Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(25)

He swallowed hard. “We won’t be doing that often, if ever. I don’t want to disappoint you. I needed to do it once, needed to claim you like that, but it doesn’t take me to a good place. It’s like the roses for you, I think, taking me too deeply into the thing that made me like this.”

I understood so well just what he meant. We were so alike in the really important ways. I cupped his face in my hands. “I won’t be disappointed. I liked what you did, I enjoyed it, but I certainly don’t need that. You fulfill so many needs that I didn’t even understand about myself, and that was not one of them. Thank you for showing me, for initiating me into so many things that I find wonderful. Don’t ever think that you could disappoint me by telling me your preferences—by telling me no.”

He was silent again, and I couldn’t tell if my words had reassured him, or if I had even reached him at all. His eyes were faraway and a little glazed over as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Spencer did that to me,” he said finally, his voice raw but his eyes still blankly looking up. “It made me feel so helpless, so…worthless. I don’t know how to explain it. I know you weren’t unwilling, but I just remember how I felt after he would do that, and some part of me feels like I’ve done something awful to you, something terrible, something like what he did to me.”

“I knew it would make me feel that way, if not during, then at least after, and I still did it, still managed to enjoy it. I feel…loathing, for my weakness, for my need, wondering if it made you feel even an inkling of what I did. It makes me wonder if everything I do to you is a sort of rape—if I’m taking advantage of that beautiful submission that you give to me.”

I started to speak, to try to reassure him, but he cut me off. “I know you’ll tell me that’s not true, and some part of me even knows it, but I still feel it. Like I said, that act just puts me in a dark place.”

I cupped his face softly. “I understand. The roses were like that for me. They reminded me more of my father than anything you’ve done, and they terrified me. I felt more pain and more fear on the violent end of those than anything else we’ve done, but the pleasure was just as great…more so. It made me think of those dark things even as it made me come. I couldn’t control my pleasure any more than I could control my fear. That terrifies me.”

I had to take a few deep breaths before continuing, still finding it hard to be generous with my emotions, and my words, even though he had been nothing but generous.

“We don’t have to face those dark thoughts alone anymore, James. I can’t say I’ve been through what you’ve been through, but I do understand your self-loathing about a thing you can’t control. You admit you’ve been a slut with your body, but I think you’re more well adjusted than I am when it comes to sex. You have a preference, but you can still function without that preference. I have a fetish. I wasn’t even interested in a man until I found you, until I found this. That terrifies me too, how broken I am. But I also know I’m lucky, so lucky, to have found someone so perfect for me, so safe, to help give me the things I need without taking my self-respect, and without putting me in danger. You’re a gift to someone like me, James. Don’t ever forget that.”

He pushed my face hard into his damp chest, my chin just skimming the water, but not before I saw the tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Bianca,” he said, his voice shaky.

I closed my eyes, my tears sliding slowly down my cheeks and onto his chest.

“Thank you, James,” I said, my voice thick.

CHAPTER NINE

Mr. Wonderful

I was waking up slowly, alone in a giant bed, when I heard the door of the bedroom open. I opened my eyes to a grinning Stephan.

He climbed onto the bed beside me, perching his chin on his palm as he looked down at me.

I reached a hand up, stroking his wavy blond hair. “Mornin’,” I said, my voice still rough from sleep.

“Morning, Buttercup. Javier is out cold, James has left for work, and we are having breakfast in your new, giant-ass bed. Marion is bringing it up when it’s ready.”

I smiled. “That’s sweet. What a nice way to wake up.”

“Don’t you want to know what’s for breakfast?”

I gave him my little shrug. “I don’t really care. The company is so good, the food is kind of secondary.”

We shared a look.

“It always was,” he said. “Remember when the food used to be nonexistent?”

I laughed and nodded, thinking about what a wonder it was that something that was once such a painful struggle could become just a memory—a memory that gave me nothing but relief that we were past it.

“Remember when we lived in that ditch by that grocery store for a month?”

I smiled, again surprised to feel nothing but comforted in the knowledge that that distant time was past. “I do. I remember that we thought we were lucky then, because we didn’t starve there, and no one bothered us, and you didn’t even have to fight, for a while.”

“Are you going to keep your house now that you’re living with James?” he asked, his voice just curious, though I couldn’t imagine that it was an idle question.

“Of course I am. I’ll still be staying there, too.”

“Don’t keep the house just for me, Bianca. Don’t do it just because of our old plans. You won’t be homeless again, even if things don’t work out with James. You don’t need to keep that place to have a sense of security. Life won’t be like that again. We can’t live our lives always thinking that it will—always bracing for it. And commitment for you won’t be what it was for your mother, because James isn’t your father. You can’t keep comparing them, and you can’t keep treating a good thing like a potential disaster. That’s no kind of life. ”