To forget.
I’m there because I can’t stand thinking about my brother or my guilt.
I can’t get over the fact that I feel like I should have been the one in the car.
“Do you often sleep with your partners at the club?” He asks.
“No.”
Never, but I don’t say that part.
I’m not ready to reveal that little secret to Aaron. Not just yet.
“You looked beautiful on stage the other night,” he continues.
“When I was with Taylor?”
“Yes. He did a great job with you. You looked like you were really enjoying yourself.”
“I was,” I say finally. “We have a sort of arrangement.”
“What kind of arrangement?”
Aaron’s words hold curiosity, but no judgment. Good. I don’t know what I’d do if he judged me right now. I don’t know that I could handle it.
“Well, Hank got hurt. They’re...limited in what they can do together. Hank is Taylor’s partner,” I add, in case that wasn’t clear.
“So you’re a fill-in.”
“Pretty much. I like to be hit, and Taylor likes doing it. He dominates me at the club and then I go home alone. He takes Hank home and...well, they do their things and I do my thing.”
“And what’s your thing?” He asks, leaning in closer to me.
“I don’t have a boyfriend, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend, either.”
“Still not what I asked.”
“What is it you want to know, Aaron?”
/> Oh, he’s so close I could kiss him, but that’s a road I’m definitely not ready to go down. Am I? Do I want to try that again with Aaron? But I’ve spent so long avoiding him. I’ve spent so much time trying to escape from him. I’ve been running for years just trying to get over him and everything that happened and here I am, right back where I started.
“Do you touch yourself, Mallory?”
There it is.
I gasp, just a little, and he reaches for my leg. He places his hand on my thigh, just above my knee. It’s the perfect spot because it’s not so high that I feel uncomfortable, but it’s not so low that I misread his intentions.
Aaron is not a good boy here. He’s not being sweet or gentle. He couldn’t be. He’s a Dom, after all, and he knows what he likes. He wants a girl he can take care of.
I don’t know if I’m that girl, and I don’t know if we can handle anything like that after everything we’ve been through together.
“Yes,” I tell him.
Honesty, right?