Page 101 of Piece Us Together

“Scares me.”

“In a bad way?” I ask carefully.

“In a…way.”

I take a chance. It feels safe enough to, here in front of the fire, him with his guard down, us pressed together in our safe little bubble. “Things have changed with Hunter, haven’t they?”

He releases a long, slow breath. “Yeah. Yeah, Nol. They have.”

“In a bad way?” I ask again.

“Is it a bad way for you?”

I roll my eyes, letting some amusement leak into my voice. “I asked first.”

He shifts, the blanket slipping off our backs a little. I lift my head to let him adjust better. His face is lit by the fire, flames dancing in the blue of his eyes.

“He’s more than just your dom now. I don’t know what that makes him, I don’t know how anything is going to work, but he’s more than he was supposed to be.” He lifts a hand to my face, running the pad of his thumb along my jaw, then to my lips. His own curl in a soft smile. “And not in a bad way. Scary. Terrifying, really. But not bad.”

I force myself to maintain eye contact as I ask, “Are you falling for him?”

“Are you?”

“I asked—”

“I answered the last one first. Your turn.”

I narrow my eyes at him, but it’s playful. His smile grows. It feels safe enough to admit the truth. “I think I am, yeah. It’s different than how it felt with you. I don’t know what that means. I’ve never really loved anyone other than you. Crushes on guys in school, sure, but nothing real. Is it different every time? Or maybe I just—maybe I’m just falling for him as a dom?”

“You’re not just falling for him as a dom, baby.” He shakes his head, like he’s amused by me thinking that. “I saw you with him when he was just a dom to you. You couldn’t wait to get put on your knees, but when we weren’t in a scene, you were distant. He was a man you were going to play with, but not a man you were particularly attached to. I think, in the first week or two, I could have suggested trying another dom and you would have been fine with it.”

“That’s true, yeah. He wasn’t much of a person, at first. I think that’s mostly my fault. I framed him that way, in my head. I didn’t want it to feel like I was cheating on you, you know? We agreed to kink, we didn’t agree to opening our relationship.”

He nods, not looking upset at the fairly obvious direction this is going. “When’d it start changing?”

“I don’t know if I could pinpoint anything, but I realized it last weekend. During the sex mid-nap, actually. It just sort of hit me.” I nudge him. “When did it for you?”

His smirk falters a little. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I—I don’t know.”

My stomach sours. “Oh.”

“No.” He shakes his head, shifting more until we’re fully looking at each other. “I’m not saying I don’t feel somethingfor him. I just—he…fucks with my head. It’s hard to place it. Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck I feel. Sometimes I think I fucking hate him, you know? And sometimes I feel like I—” He stops himself, dropping his chin. It kills me to wait, but I force myself to. He doesn’t make me wait long. “Sometimes it feels like he’s exactly what we needed to be whole. Like we didn’t quite fit somehow, until him.” He lifts his chin, eyes wide. He looks desperate. “It’s awful, I know. Fuck, it makes me sound like such a dick. I don’t mean we can’t be happy just us. I was—am, Iamhappy just in a relationship with you, Nol. You’re fucking everything. I promise. I don’t mean—”

“I know,” I say, grabbing his cheeks before he can spiral into a full-blown panic. “Hey. Shh. I know. I feel it too. Like—maybe he’s not a missing piece, but he’s the glue. The gold, like that art you told me about, remember? The Japanese one?”

“Kintsugi,” he says softly.

“Yeah.” I shrug. “We’d be fine without him. We’d just use regular glue. But the gold makes it into the art, you know? And Hunter—well, I think Hunter might be our gold, Mais.”

He leans in, resting his forehead against mine. “Yeah, baby. I think maybe he is.”

“I think we have to decide.” I say the words quickly. Breathlessly. “We have to decide if we’re going to let ourselves keep falling or if we need to stop before it’s too late. I don’t know how much longer I can—once I fall in love with him, all the way, once I’m in it, I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk away. There’s no way I could have with you, you know?”

His eyes close, the pressure from his forehead a little harder as he presses against me. I move my hand to the back of his neck to anchor him there. He grabs the fabric above each of my hips. Hunter’s sweater. He clings to it, exhaling shakily. “I think—”

“Well, good morning.”

We jerk apart, Maison spilling his coffee and me almost tossing the blanket into the fire. Hunter frowns as we shove to our feet, nearly push each other back down, then steady ourselves. “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something? I can—”

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