’d almost had me do.

“I don’t want anyone other than you. Ever,” I said. “I don’t want or need to experience a threesome. Yes, I enjoy playing in public, but that’s an entirely different thing and they are not related.”

I wanted to tell him to grow his petty, jealous self up, but decided that would be pushing it since I didn’t handle Charlene all that well. He could, technically, tell me to do the same thing.

“I’m taking a shower and going to bed,” I said, then left him with hands on his knees, looking as though his world had just fallen apart.

NATHANIEL

I
didn’t sleep that night. For a long time I sat on the couch, thinking about how badly I’d fucked up. Abby had been having fun and dancing. If I hadn’t still been irritated over Charlene, I’d have joined her. As it was, I stood watching her dance with other men and grew more and more agitated by the second.

Abby was a beautiful woman. Of course she’d captured the attention of the crowd. And yes, her dancing had been on the risqué side, but hell, we were at a BDSM club and people were having sex not twenty feet away.

I’d acted out of anger and that was something I should never do. Abby’s trust in me was far too important and precious for me to jeopardize it with anything less than my full self-control. I’d gone too far tonight and I didn’t know how to make up for it.

After a while I went into the bedroom. She hadn’t closed the door, so I peeked in and saw she was sleeping. But it was more than that—she was sleeping in one of my white dress shirts. The sight of her in bed, in my shirt, with the knowledge of what I’d almost had her do, struck my heart as if someone had stabbed me.

I knew she loved me. We’d had difficult times in the past and we’d always worked through them. I just wasn’t sure she
liked
me very much at the moment. I didn’t like myself very much.

I knew all too well that it took only a mere whisper of doubt to bring down something it had taken years of trust to build. My heart ached with the knowledge that there might be a whisper of doubt in Abby’s trust in me now. I only hoped I could make it right before it did irreversible damage to what we’d spent years building together.

When she’d first left me right after our relationship had started, it crippled me. But now, if anything happened to us, it would do more than cripple me. It would destroy me completely. Before I’d only been with her for a few months. Now we had years of shared experiences, heartaches, and joys. And I’d been a damn fool to risk all that for nothing.
Nothing.

When it became too much to think about, I turned my focus to the upcoming meeting with Daniel. The Partners in Play group trusted me, too. And though Abby was far more important, I’d made a commitment to them and I needed to be prepared.

I’d told Daniel I had my list of suggestions ready and we’d planned to spend an hour or so going over them. We’d originally thought to have both Julie and Abby with us. Their thoughts and ideas as submissives—one newer in her journey and one with more experience—were needed on all accounts. Abby knew my suggestions; she’d helped me with them. Together, we’d talked about what we needed to put in place to make group members feel safe and secure. I pushed aside the thought that maybe the group needed to get rid of me. After all, who really wanted to listen to me after what I’d put Abby through hours earlier?

The list of my suggestions blurred before me, and my stomach hurt. It was impossible to concentrate on anything other than Abby. With a sigh, I put the list down and picked up my speech. I stared at it for thirty minutes before I realized I hadn’t read a single word. I wasn’t even sure how I’d be able to face the gathering tomorrow, much less give a speech.

The clock said it was four o’clock. Years ago, before Abby entered my life, it was nothing for me to be awake at this time of morning. But when she moved in with me, I’d grown used to going to bed with her and falling asleep listening to her breathe and with her soft warmth surrounding me. The nights became more than a time to sleep or work; they’d become a time to reconnect and revive.

Now the night was lonely and without her in my arms, it was only dark.

I put the speech away. That wasn’t going to be worked on, either.

I went back into the bedroom and knelt beside the bed where she slept. Careful not to wake her, I gently lifted the hair that had fallen across her face.

“I love you,” I whispered. “And no matter what it takes, I’ll make this right.”

She sighed in her sleep. And while I realized that, though there were many things I could put into place or change, there was one item I could take care of right away.

“W
here’s Abby?” Daniel asked the next morning. He and Julie had met me in the courtyard where it was quiet. The play equipment had been put away and the only music was the occasional sound of a bird chirping.

“She’s talking with Lynne and the kids.” Much easier to say that than to tell him the whole truth.
I fucked up last night and Abby isn’t talking to me.
“Julie, if you’d like to see her, why don’t you go on up to our room? She’ll let you in.”

Julie nodded and gave Daniel a kiss before heading upstairs.

“Is she coming down when she finishes?” Daniel asked.

“I honestly don’t know.”

He leaned back in his chair and his eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t look like you slept last night. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. No.”

“Offer stands.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

This morning had been hell. She’d spoken to me only to say she wasn’t ready to talk about anything and that she would let me know when she was. I didn’t have a chance to reply before she pulled out her laptop, slipped on her headphones, and started writing.

And I stood there ready to discuss what I’d done wrong and the decisions I’d made in the early-morning hours, and simply nodded.

Across the table, Daniel took a deep breath. I wasn’t fooling him. He clearly knew something had happened between me and Abby. “Okay,” he said, accepting that whatever it was wasn’t up for discussion. “I know you’ve talked to Luke DeVaan about building a club for the Partners in Play group. What do you think about incorporating the bulk of these changes when that opens?”

My mind had been on nothing but Abby for the last twelve or so hours. Now, forced to think about something else, I felt relieved, but also just a bit guilty. Guilty, because how could I focus on anything with things as they were between me and Abby?

“I think that will be fine.” I forced the situation with Abby out of my head for the moment. “As long as we don’t allow anyone new until then.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking and why I suggested we wait. I think it’d be good for the current members to grow more connected, stronger as a group. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I think with a stronger group dynamic, everything about the group strengthens.” He shrugged. “I think that’s worth taking a break from adding new members for.”

“In that case, a lot of the other things we came up with will be taken care of by the new building. We’ll have video cameras installed. Someone dedicated to front desk duty. There will actually
be
a front desk. All doors will have built-in windows so rooms can be checked at any time. And there’ll be a separate aftercare area.”

“I really like the things you’re adding to the new building. This is exciting.”

“And, like Abby pointed out to me, it’s important that you and Julie won’t be burdened with the responsibility of hosting the group so often.”

“We didn’t mind.”

“I know, but it’s still a lot for one couple.”

He didn’t argue with that. “What are some other ideas you had?”

“We propose anyone wanting to join has to be recommended by a group member. Then once someone is applying, he has to meet with a senior member. And the new member has to be observed in play by a senior member. Even then, once admitted, he or she is a probationary member for a year.”

“This sounds really good.”

“Thank you. We also thought about having an electronic database of member information and checklists. It would be handy to have that information readily available and it would give us the ability to match people up. The downside is having all that information in an electronic database might make some people uncomfortable. We need to come up with a way to code everything to guarantee anonymity.”

“I knew you were the right man for this. I believe all these things will go a long way to ensure that everyone is safe.”

His words punched me in the gut. I wasn’t the right man for the job, and I certainly hadn’t kept Abby safe.

“Nathaniel?” he asked. “Are you okay? Did I say something?”

“I fucked up.”

“Oh?”

“With Abby. Last night.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how to fix it and she’s not talking to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was so bad. We caused a scene and everything. The Dungeon Monitor came by to check on us because we were creating such a disturbance.”

He gave a low whistle.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “After that, we went back to the room and she told me off again and went to bed.”

“From the way you look, you didn’t sleep at all.”

“I used to do it all the time.”

“You were probably ten years younger.”

“True, I don’t remember it feeling this way.”

He chuckled. “Hell, if I tried to do the things I did ten years ago, I’d be in a serious mess.”

I tried to smile, but it hurt too much.

“I can’t say I’m the expert when it comes to relationships. I’ve never been married and I’ve never been with anyone for as long as you’ve been with Abby. But I do know this: she loves you madly and deeply and I can’t imagine anything you’ve done will cause her not to anymore.”

I wasn’t sure he was right about that. He didn’t know what I’d done and I didn’t feel like telling him. Not because I was afraid of how he would see me; I couldn’t imagine him thinking less of me than I thought of myself. I just couldn’t stand to say the words. If I did, I’d relive every torturous second.

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll see if she talks to me when I go back to the room.”

“The good thing about being here is there’s really nowhere for her to go. I doubt she’ll leave you here with no transportation.”