Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Something else I picked on him for, since he’d been excited to finally get the “real bedroom” in our former home across town.
* * *
“It just hit you that you’ll be living by yourself, eighteen miles away from your favorite cook and bromantic life partner, huh?” I asked the moment his face fell as we unloaded our last box from his pickup. We didn’t even need to rent a moving van, because we had so few material possessions. All of our belongings fit in a pile of brown boxes in the center of the living room that was so cavernous it echoed.
His bright eyes met mine and narrowed for a moment, and without looking away, he pulled out his cell, told Siri to redial the last number called, and put it on speaker.
“Yes, sir?” came a chipper male voice.
“Go ahead and start the paperwork. Final decision,” Bram spoke, and my eyebrows furrowed in question.
He gave me a little smirk as the man on the other end of the line told him, “Right away,” and then he ended the call.
“What was that about?” I asked when he slid the phone back in his jeans pocket.
“Y’all aren’t getting rid of me that easily.” He held out his hand toward me. “Howdy, neighbor,” he said, and my jaw dropped.
I shook his hand like an idiot, my brain trying to compute what he could possibly mean. “Did you…?”
He chuckled. “I did. Between trips two and three back to the apartment to grab the last boxes, I called my assistant, gave him the number on the sign at the head of the neighborhood and your new address, and told him to get me some numbers. He emailed me the info about an hour ago, when we stopped for dinner, and I told him I wanted to see the exterior one more time before I made the decision.” He lifted his hand and gestured toward the beautiful two-story house next door. “I see it. Definitely want it.” He shrugged “So I got it.”
* * *
Excited wasn’t the only thing Roman and I felt at the news, at least for me. I had an almost shameful sense of relief. Not because of some secret crush I had on our best friend—no way. Yes, Bram is ridiculously good-looking, but I’ve never been attracted to him in a sexual way. Once I met Roman and felt the overwhelmingly powerful connection between us, it’s like that sexual switch inside me only flips on for him and no one else. No, my shameful sense of relief came from something else entirely.
Anxiety had been building inside me since we decided to move into a house and I realized I’d be alone with my husband, really alone, for the first time ever. And more than that, we’d be alone, without a buffer, for the first time since the New Year’s incident. It was easier to avoid talking about it with Bram around, since I made it clear from the second Roman sobered up the next morning that I didn’t want a single soul to know what happened. It was between us and us alone, and it would still be that way had Doc not called me in for an appointment today.
Those damn cameras in the playroom.
That damn too-observant man and his body-language-reading voodoo.
I was good enough at faking that I was at least on a road to recovery in front of my husband—he’s known this whole time I’m not fully healed from the broken trust but thought I was well on my way. So any time I’ve been jumpy at his touch, or standoffish, he’s gentler with me but doesn’t give me too much space, knowing me well enough that too much space would give room for doubts and intrusive thoughts to set me back again. To slide my healing progress downhill when we both want to move forward.
But Doc didn’t know about Roman’s infidelity. So he wasn’t privy to why I might be less open to the happenings in the playrooms. Why I was saying “yellow”—a code word for a sub’s Dom to be aware they’re doing something the sub isn’t quite sure about, so slow down or back off a little, but don’t stop—and close to using my safe word—a single word used to bring all activity to a full stop, no questions asked—when I never had before. With Doc being the observer, making sure all his patients/members were following the mantra of the BDSM lifestyle—Safe, Sane, and Consensual—I was not good enough at faking everything was fine and dandy.
I received a phone call from him yesterday, two days after visiting the club this past time, informing me I had a mandatory check-up appointment with him to be scheduled within this week, if we planned to return to Club Alias this weekend. And since Roman has been persistent about using our membership weekly ever since I was able to let him touch me again six months ago, when we moved into this house, I bit the bullet and booked it for Doc’s soonest opening.