The Exhibitionist (The Submissive 7)

Of course a DM would stop by. Someone had safe-worded and then we’d been arguing.

“Everything’s fine.” I stood up. “We’re actually headed to our room.”

I started walking toward the exit, not checking to see if Nathaniel followed. I heard him say something to the DM and then follow behind me. He didn’t say anything, though. In fact, there wasn’t a word said until we made it into our room. Then I finally turned to face him.

“What the hell was that?” I asked once he had closed and locked the door.

He turned around and I was momentarily stunned. He was so pale.

“I’m so sorry, Abby.”

He was sorry and I was fucking furious. “You should be. You had no idea who that man was. How dare you let him tell me to thank him properly!”

“There’s no excuse for what I did. None.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what got into me. It was watching you dance with those men and they kept coming up to join in. And I knew you liked being watched and I thought since you were dancing maybe you wanted to try a threesome and the thought of it killed me.”

“Because I enjoyed dancing, I obviously want to have sex with a str

anger? That doesn’t even make sense. I have no clue how you thought that because I was dancing with a man I also wanted his dick in my mouth.”

“I know. You’re right.”

“Damn straight, I’m right.” He walked to the couch and sat down. I kept standing. “And tell me one more time how you found out Charlene was a submissive.”

He exhaled deeply. “The weekend we moved, I was meeting with her about the nonprofit. She asked if we could have dinner and I told her no. She kept asking. I finally let her know, in no uncertain terms, that I would be eating alone and to stop asking about it. She replied back with a ‘Yes, Sir’ that left me with no doubt she was submissive. Just as I’m sure she had no doubt I was a Dominant.”

“If that’s the whole story, I still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me.”

“It seriously didn’t cross my mind. It was that unimportant to me.”

“Then why were you staring at her scene like you were last night? That’s hardly the behavior of someone who finds the entire subject unimportant.”

“I wanted to make sure it was her.”

“And you didn’t want to wait until she wasn’t in the middle of a Dom sandwich?”

“Like I said just now, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

It would be so easy to forgive him. To say the words and go on with our weekend. Sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen. But I couldn’t do that. We’d worked too hard at our communication for me to let him go that easy. “You not thinking clearly could have put me in a dangerous position. What if I’d done it and he had a disease?”

I didn’t think it was possible, but he went even paler. “I called a stop to it.”

“I was seconds away from doing it myself. That’s beside the point.” I held a finger to his chest. “You’re the Dominant. It’s up to you to make sure we’re doing what we want to do, not just guess and throw something together at the last minute.”

I’d rarely seen him so dejected and part of me hated it because I knew how deep his self-loathing could go. But the bigger part of me wanted him to hate what he’d done. What he’d almost had me do.

“I don’t want anyone other than you. Ever,” I said. “I don’t want or need to experience a threesome. Yes, I enjoy playing in public, but that’s an entirely different thing and they are not related.”

I wanted to tell him to grow his petty, jealous self up, but decided that would be pushing it since I didn’t handle Charlene all that well. He could, technically, tell me to do the same thing.

“I’m taking a shower and going to bed,” I said, then left him with hands on his knees, looking as though his world had just fallen apart.

Chapter Fourteen

NATHANIEL

I didn’t sleep that night. For a long time I sat on the couch, thinking about how badly I’d fucked up. Abby had been having fun and dancing. If I hadn’t still been irritated over Charlene, I’d have joined her. As it was, I stood watching her dance with other men and grew more and more agitated by the second.

Abby was a beautiful woman. Of course she’d captured the attention of the crowd. And yes, her dancing had been on the risqué side, but hell, we were at a BDSM club and people were having sex not twenty feet away.

I’d acted out of anger and that was something I should never do. Abby’s trust in me was far too important and precious for me to jeopardize it with anything less than my full self-control. I’d gone too far tonight and I didn’t know how to make up for it.

After a while I went into the bedroom. She hadn’t closed the door, so I peeked in and saw she was sleeping. But it was more than that—she was sleeping in one of my white dress shirts. The sight of her in bed, in my shirt, with the knowledge of what I’d almost had her do, struck my heart as if someone had stabbed me.

I knew she loved me. We’d had difficult times in the past and we’d always worked through them. I just wasn’t sure she liked me very much at the moment. I didn’t like myself very much.

I knew all too well that it took only a mere whisper of doubt to bring down something it had taken years of trust to build. My heart ached with the knowledge that there might be a whisper of doubt in Abby’s trust in me now. I only hoped I could make it right before it did irreversible damage to what we’d spent years building together.

When she’d first left me right after our relationship had started, it crippled me. But now, if anything happened to us, it would do more than cripple me. It would destroy me completely. Before I’d only been with her for a few months. Now we had years of shared experiences, heartaches, and joys. And I’d been a damn fool to risk all that for nothing. Nothing.

When it became too much to think about, I turned my focus to the upcoming meeting with Daniel. The Partners in Play group trusted me, too. And though Abby was far more important, I’d made a commitment to them and I needed to be prepared.

I’d told Daniel I had my list of suggestions ready and we’d planned to spend an hour or so going over them. We’d originally thought to have both Julie and Abby with us. Their thoughts and ideas as submissives—one newer in her journey and one with more experience—were needed on all accounts. Abby knew my suggestions; she’d helped me with them. Together, we’d talked about what we needed to put in place to make group members feel safe and secure. I pushed aside the thought that maybe the group needed to get rid of me. After all, who really wanted to listen to me after what I’d put Abby through hours earlier?

The list of my suggestions blurred before me, and my stomach hurt. It was impossible to concentrate on anything other than Abby. With a sigh, I put the list down and picked up my speech. I stared at it for thirty minutes before I realized I hadn’t read a single word. I wasn’t even sure how I’d be able to face the gathering tomorrow, much less give a speech.

The clock said it was four o’clock. Years ago, before Abby entered my life, it was nothing for me to be awake at this time of morning. But when she moved in with me, I’d grown used to going to bed with her and falling asleep listening to her breathe and with her soft warmth surrounding me. The nights became more than a time to sleep or work; they’d become a time to reconnect and revive.

Now the night was lonely and without her in my arms, it was only dark.

I put the speech away. That wasn’t going to be worked on, either.

I went back into the bedroom and knelt beside the bed where she slept. Careful not to wake her, I gently lifted the hair that had fallen across her face.

“I love you,” I whispered. “And no matter what it takes, I’ll make this right.”

She sighed in her sleep. And while I realized that, though there were many things I could put into place or change, there was one item I could take care of right away.

“Where’s Abby?” Daniel asked the next morning. He and Julie had met me in the courtyard where it was quiet. The play equipment had been put away and the only music was the occasional sound of a bird chirping.

“She’s talking with Lynne and the kids.” Much easier to say that than to tell him the whole truth. I fucked up last night and Abby isn’t talking to me. “Julie, if you’d like to see her, why don’t you go on up to our room? She’ll let you in.”

Julie nodded and gave Daniel a kiss before heading upstairs.

“Is she coming down when she finishes?” Daniel asked.

“I honestly don’t know.”

He leaned back in his chair and his eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t look like you slept last night. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. No.”

“Offer stands.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

This morning had been hell. She’d spoken to me only to say she wasn’t ready to talk about anything and that she would let me know when she was. I didn’t have a chance to reply before she pulled out her laptop, slipped on her headphones, and started writing.

And I stood there ready to discuss what I’d done wrong and the decisions I’d made in the early-morning

hours, and simply nodded.