Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
It was—
Tom’s hand enclosed mine at his chest.
I focused on him.
“Glad to have you back,” he whispered.
I smiled, bent, touched my nose to his and pulled away again.
When I did, he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it before tucking it back to his chest.
“Feel like sharing?” he invited.
“I like how you fuck me.”
For a second, he lay still.
Then he busted out laughing, surged up, and then he was holding up the sheet with his entire body, because that body was stretched out on top of mine.
We were grinning at each other, and he said through his, “Nice to have the confirmation, but you weren’t keeping it a secret.”
I ran my fingers across his stubbled jaw, up his smiling cheek, and said, “I meant it like that, but it’s deeper.”
“Yeah?” he prompted quietly, following my mood.
And it was nice, how he did that.
I was noticing he did it a lot.
“Being a single parent kind of sucks,” I admitted.
His brows knit.
I gave him a gentle smile. “I’ll rephrase. Being a parent rocks. Cadence rocks. Life with her rocks. What I’m saying is, it’s a lot of responsibility. There are a ton of decisions to make on your own. And a fuckup with a kid is a huge fuckup.”
“Mm,” he hummed his agreement.
“And it’s just…folks think that creative people are free and breezy. It’s all about smoking pot or following our muse or tinkering in a studio or tapping lazily on a keyboard between facials. It isn’t. It’s demanding. When an idea has you in its grip, it doesn’t let go until it wrings every last drop of emotion from you. You release it like it’s a child. After you’ve nurtured it with your body. After you’ve worried over it with your mind. After you’ve labored with it and birthed it. And then people pick it apart like you shat it out, rather than painstakingly sculpted it. My work and my reputation and my life is a huge part of who I am. But it became not entirely about me when Cadence came into the world. It became my legacy for her. She already had Rollo’s, and it felt like his was a yoke around her neck, one I was helping her carry. And it’s just…it’s…”
Tom was quiet, his eyes to mine, active and processing, and unequivocally with me.
Unequivocally.
So I finished.
“It’s just nice to have someone take over in something so personal. So important. In a connection like that which is so meaningful. To be able to just let everything go for once and…”—my voice dropped to a whisper under the blanket of his body, his gaze—“fade into you.”
I was worried that was too much.
I didn’t worry long.
Tom framed my face with his hands, the pads of both his thumbs pressing on my lips like he didn’t want me to say further words.
I lay underneath him.
And I got it.
His art.
This tennis guy.
This sports commentator.
This doctor.
This father.
This ex.
This lover.
This betrayer.
This man.
Being in his bed was being in his cage.
But it wasn’t captivity.
Here, with him, I was no longer in the wild.
Here, with him, I didn’t have to fight to survive.
Here, with him, I didn’t have to find a way to feed myself, my daughter, provide a roof, warmth, care.
Here, with him, I didn’t have to create. I didn’t have to produce. I didn’t have to earn. I didn’t have to nurture or decide.
I didn’t even have to speak.
I started trembling with the depth of what he was giving me.
I started weeping.
Tom watched a tear fall and groaned.
And then he kissed me.
And then he dominated me.
He made me suck him.
He made me open to him.
He made me expose myself.
He made me take his fucking.
He owned my orgasm.
He allowed me to have his.
And then he cocooned me in his warmth and strength.
Until it was time for him to take more.
* * *
In his bed, I was confined.
In his bed, I was owned.
In his bed, I never felt more free.
I sat back from my desk, took in a breath, reread what I’d just written, then looked out the windows at the purple sky.
It was Monday evening.
I’d finally left Tom and arrived home three hours ago.
I felt loose.
Light.
Alive.
Vibrant.
I drew in another breath and got up from my desk. I went to the workbench. I pulled out the expanding folder I kept my latest project in.
Making stacks on the bench, without hesitation, without indecision, I laid them out, page by what would eventually be page.
Once I went through it all, meticulously, I put it back, pouch by pouch. Sometimes a pouch would have only a photo. Sometimes, it’d be stuffed with ten pieces.
I had to go to my cupboard and get more folders.
And when I was done, there were plenty of pouches left after I tucked in the poem I just wrote.
I carefully stowed the project, went back to my desk and saw my teacup was empty.