Playing the Game (23 page)

Her phone vibrated. Henry. Of course. Shit.

She’d feel like the worst sort of friend if she let his call go to voicemail.

“Hi, Henry.”

“Hello, Alice. You’ve had an emergency come up?”

“No emergency.” Hell if she’d lie, not to him. “I’m fine. I just can’t play tonight.”

That was safe enough. Any nosy coworkers would think she played on a rec league sports team or had some other nonsalacious, pedestrian pastime.

“You’ve made other plans?” He sounded no more curious than a coffee-shop barista taking her order.

“No, of course not.” She lowered her voice. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Not on a contract night. She valued their arrangement too much for that. It wasn’t like she wanted to miss tonight.

“No, I didn’t expect you would.” His tone seemed mild yet. “Must I drag the truth from you, Alice?”

She lowered her voice even further. Working in a profession surrounded by men had its downsides. She wasn’t embarrassed about being a woman, but she didn’t want to advertise her cycle at work.

“Nothing a hot bath, some painkillers and a few days won’t cure.”

“Is that your usual ritual when you’re menstruating?”

Jesus. He hadn’t even paused. His unapologetic interest shouldn’t have surprised her. The contract questions had included intrusive inquiries about her cycle and the severity of her cramps, if she had them, and whether she’d engaged in intercourse while menstruating. That answer was no, and it was going to stay no.

Her two long-term relationships had been with guys who cared nothing about what was between her legs except whether it was open for business. She hadn’t lived with them, so avoiding the subject had been easy.

“I’m at work. I can’t talk about this here.”

“Do you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

“Then arrive at your usual time and leave everything in my hands.”

* * * *

She knocked on Henry’s door promptly at seven, her mind a jumble of nervous thoughts layered atop the throbbing bonfire of pain centered below her waist and between her hips. The stress of not knowing what he had planned and never having been in this position with a bedmate weighed on her. Tension gave her a sharp backache, a line of fire to complement the blazing knot twisting up her womb.
Hi, Henry, I’m on fire for you tonight. Please tell me you have a big enough hose to put it out.

She stifled a laugh. He did. He just hadn’t wanted her since that first night.

The door started to open, and she pasted a smile on her face for Jay. No reason to take her crazy, neurotic, bitchy, pain-filled mood out on him. She discovered confident green eyes filled with compassion instead of the dark pools of eagerness she expected.

“Come in, Alice, please.” Henry gestured her inside.

She set her purse on the side table and slipped off her shoes while he closed the door. Henry at the door? Where was Jay? She’d gotten accustomed to Jay opening the door after the last four times. To having Jay fuck her. He had it practically perfected. But she couldn’t deny that on the nights between their encounters, the long two weeks alone, it was Henry’s name she called most often in her head. The memory of his voice and his cock brought her to climax. Subtle glances revealed no clues.

“Jay won’t be joining us this evening. Your current circumstances deserve some exclusive attention, hmm? Particularly as it’s not an experience you’ve shared before.”

Before. As in, before tonight. So she would be getting…well, no, maybe not. Maybe she’d just be getting pampered. Or his fingers. Or toys.
Christ, Henry, why won’t you fuck me again?

Was there something wrong with her? Was he reconsidering the arrangement? It wasn’t as if he needed a reason to do so. The option was right there in item one. At will. Any time.

Her body throbbed, and she grit her teeth. She could say her safeword and go home to her standard routine of heat and pressure and exercise and painkillers and chocolate. Or she could stay here and trust him.

Henry touched her face, turning it toward him. She had no doubt he felt the tension in her.

“Pain or nerves, my dear?”

“A bit of both.” She wouldn’t lie to him. She might leave, but she wouldn’t lie.

“Hmm. We’ll have to see what we can do about both, then.” He curved his hand and slid his knuckles across her cheek. “You’re warm. But you’d like to be warmer, wouldn’t you?”

He was taking her temperature? He laid his other hand over the ball of heat below her navel and pressed. She swayed into his touch. He wasn’t wrong. The best way to fight this fire was with a hotter one. But how had he known to do that? It wasn’t as if he went through this with Jay every month.

“Tell me what makes you most nervous about tonight, Alice.”

Most nervous. Well, that was a loaded question.

He stepped up behind her as she considered her answer. Trapped her between his body against her back and his left hand on her stomach, palm firm and steady, thumb rubbing across her navel. He laid his head against hers.

“You…I mean…I know you have a wider range of sexual experiences to draw upon than I do. So it’s natural, I guess, to let you lead there. But being a woman is…you’re not…” She shrugged. She couldn’t articulate what she wanted to say. It felt rude. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“You feel this is your area of expertise.” His intimate tone caressed her ear. “That, as a man, particularly one with a longtime male companion, I might be ill-equipped to care for your needs.”

Unruffled. She’d called his skills into question, challenged his leadership, and he took it in stride. Maybe he’d bow to her knowledge here. She’d dealt with this every month for fifteen years, and he’d been with Jay practically since she’d graduated from college.

“I…yes. I’m sorry, Henry, but I haven’t been with anyone who was even remotely interested before, aside from knowing which week I’d be hanging a do-not-disturb sign on my vagina.” Crude, but true.

“By your choice or theirs?”

“What?”

“Is your distaste for intimacy at this time a function of your own discomfort with the idea or something imposed upon you by your former partners?”

Of course the idea was hers. It was disgusting and gross and…was it? Or had the guys she’d dated just told her it was? Henry was the only one to have asked the question. She squirmed, and he slid his right hand down her right arm. Soothing. Calming.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“All right, Alice. We’ve established you perhaps aren’t the expert you believe yourself to be, hmm?” His voice remained soft and coaxing. “Which makes you uncertain of your own mind but does little to increase your confidence in mine, isn’t that so?”

She nodded, reluctantly. She didn’t want to alienate him, to give him another reason to end their arrangement, one beyond whatever made him uninterested in fucking her.

“Do you recall our contract talk, dearest?”

Her heart hammered. Was he going to reopen negotiations now? She nodded again, even more slowly, her hair sliding against his.

“I told you it was my responsibility to help you through new experiences, didn’t I? And that I would, if necessary, enlist the assistance of an expert in matters beyond my knowledge?”

She went rigid in his grasp. He’d said Jay wouldn’t be here tonight, but that didn’t mean someone
else
–

“Alice, Alice, relax your muscles, dearest. You’re causing yourself more pain. I
spoke
to a colleague of sorts this evening. An expert.”

“A woman, you mean.” Okay, that was a twinge of jealousy. But he’d consulted with the colleague for her benefit. One chat didn’t mean he wanted to fuck that woman any more than he wanted to fuck Alice herself.

“Yes.” He nuzzled his cheek against her hair. “Will you trust that I have some knowledge and experience outside your awareness? That I will be as prepared and mindful in my care of you tonight as I am on any other night we spend together?”

She leaned her weight into him, and he supported her easily. Submission meant trusting him to be in control, but giving up control in this was difficult. Sharing something she’d never even spoken with a man about. But Henry wasn’t like any man she’d met before, was he? So maybe this, too, would be different, and that was okay. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Yes, Henry.”

“Good girl,” he murmured. “Thank you for trusting me, dearest. There are two things I want you to do for me tonight. The first is to obey me, and the second is to enjoy yourself. Those are your only responsibilities. Can you accept them?”

His hand moved in firm circles on her lower abdomen. He still supported her weight. In the darkness behind her eyelids, relaxation grew.

“Yes, Henry.” Words tasted lazy and thick.

“My sweet girl.” He pressed a kiss to her right temple, and she sighed happily. “Let’s get you comfortable before your bathwater cools.”

* * * *

She sank into the water and closed her eyes. He’d led her through their safeword ritual as he undressed her with neither haste nor overt sexuality but a kind of dedicated focus. Given her privacy while he stepped out with her clothes.

The air, heavy and wet, coated her throat as she inhaled. It carried the scent of roses. Her foot brushed something cloth-like on the bottom of the bathtub when she stretched. She opened her eyes to look, leaned forward and lifted the beribboned sachet to her nose. A soft knock came at the door.

“I’m decent,” she called. She sniffed the sachet. Strong. Fragrant.

“What a shame. I’d hoped to find you quite
in
decent, my dear.”

Her glance stopped at Henry’s groin. He’d undressed as well.

“Brother Cadfael,” he said.

“Huh?” She tore her attention from his hardening cock as he sat on the edge of the tub. He folded a towel and held it against the tile.

“Lie back, Alice.” He adjusted the towel behind her head and plucked the sachet from her hands. “The rose petals. Brother Cadfael. The warmth of the water enhances the scent.”

Lowering the bag to the water, he let it sink.

His fingers trailed through the water, skimming the top, coming to rest against her upraised right knee. He stroked her calf with firm, certain pressure.

Why had she thought a bath by herself would be better than this? He sat mostly facing her, and her eyes drifted back to his groin. His cock had grown taller, easily visible over his thigh. Was he going to use it tonight or just tease her with it?

She couldn’t ask. He satisfied her at his discretion, not hers. Her job was to obey, not to question. If she didn’t like it, she knew where the door was.

But she did like it. He’d never sent her home unsatisfied. His lack of interest in penetration was just confusing.

“You’re tensing again.” He squeezed her knee. “Close your eyes, dearest. Stop worrying about what will or won’t happen and simply allow yourself to enjoy this moment, relaxing in the bath.”

She closed her eyes. How did he always know?

“That’s better.”

A rustle from the shower curtain. Henry’s hand left her knee. Water sloshed near her feet, sending gentle waves to lap at her nipples. A quiet crinkling. Paper? Ribbon, maybe? A second slosh between her feet, there and then gone. Water drops falling to the surface. A tickle of scent. Vanilla? Wet shirring. The vanilla scent grew heavier, a heady mix with the rose-scented water.

Her shoulders dropped as she exhaled, muscles loosening. Yeah, relaxing wouldn’t be a problem, though falling asleep might be.

“There’s an intimacy to bathing, Alice.” Henry’s voice bounced quietly off the tile, a low and deep rumble. The knots in her abdomen unraveled, leaving behind a growing calm and the faint stirring of desire. An ache, but a welcome one.

Her right hand was lifted, her arm hanging in the air, and she twitched at a light touch. The touch grew firmer, heavier. Moved in small circles on her forearm. Henry’s fingertips, encased in the soft, wet warmth of a washcloth. She filled her lungs with vanilla when she inhaled and hummed as she exhaled. Henry had thick, gentle washcloths, not at all like the thin and worn-out pair she’d had for years.

“It’s an activity we’re accustomed to in early childhood, subconsciously entrusting our bodies to the ones who love us. The ones who care for our needs. But it’s a delight we rarely indulge in as adults.”