Page 70 of Shame

30

Luke

That night,we sit down and I finally take Grace’s BDSM personality type quiz. Neither of us are surprised to find out that I’m as much a Daddy or caregiver as she is a Little or Middle.

And for the first time, we talk about safewords. We’re going to start with just using stop and ouch, because Grace doesn’t think she’ll ever want to say stop and not mean it.

I’m fascinated by the layers there.

“So this class that you took,” I ask her as she gets ready for bed. “This was at the kink club that Alex goes to sometimes?”

“Yep.”

“And he knows about it?”

“The class? Or me taking it.”

“That part.”

“No, I don’t think he does.”

I rub my jaw. “I think I prefer it that way, if I’m allowed to have a preference.”

She looks at me sideways. “You’re allowed. One of the things I learned about caregiver kink is that it’s often quite private.”

“I can imagine.”

“Speaking of that club…” She presses her lips together, then picks up her hairbrush. “Your brother might go there with Hazel.”

I can feel storm clouds gathering in my head, and I’m not sure why exactly. It’s a possessive thing, for sure. “Did you see him there?”

“Oh, no. He’s a Preston, he would have combusted on the spot. But I found the card at his apartment, and that was bad enough.” She hands me the hairbrush. “Would you brush my hair, Daddy?”

The storm clouds immediately recede. “Of course.”

I watch her in the mirror as I centre myself, then I turn my attention to her hair. There are a few glints of silver at the crown. In a week, she’ll have them covered up again with dye. She’s fastidious about that, and only that, and I realize it’s something we’ve never talked about.

I’m not about to tell her that I love her grey hair. Not yet. But I do, and I’ll find a way to bring it up when she’s not mad at me.

“Well go on,” she whispers. “Brush my hair.”

“Is there a…” I wrap my fingers around a section of hair, holding it so the brush doesn’t tug her scalp. It goes through the strands like a knife through butter, so I relax and release the locks, and do it again.

She makes a pleased sound as the bristles make contact with her scalp. “That feels good.”

“For me, too.” I carefully pick another section of hair. “So if I wanted to learn more about how to do this, without running into my brother or my best friend…”

I get a smile in the mirror for that. “We can figure it out together. And there’s a lot of good reading online.”

“Is there? Bedtime story reading?”

“That, too.” Her lips quirk. “Also more scientific stuff, if you wanted to assign me a book report or something like that.”

“I like that idea.”

She straightens her spine, her eyes flashing, and now it’s all Grace. “Hey, speaking of Alex. I know he’s been handling some of your work for a while now. Have you thought about going back to the office?”

“I’ve been thinking more and more about maybe not. We could sell the condo. Move out of the city. Explore subsistence living and non-stop orgasms.”

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