Of Being Yours[another way 2] (30 page)

BOOK: Of Being Yours[another way 2]

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He uncurled his fingers, holding the palm of his hand out to me so I could see for myself the twisted cord, rust, orange, and gold. My collar. If I wanted it.

Since he wasn’t speaking, I didn’t either, and didn’t they always say that actions spoke louder than words? I held my wrist out to him, waiting for the feeling of security that had plagued me in the time it had been gone. Irreplaceable symbolism that just couldn’t come from any other source.

When the knots were tied, I threw back the comforter for him to get back into bed. It was still early. There was plenty of time to sleep.

Chapter 20

O
N
A
Sunday afternoon, we decided to drive out to the coast. It was a couple of hours’ journey but worth it to escape the city, especially with the views on the trip out and back. It was maybe the second or third little town we passed that we finally stopped in and found a little restaurant to eat fresh fish for dinner with deliciously crisp, cool white wine and bread still warm from the oven.

Will looked at me more now.

I was aware that his gaze had changed in the years we had been together. At first he had studied me, learned my body and my reactions, my limits, my pain threshold. Over time it changed, and I learned the warmth that his eyes and his smile could hold when we were together.

For too many months, he’d seen me as a permanent reminder of the damage, both physical and mental, that he had inflicted on us both, however unintentionally.

It was changing again in tiny increments. When he reached for my hand over the table, he looked at me, looked in my eyes rather than watching his advancing hand, as if scared that I would pull away from his touch. He brushed his foot against my ankle, testing whether I’d let him do something as sweet and silly as play footsie with me under the table. I did, of course.

His brown eyes held a challenge as he reached for his wallet to pay for the meal. I raced him to it, threw down a twenty to cover my half. We silently agreed to leave a healthy tip and left before the waitress had even cleared our plates.

Back on the street, I took a deep breath to inhale the salty sea air.

“The beach is down that way, if you want to take a walk,” Will said.

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

With the sun creeping toward the horizon, the sky was starting to melt into a glowing mess of pinks and oranges.

Tentatively, he slipped his hand into mine.

“We should come out here more often,” I said as we started to pick our way over the pebble and shingle beach. “It’s so peaceful.”

“Would you ever want to move out of the city?”

I shrugged. “Maybe one day. I love this corner of the world, though. It’s home to me now, much more than Georgia ever was. I suppose you have a lot to do with that.”

When his hand squeezed around mine, I felt his silent agreement.

“I don’t want to live in Seattle for the rest of my life,” he said after we’d been walking for a few minutes. The loose stones forced our concentration onto putting each foot down securely.

“No?”

“No. I love the city, but I think I’ll outgrow it eventually.”

“I get that. A lot of people move to the suburbs for the same reason.”

He shook his head. “That’s not it. I want to get out, you know? All the way out.”

“Like moving up a mountain?”

From here, the mountains across the border dominated the skyline to the north of us, a constant presence. We had discussed with Dr. Smith about going up to Vancouver again, but it was a trip that hadn’t happened yet. I knew Will needed time.

I could give him that.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or just out here. Find a small town, buy a shack of a house, and fix it up. Lead a calmer sort of life.”

Stopping, I pulled him around to face me and wrapped my arms around his neck. He completed the circle, loosely holding onto my waist.

“You’re still mad at me that we didn’t adopt Maddie’s baby,” I said, trying desperately to keep the accusation out of my voice.

“No… a little bit,” he said with a laugh. “The timing couldn’t have been worse. But I don’t know when that sort of opportunity is going to come around again. It might never come around again. I just wish we’d been able to do it.”

I did too, just a little bit.

Two weekends previously we had moved Maddie and Evan into a little apartment that was on the same street as Carrigan and Sawyer’s school. She hadn’t taken up Cara’s offer of a place out of town, and I sort of understood her desire to stay close to Laura’s family.

There was definitely a part of me that was sad that Laura, Maddie, and Steven couldn’t come to any arrangement on how a three-way relationship could work. In an ideal situation, Maddie would have stayed at their house, raised her baby as a brother to their existing children. Nothing about her pregnancy had been ideal, though. And when all the dust had settled, I found myself silently agreeing with Maddie that some space and time to herself were what she needed most.

Since we’d grown closer over the course of her pregnancy, I dared to ask Maddie if she had listed Steven on Evan’s birth certificate. This too had been discussed with the family. In light of her desire to raise her son on her own, they had agreed not to name Steven on the documents. I got the impression that they wanted to keep things as light and unofficial as possible until they had all decided what was best.

Something that should have brought the McAlder family unit together had actually ended up wrenching it apart. I could see how maybe, in the future, the six of them might be able to reconcile and build something new. But their lives were in the balance of so many variables, who knew what the next year might bring?

I supposed it was the same for us. The car accident shouldn’t have been more than a passing inconvenience for us, but the tremors had exposed the fault lines in our relationship. Out of all the things Dr. Smith had impressed on us over the course of our therapy, the idea that we were on shaky ground before the accident had caused me the most amount of introspection and reflection.

If I had been asked, I would have insisted that Will and I were stronger than we had ever been. But she was right—we had been coasting through our relationship and ignoring the underlying issues. Making it work took effort from both of us, as much in our romantic relationship as in our D/s.

Working it all out would take us years more, endless discussions and fun and trips away and bonding over things that weren’t bondage. But we would get there. The braided thread around my wrist told me that we would get there.

I waited until Will leaned down and brushed his lips over mine. A part of me wished we could take it further, kiss deeply, right here, but it wasn’t a good idea. Still, he was smiling as we broke away.

“We’re gonna be all right, aren’t we?” I whispered.

Will ran his nose up the side of my neck and kissed the spot behind my ear. “Yes,” he said simply as his arms tightened around me. “After all, this is where you belong.”

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