Mile High (Up in the Air #2)(76)

He had basically given me the go ahead to tell Lana about our BDSM activities. I was grateful that I could, though I still didn’t know if I would. I hadn’t even discussed it with Stephan, and I rarely kept even the most minor of details from him. I decided that it might be easier to tell a woman like Lana than it would be Stephan. He was so protective of me that I wasn’t sure how he would react to the things I let James do to me.

Our brief distraction technique came to an abrupt end as we reached his bedroom. He hovered in the doorway, ushering me inside. I glanced back at him. He was acting so unlike himself that it raised every hair on my body.

He just watched me for long minutes, as though trying to get answers just by looking. His face was shuttered, but his hands shook a little as he loosened his silken navy bow-tie.

“Take off your clothes, Bianca.” When he finally spoke, his voice was dangerously soft.

I shot him a defiant look, my chin lifting. “We can’t put this off, James. We need to talk.”

He nodded. “Yes. Take off your clothes and get on the bed. We’ll talk then.”

I watched him closely, trying to decide if it was a strange joke.

His nostrils flared. “Now,” he said. There was a fine tremor in the hand that pointed to the bed.

Finally I complied, driven by his strange mood and the desire to know exactly what it meant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I stepped out of my shoes as I approached the bed, shrugging out of my floaty gown with a few easy movements. My tiny lace thong was a distant memory between one step and the next.

I sat on the very edge of the bed, facing him. I was naked, but I didn’t feel as self-conscious as I usually did. I had too many other things to be anxious about.

“Lie down in the center of the bed,” James ordered softly, still framed in the doorway. He was still fully dressed in that devastating navy tux, only his tie mussed, though it still hung undone around his neck.

I obeyed, but it didn’t come as naturally as it normally did. Sheer force of will made me shift my body onto the spot where he’d ordered it.

“Spread your legs and raise your hands over your head,” he continued.

I shot him a wild look. He was getting waaay off track. “James,” I began.

“Do it,” he said with a new trace of steel in his voice. I closed my eyes, nearly shuddering as I obeyed him. I wanted answers, but I couldn’t lie to myself. I wanted this just as much.

He only moved after I’d complied, striding towards the bed and using the restraints hidden at each corner of the bed to secure me swiftly. As he stared at my restrained body, some of the tension seemed to drain out of him, right before my eyes.

He loomed over me from the side of the bed for a long time before he finally spoke. “Now you can’t run away if you get upset. Ask me whatever you need to. I’ll answer all of your questions, and you know I’ll be honest, but you don’t get to run away if you don’t like the answers.”

I was looking directly at him, but I could see my chest rising and falling with rapid breaths out of the corner of my eye. If his tactic had been to distract me from the questions that troubled me, he’d succeeded beautifully. Now that I was naked and bound, nothing seemed as important as what he could do to me, not even those answers.

I mentally shook myself, making my mind move back to the discussion at hand with great effort.

“Was Jolene lying, James?” I finally asked, dreading the answer.

He ran a restless hand through his dark golden hair, mussing up it’s artful evening styling. He began to pace, shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket and tossing it onto a chair. I was ready to scream by the time he answered.

“She wasn’t lying. She was my contracted submissive for about that long. But we didn’t see each other ‘often’ after that. We met up maybe six times a year, if that, and generally when I was between subs. I know this doesn’t make me look any better, but it was only ever physical between Jolene and I. I know she thinks she’s in love with me, so it was badly done of me to keep in touch, but it was a strictly sexual relationship. It’s an awful thing to say, but I don’t even like her.”

I flinched every time he mentioned things like ‘physical’ and ‘sexual’, horribly vivid images of the two beautiful people entwined naked together flashing through my mind. I turned my head away and shut my eyes for a moment, trying to compose myself. I knew it was silly to be so jealous, but knowing and feeling were two very different things. “Was she the woman you were with the night before I met you?”

He cursed, a long and fluid rant, but I didn’t look at him.

“Yes,” he answered after a long pause. “I always used a condom with Jolene, though, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

I counted to ten in my head, the word ‘condom’ striking at some vulnerable part of me. It wasn’t the condom, but rather the act that went with it, and the horrible woman he had done those things with, painting a vivid and painful picture in my mind of the two of them together.

My next question embarrassed me for some ludicrous reason, and my cheeks blushed pink even as I began to speak. “Jolene said a few things about joining you and your other subs…”

I felt him sit down near my hip. His hot hand gripped my wrist. The hold was light, but I thought I could still feel his intensity through the contact. “She joined me and two of my subs in the playground, maybe a handful of times. None of this matters, Bianca. I know it troubles you, but it really is insignificant. How I feel about you is what’s important.”