The Bride (The Boss) (18 page)

Neil looked up almost guiltily when I came back. I’d only just sat down when he reached for my hand and covered it with his own against the sofa cushion. “I am so sorry.”

“Way to jump the gun, Neil,” Ashley said wryly.

“Wait, what are you apologizing for?” I looked uncertainly from Neil to Ashley. “Was I supposed to be thinking of something to apologize for?”

“No, it’s me. It is entirely me.” He squeezed my hand. “I have been letting my feelings about my previous marriage interfere with my feelings toward you. That isn’t fair.”

“Oh.” I frowned. This was one of the parts of couple’s therapy that I didn’t like. Hearing stuff you sort of expected, but had convinced yourself you were being paranoid over, confirmed in front of another person.

“Don’t act surprised. You’ve noticed. That’s what all the talk about setting a date was, wasn’t it?”

I wished he hadn’t noticed. “Look, I don’t want you to do the weird thing you do where you ignore your emotional needs in order to protect what you perceive to be my feelings. Remember when you did that and you had no idea what my feelings were, and we broke up?”

“Neil isn’t going to do that this time,” Ashley said with her characteristic no-bullshit tone. “The two of you are coming into this marriage with your own past baggage and some reasonable fears. You’ve just been through an incredibly turbulent year, and you’re both emotionally raw. But the very last thing you can do in this situation is assume that your feelings and your partner’s feelings are the same, or that you know what’s going on inside their head without asking.”

“It’s kind of good that you mentioned that, because I am dying to know what Neil thinks of something.” I’d been working up the nerve to broach the subject with him, and it was a relief to know how to start the conversation. “How do you feel about Emma living with us?”

Neil sat up straighter, adjusting his shoulders against the back of the couch. “I, um. Well, it feels normal to me, I suppose. Though Valerie and I tried to keep our custody arrangement as equal as possible, I always somehow ended up with Emma more than I was without her. And she doesn’t have anywhere else to live right now.”

“Where does her fiancé live?” Ashley asked, her fingers poised above her iPad to type a note.

“He has roommates, so it’s not an ideal situation for a couple starting out.” Neil said this as though it was an apology to me, but he couldn’t have worded it more perfectly.

“Yeah,” I said with an arched brow. “I know.”

He hung his head in good-natured shame. “Ah.”

I put a hand on his knee and gave it a little squeeze. “It isn’t that I don’t love Emma. I do. But it’s a little weird having to worry, in my own house, that I’m going to do or say something in front of her that makes her uncomfortable. Like the other morning, when we were in the kitchen.”

It had been a blissfully lazy Sunday, and I’d thought the coast was clear because Emma had stayed the night with Michael. Neil and I had just had fantastic morning sex, and we’d gone to the kitchen to put on some coffee. So, of course Emma would come home exactly when I was standing in the kitchen in one of her father’s t-shirts and nothing else, punching buttons on the needlessly complicated coffee maker. The fact that Neil had been standing behind me, his arms around my waist, clad in just his boxers and a smile was the icing on the uncomfortable cake. It wasn’t an abnormal interaction for a couple to have, but Emma had walked into the kitchen and right back out again, and disappeared for most of the day.

“I feel so guilty about touching you or kissing you in front of her, because I feel like it gives her the massive creep outs,” I finished, my frustration obvious in my tone. “I’m making her totally uncomfortable just by being your girlfriend, whether she admits that or not.”

Ashley nodded, her lips pursed. “Weren’t you two looking for a new place to live?”

“We were… I don’t know if we put that on hold…” Neil said, looking uncertainly to me.

“What happens if you do find a place to live?” Ashley went on. “Is the expectation that Emma will move in with you there? Or her and Michael both?”

“That’s not something I would be comfortable with,” I stated firmly, but I know my expression was totally apologetic as I shrugged. “That’s just how I feel, I’m sorry.”

“No, I would never have expected you to agree to that.” The fact that he even had to say that meant he’d thought about it. Yikes. “When we were looking for a new place, I’d assumed Emma would stay in the apartment after we moved. At least until she and Michael found a place of their own. That way, we would have some privacy, and so would they. But after our discussion at the lake…”

“What discussion was this?” Ashley prodded.

“We said no big life changes.” It sounded silly that we were sticking to that, considering he’d proposed to me just a few days later. “I guess that went out the window.”

“Marriage to each other will be a huge life change for both of you. Getting married is very high on the list of major life stressors. So is moving house. Unfortunately, if you want to do the former, and do it successfully, you might have to do the latter.” Ashley set her iPad aside, a signal that it was time to wrap up. “Before our next session, I’d like the two of you to brainstorm alternate living arrangements that everyone will be comfortable with. And Neil, talk to Emma about this privately. She may have concerns she feels she can’t share in front of Sophie.”

After our session, Neil dropped a check on the receptionist’s desk and we exited to the elevators. The doors had no sooner closed than he said, cautiously, “I haven’t been
looking
, I should make that clear. But when I called the agent to tell him we were
no longer
looking, he mentioned a listing in Sagaponack, and I said I would talk to you about it.”

“Wow. That far?” I knew we’d talked about not staying in the city permanently, but this came as a shock.

“I’d prefer something in Connecticut, but it does sound like an ideal home for us. We could fly out and look at it on Monday.” He straightened the cuffs of his jacket, eyes fixed on the numbers above the door. He hated elevators. “If we don’t care for it, nothing has to come of it. And you can pretend you’re on that wretched television program you so enjoy.”

Using
House Hunters
against me. The man knew my every weakness. “I do like looking at the insides of other people’s houses.” I paused. “Don’t you think flying is overkill?”

“We can charter a helicopter, it won’t be any trouble.”

You live in a world where chartering a helicopter isn’t any trouble. And you’re taking that helicopter out to the house you’re looking at. In the Hamptons.

“Okay.” The realization had numbed me enough to agree. “Let’s go look at a house, then.”

I don’t know if talking through our issues and confronting them in a productive way gets us turned way the fuck on, or if we’re just so relieved that therapy is over for another week, but we were as giddy as two teenagers as we left the building. Some nights, we’d head straight back to the apartment to go at it like animals—very quiet animals, if Emma was home—but this time, we decided to make it a date night.

We went out to dinner at our new favorite restaurant, an experimental vegan place that was partially our favorite due to its proximity to our apartment. The atmosphere was upscale casual. Booths, but no decimals on the menu prices.

“You know, I was thinking,” I said during a lull in the conversation as we waited for our meals to arrive. “I wouldn’t mind if you saw Emir while you were in London.”

Neil’s half-smile flirted with his mouth, and he raised his water glass to disguise it. “Wouldn’t mind if I saw him, or…”

“Or.” I laughed and had to break eye contact. “Oh, please. It’s not like it’s any different than what we did before. And you like him.”

“Not in the romantic sense.” He was suddenly very serious. “I worry that an arrangement like this might lead to some…jealousy.”

I shook my head. “First of all, if I thought something more was going to go on, I wouldn’t have suggested it. And I wouldn’t have gotten engaged to you if I thought you were going to cheat on me.”

That answer seemed to satisfy him. “I know all this, of course; I don’t know why I’m worried.”

Maybe the gurgling in my stomach was hunger, but at the moment it felt like dread. “You were comparing me to Elizabeth again, weren’t you?”

“It’s not an easy mechanism to turn off, I’m afraid.” He sat back in his chair. “That’s the problem, I think. I
am
afraid. But only because I want this to be a successful marriage, Sophie. I don’t ever want to lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I reminded him happily. “See Emir in London, if he’s up for it. Honestly, I think it’s pretty awesome that we have a friend with benefits together.”

Neil raised his glass. “To our unconventional relationship.”

I picked up my mine and added. “May it continue to surprise us.”

Under the table, I slipped my pump off and ran my bare foot up the inside of his ankle, hooking under his pant leg.

The darkly mischievous gleam in his eyes made my nipples harden, and my flimsy lace bra was not going to disguise anything. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he slowly half-smiled, half-smirked. “Darling, if you want to be surprised, I’ll shock the hell out of you tonight.”

After dinner, we headed back to the apartment. When we came in, we heard Emma and Michael laughing in the media room, so we snuck through the foyer and headed straight for the bedroom.

“It’s like bringing a boy home and trying not to get caught,” I whispered, sputtering my laughter.

“Let’s go into the bathroom. They won’t be able to hear us in there.” He pushed me along with a hand at the small of my back, which dropped to the zipper of my skirt. He deftly popped the hook-and-eye, pulled the zipper, and I stepped out as we crossed the bedroom.

I’d opened two buttons on my top before Neil could get a chance to accidentally rip them off. It was a teal silk, cap-sleeve, scoop-neck blouse that I adored, and I didn’t want to risk not being able to find a replacement. I whipped it over my head as we stepped into the dressing room, and Neil stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Wait, right here,” he said, his voice low and husky.

“Did you lock the door?” Not that I thought Emma would ever dare come into the bedroom while we were in it, even if the door were wide open.

“Of course I did.” Neil pulled the wing-backed armchair from near the shoe rack to sit in front of the mirror. He hadn’t taken anything off, not even his jacket, and I was standing there in my black lace thong and matching bra. So, it was no surprise when he went to the small jewelry safe and punched in the passcode to retrieve my collar.

The collar I wore when engaging in a D/s scene with Neil wasn’t the kind you could attach a leash to or use for anything rough. A perfect circle of platinum about as wide as my thumb, ringed all around by huge, flawless white diamonds, the collar had cost Neil an asthma-attack inducing seven-figure sum. He’d given it to me on our trip to Paris the year before, which made it all the more precious to me.

But the most important part of the collar was the mindset it put me in the moment the latch closed around my throat.

“On your knees.” The sight of me collared had a powerful effect on Neil, as well. The change in him was instant. One moment, he’d been horny and laughing with me, the next he was stern and commanding.

I dropped to my knees before him and caught myself subconsciously wetting my lips. He opened the clasp and fitted the cold metal band around my throat, then gently fastened it again. While I loved wearing the collar, I always had a moment of fear when it first went on. I didn’t care for anything around my neck—well, except for Neil’s hand, on occasion—and my psyche didn’t seem to notice if whatever was around my neck was a noose or a turtleneck or a BDSM collar. Neil knew this, and just as the latch clicked into place, he reached down and cupped my cheek. The reassuring touch of my Sir was all I needed to regain my equilibrium.

His hand went to his fly, and my mouth dropped open, my lips wet and obediently waiting.

He laughed and walked to the armchair. He unbuttoned his jacket and tossed it aside, then sat down, rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down. “Come here. Sit on my lap.”

I started to climb to my feet, and he made an admonishing noise. “I didn’t tell you to get up.”

Prowling toward him in a crawl, I pressed my thighs together on every pass. My vulva ached, begging for pressure, and I took it where I could.

“Slowly,” he ordered. “Let me enjoy the view.”

I bowed my head and fixed my gaze on the carpet as I approached. I didn’t look Sir in the eye without permission.

“On my lap, Sophie.”

I got to my feet, still not daring to lift my eyes. He pulled me down, so that my bottom was snuggled tight to his groin, and my legs splayed outside of his. He spread his big hand on my stomach and stroked up and down, between my breasts, over my belly button, the top of my panties and back again. Not with a gentle, feather-light touch, but a firm, kneading urgency. On one of his passes, he gripped the front of my bra and tugged at it.

“Enough of this silly thing,” he growled, jerking it upward. The lace-covered underwire rasped over my nipples, and I gasped. Even an unpleasant sensation could set my nerve endings on fire when we were together like this. He pulled the bra up, over my head like a shirt, rather than unfastening it. When I tried to slip my hands free, he stopped me with a firm grip on both my wrists. Lowering my arms and tucking them behind my back, he wrapped the bra around and around my forearms, binding them together. It wouldn’t be difficult to get out of on my own, but that wasn’t the point. It was meant to remind me to keep my hands still, not to forcibly restrict movement.

He’d parked the chair we sat in across from the full-length trifold mirror set into the opposite wall. I took in my reflection: my long legs draped over his longer ones, spread wide, the crotch of my black lace thong pulled up between my labia. His big hands cupped my breasts, kneading them as his mouth lowered to my neck. He nibbled and sucked, and squeezed with his hands until I was writhing in his lap as much as I dared without scooting right off.