Page 42 of The Dark Before Light

“Maybe. Or maybe I was born vanilla.” I pretend to have just remembered something. “I did take a class at Crossroads back in the day. An intro to rope bondage. Some crazy Dubliner taught it.”

She sputters. “Liam Roark?”

“Sounds familiar, yeah. He said I was a natural.”

She looks dubious, but there’s real curiosity in her eyes when she asks, “Have you ever used what you learned?”

“Nah. Choking is about as freaky as I get.”

She fights a laugh. “Choking isn’t vanilla.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?”

She rolls her eyes. God, I love it when she does that.

“I bet I could still find my way around some knots. Liam was a good teacher. Almost too charming, though. I was half in love with him by the end of it and I’m straight as an arrow.”

Her tinkling laugh is so pretty it makes my chest squeeze.

“That’s Liam for sure. A lot of hearts broke when he moved back to Dublin a couple years ago.”

“Yours?”

“Definitely not.”

I fake affront. “It’s the Irish accent, isn’t it? Total turn-off.”

“Shut up.”

She can tell me to shut up all day if she keeps smiling. “What then? Blue eyes don’t do it for you, either?”

She groans. “Stop. Liam and I were friendly, but we were both dominants. I didn’t have a submissive bone in my body back then.”

She gasps a tiny bit, then flushes. Not in embarrassment, though—more like horror.

Buzzing fills my ears. “Back then?” I repeat.

My brain stumbles as it struggles to process what she’s revealed. Back then she didn’t have a submissive bone in her body, which means now…

I can almost feel the snick as a section of her puzzle box unlocks.

I’ve tortured myself wondering how I could be so attracted to her if we’re as sexually compatible as opposing magnets. The argument she’s fond of—that it’s my subconsciousness defending itself by objectifying her—is a load of horseshit. She doesn’t know how hard I’ve fought it. How many fruitless hours I’ve spent trying to convince myself she isn’t my type, that I feel nothing when I look at her, that it’s merely her mind that intrigues me.

Fact is, three weeks ago she lit the book of my type on fire and started writing a new one. Now every damn page is her. I can’t even look at other women because I’m obsessed with the one in front of me.

She’s not immune to me. I’ve seen glimpses of interest from her over the last weeks. Sparks that have drifted past her ironclad control. The blushes. That wild pulse. But I’ve been mostly resigned to the fact she likes the look of my face and body, maybe entertains fantasies of dominating me.

Tonight threw me for a loop because her mask came off, and what I saw beneath it contradicted what I thought I knew. In the jacuzzi, I saw a woman afire with simple, uncomplicated lust. And when she saw me in the pool, she looked like she could already feel me inside her.

Maybe this thing between us is twisted. Scratch that—I know it is. She’s my therapist and I’m a fucking mess. But it doesn’t change the fact our bodies are screaming to thrust and sweat and fuck. And it doesn’t change the fact I lied to her on Wednesday about my fantasy. Yes, I’ve thought about her sucking me off. I’m human. But when I pictured—picture—my hand on her throat, we’re face to face. Belly to belly. Chest to chest.

Equals.

“Can you forget I said that?” Her voice is weak as a kitten’s, her eyes panicked.

I clench the back of my neck, feeling like I’m a shaken bottle whose top is about to pop off.

“We have to stop talking about this,” she rambles. “I’m sorry. This whole conversation is inappropriate. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

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