ELLA
“Have you been taking your medication, babe?” he asks me with one brow cocked and a smirk on his lips. The look he gives me is comical and it’s one I’ve seen a thousand times.
I smirk back and say, “I have.” My silk nightie rides up under the covers as I pull my knee up to rest my chin on it. He can’t see a thing, but still, I tug it back into place and cock a brow in return as I tell him, “Medication and dick work wonders for a girl like me.”
Kam’s smirk widens to a grin and mine follows with a nonchalant shrug. Even that small movement reawakens the soreness between my thighs and I bite down on my lower lip to stifle the moan that begs to spill from me.
There’s no polite way to say it: Z fucked the hell out of me.
And I loved every sordid minute of it. I haven’t slept so well or felt this content in … well, I don’t dare to remember.
Kam plops down on the other side of the sofa from where I’m sitting in the living room and the sofa offers a groan in response.
My tea is the perfect temperature and as far as I know, Zander is still sleeping soundly. Silas and Damon are in the other room, giving me privacy in the early morning. It’s all comfortable now.
As if everything has settled and all is as it should be for the moment.
“I think most of life’s problems can be solved with a pill or dick,” I half-heartedly joke and hope the comment hits as intended.
“Or money,” Kam chimes in and I’m quick to agree.
He toys with the thin black tie he wears; he must’ve left his jacket in the foyer. Without it Kam looks so much younger, yet the wrinkles around his eyes seem to have worsened. The last year has aged him immensely.
My gaze drops and apparently Kam sees it as his cue to pipe up. “So … how are you really?”
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I pause only a moment before I answer honestly, letting the truth slip out easier than it has recently. “I feel guilty … moving on—” A chill drenches me as I admit it.
Kam’s head shakes immediately as he cuts me off. “First, no guilt allowed. And second, you aren’t moving on.”
My throat tightens and I shake off the prickling sensation that runs down my arms.
“James would want you to be loved thoroughly … and quite often,” he jokes and it lightens the mood.
With a short huff of a laugh, I nod but it doesn’t stop the bits of pain I feel whenever I think about James.
“So don’t feel guilty. Or I’ll have to tell your … your … what do you call him? Boy toy?”
A genuine laugh bubbles out. “Z is my boy toy?” I question humorously.
“Well, what is he to you? Just your Dom? Or …?” he asks.
Heat blazes across my skin and a tension settles through me. I could see him being more. So much more. But just the idea is stifling.
“Or rather, what should I call him?” Kam shifts the question and then pats my leg as he readjusts to face me more directly. “I suppose I could always just call him Zander, and not complicate it?” he offers and I’m quick to agree, releasing every ounce of apprehension that threatens to overwhelm me.
Before I can verbalize my answer, Kam says, “So if you’re feeling guilty, I’ll have to tell Zander to fuck that out of you, or spank it or … whatever kink you two agree on.” He gestures in the air with a comical expression on his face that soothes so much of what ails me.
“Sex … no guilt,” I say, summing up the conversation.
“That’s right.”
“Got it.”
“We’ve had this conversation before,” I comment and remember sitting on a sofa similar to this one a little over a year ago, promising I would stop feeling guilty, that I would stop thinking about all the dark things. It was just after the first time I tried to kill myself.