“It’s not sad, believe me.”
We both looked up as Liam appeared at the dining room door, wearing jeans and an obnoxious reindeer-emblazoned sweater.
“Monopoly?” he asked, staring at Mem. His voice sounded mild but his expression wasn’t.
Mem inclined his head in that formal way he had. “Ashleigh has come to ask for your help. In the meantime, we were enjoying a board game.”
I glanced at my aged opponent. “I’m not enjoying it as much as you, since you’re beating me to death.”
Liam almost smiled. Almost. “Mem’s a board game shark. Never play him for money, trust me. Well…” He spread his arms. “It’s Christmas Eve, Ashleigh. What are you doing here?”
Mem pushed back his chair. “I’ll make some more tea.”
“No,” we both said at the same time, but he’d already scooted through the door.
Liam sat across from me and started cleaning up the Monopoly game. I helped until our fingers got tangled together, then I stopped and let him do it, my hands clasped in my lap.
“I told Mem not to call you. The thing is— I just— I had a bad day and—”
“Okay,” he said, cutting me off. “You’re here.”
“But you want me to go.”
“I do and I don’t.” He tapped his fingers hard on the tabletop. “Rubio did both of us a favor the other night. Especially you.”
“I know what you must think, after—”
“You don’t know what I think, I promise you.” He stacked the money and tucked it in the box with the other pieces of the board game. I handed him the lid and watched him put it on. That done, he pushed it aside and propped his arms on the table.
I took a deep breath. “Listen, I’m sorry I flipped out the other night at the theater. I’m sorry.”
“Please stop apologizing. Why are you here? Spit it out.”
I picked at the corner of the box, choosing my words carefully. “So…that night…Rubio and I had a talk while he walked me home. We talked about you.”
“Okay,” he said. “And?”
“It gave me an idea that I can’t stop thinking about. He said…”
I fell silent as Mem returned with fresh tea and a tray of sugar, cream, and milk.
“Thank you, Jeeves,” Liam muttered. “Leave it and get out.”
The old man did as he was told, setting the tray down next to the Monopoly box and disappearing out the door. Neither of us made a move to touch the fragrant, steaming cups.
“He’s really nice,” I commented in the silence.
“He’s the most irritating human on the planet.” Liam ground his palms into his eye sockets and then leaned forward and fixed me with his gaze. “Why are you here?” he asked, emphasizing each word.
“So…in the course of our conversation, Rubio told me you’re really good at having sex. Like really, really good.”
His lips tightened in annoyance. “He said that, did he?”
“He said that you knew how to sex women into oblivion.”
“If there’s an actual point to this, I’d love to hear it.”
“I just started thinking… With my issues…and your skills…” His gaze sharpened but he didn’t speak. “I was thinking maybe…” I gave a choked little laugh. “So, this will sound really weird, but I thought maybe since you were so good at sex and I’m so bad at it, you might be able to fix my problems. You know. Fix…me.”
He stared into my eyes a long moment, then made a soft sound. “Oh, Ashleigh.”
I didn’t know what to make of that quietly spoken Oh, Ashleigh. It wasn’t angry but it wasn’t kind either. I pressed my hands together and brought them to my mouth like I was praying. I wasn’t praying, just trying to think of what to say.
“You were right about me,” I admitted. “You guessed right. My father made my childhood a living hell. I won’t go into the hows and whys but it started when I was nine. He abused me for five years, until I could get away from him. Until I got good enough at ballet to make it into a school in New York.”
He opened his mouth as if to ask a question. I held up a hand. “Please don’t. Please don’t ask me to tell you any more about it. I’ve had therapy, I’ve had counseling. It’s taken care of the worst of it. The only thing I still can’t handle is sex. Even there it’s…it’s weird. I can think about sex, and I can get turned on, but there’s a certain point where…” I rubbed my forehead and then looked up at him. “There’s this point where these memories crash down on me, and I try to ignore them but I can’t. I react and I freak out. It’s gotten to where I don’t even want to try. I’m so tired of going through the trauma of it all, and driving away people I’ve come to care for. It’s painful, falling in love over and over, then having intimacy issues blow everything up. But you said…you talked about no strings attached. Rubio said you have a lot of partners.”
“Yes, but—”
“And that you’re really good in bed.”
“Yes, but—”
“And I started thinking about your lifestyle stuff and the way dominants control submissives and tell them what to do.” I said the rest in a rush, because he looked like he wanted to interrupt me again. “So I was thinking you could help me with my sex issues using all those skills of yours, and your dominant thing. You could…maybe…force me do the things I’m uncomfortable with, until I got more comfortable.”
He made a face like I was insane. “I couldn’t force you to do anything. It doesn’t work that way. That’s just…so appallingly wrong.”
“I don’t mean force me. Just control me a little, in a dominant way. Give me some parameters to operate inside.” I made a boxy little motion with my hands. “Since you like that stuff anyway, you know? And I liked it too, the things you showed me. I liked when you held me down and… Well.” I gave him a pleading look. “I thought maybe you could help ease me past my…my sexual hang-ups.”
“Sexual hang-ups?” He stared at me, his head tilted to the side. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I think you’re being very brave right now to ask me to do this, but Ashleigh, sexual hang-ups isn’t the word for what you have. You’re struggling with deep trust issues and emotional scars.”
“No, it’s not that bad—”
“Ashleigh.”
“I worked through all that in counseling. Honestly, it’s just a physical thing with me now.” I waved my hands around, trying to explain. “A physical trigger or something.”
He gave me a skeptical look and I felt the beginnings of panic. He thought I was crazy, and he wasn’t going to help me. “Just because I melted down that one time—”
“Two times. You might call this a third time, showing up on my doorstep Christmas Eve.”
I stared at his awful red sweater. The prancing reindeer seemed to taunt me. He wasn’t going for my scheme at all, not even to sleep with me. I had to get out of here with some shred of my self-esteem intact. I stood to go but he clamped his fingers around my wrist.
“If you storm out of here, that makes four meltdowns. Sit.” He didn’t put me back in the chair. He sat me on his lap and pressed my head against the curve of his shoulder. His arms came around me loosely, cradling me. All the emotion inside me welled up like a geyser and spouted through my eyes.
“Your sweater is ugly,” I said through tears. “I hate it.”
He glanced down at the kitschy design. “My stepmom bought it for me years ago.”
“I don’t hate it,” I bawled, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t know why I said that.”
His fingers eased into my nape, kneading through knots of tension. “I know why. You’re melting down again.”
Yes, that seemed pretty obvious to us both. I turned my face against his neck and cried for at least five minutes, babbling on about my wrecked life and how badly I needed his help.
“I just want to be normal,” I cried. “I need someone to help me. Someone with skills. Someone I can trust. I want to have a guy on top of me without panicking and los