Page 78 of For Her Own Good

This dress is perfectly sized, but it feels too small. It’s purposefully short, but I don’t mean like that. More like it feels tight around my chest and forces my breath to be shallow. My whole body is already alive with arousal and Lowry’s not even here yet. Can’t imagine what I’ll feel like when he stands on the threshold and gets that worshipful look in his eye like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, like he can’t wait to get his hands on me.

Finally, there’s a knock at the door and I’m on my feet before it’s even finished. This is it. I suppose I could tear all this off, run my hands through my hair to mess up the perfect spirals I spent an hour taming it into. Unlock the door and beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom and tell him I’ve changed my mind.

I don’t want to, but it’s still difficult to force my feet one in front of the other to move to the door.

Please, Lowry, please. Please like playing this game with me. Please still think it’s fun instead of icky.Please let it turn you on as much as it does me and not make you feel like a pervy old man—not in a bad way, anyhow.

A big breath in and then I open the door, trying to put a sweet smile on my face even as tension is making me feel anything but sweet—prickly and stressed, more like. But he can help relieve me, and for that I can be sweet for him.

* * *

Lowry

I shouldn’t have come. That’s my first thought when Starla opens the door and she’s standing there, hair in darling ringlets, mouth in a sugar-sweet smile, and her dress… God in heaven is going to smite me because of how I feel about her dress. Not to mention those shoes and socks sent from the devil himself to tempt a man like me. The combination of these things pricks my interest and desire like a short, sharp jab of a needle, but then it fades. Gets swallowed up in the other feelings that have been swamping me since this afternoon.

And my Star, love that she is, is trying so hard to be calm and lovely when she is, in fact, about to vibrate out of that smooth skin of hers. I can feel it, the waves of emotion coming off her. To some people—perhaps most—she can appear to be a sphinx, mysterious and inscrutable, but I know better, am tuned to her wavelength.

I should’ve called her, no, texted, and said I couldn’t make it. She would’ve understood, or said she did, and I would’ve felt guilty but would’ve done my best to make it up to her. I didn’t, though, because I have Jade firmly in my head, threatening me with a good chance of death should I abandon Starla again, and so here I am, regretting my life choices.

It’s not fair to Starla for me to have shown up here like this, but it’s not as though I can walk away at the moment either. No, I have made my choices and now I’m responsible for getting the both of us through them.

Starla’s smile falters because her senses are like mine—she feels me. Though I’ve learned to mask my responses as a professional responsibility, she’s never had to and she startles like a deer in the forest who’s heard a shot. I’m sorry.

“Lowry, what’s wrong?”

I look away from her, and the effort of coming up with how I’m going to tell her crunches my brows together. “I…”

Before I can finish, she’s taking my hand in both of hers and tugging me over the threshold of her apartment, and yes, that would be better. Not doing this standing in the damn hallway.

“Come on, let’s go inside.”

She tows me over to the couch and I let her, feeling dazed. I got here on autopilot for sure, couldn’t tell you anything about anything I saw. Good thing I wasn’t going through South Station today, I’d hate to miss an opportunity to see Keytar Bear. Not that the busker’s usually charming antics would have broken through this haze.

Starla sits on the couch, leaving a space for me at the corner, and… I don’t sit. Can’t, not with her looking up at me with those big eyes and concern etched on her pretty porcelain features. No, this isn’t what she signed up for, and I should give her what she needs. Provide. That’s what I do.

So I try to gather up some of my scattered thoughts, only the ones to do with her, and sweep the rest away to be dealt with later, after she’s snoozing in my arms or later still when she’s deep asleep and I’ve snuck out here to deal with my own emotions.

I drop my messenger bag to the side of the couch and paste a smile on my face, hoping it doesn’t look too grim, and clap my hands together.

“Well, look at you, little girl. You look darling. I can’t wait—”

“You stop that this instant.”

Shock reverberates through me, scattering all my thoughts again. Is she scolding me? This is a turn of the tables I didn’t see coming, at least not tonight. But she’s looking rather serious, arms across her chest and glaring at me from under her brows. It ought to be a bit ridiculous, this little doll of a woman in her ruffly socks and ringlets taking me to task, but it hits me like a punch.

“Stop what?” I try, willing in some ways for her to let me have this, let me do it, allow me to wrest back the control I’ve lost. Give her what she needs so I can not fail at something today. But she’s not to be deterred.

“You’re pale, like, more than usual and that’s pretty pasty, you ginger bastard. And you’re scruffy, not like scruffy hot but kind of haggard. You know I think you’re the handsomest man alive, but you look like shit, Low.”

The way she says it rhymes with bao—I’m hardly a dumpling, and it ought to make me smile, but nothing is working the way it should. Pressing on because I’m so obviously and embarrassingly struggling, she stands, taking a few steps until she’s pressed against me but not so firmly that she can’t tip her head up to look me in the face.

“Seriously. You’re not fooling me. And stop trying, because it’s insulting. I’m not one of your patients, I haven’t paid for you to attend to me. You’re upset and I want to know why. Help you if I can.”

The way she sort of mumbles the last bit—as if her efforts would be only that and she doesn’t have much to offer—sends an arrow straight into my heart. I don’t think she will be able to make me feel all that much better, but if anyone on this earth has a shot in hell of lending me some comfort, it’s her. And she’s right. It’s not okay to treat her as though receiving care from me is the only thing she bargained for. It’s hard, though, to give up that role I’m so comfortable in, and wade into one where I’m so very not. Which is why I give it one last try, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her more firmly to me.

“But you got all dressed up and you look so pretty for me, and I want—”

Serves me right that she bangs her little fists against my chest.

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