Page 62 of His to Teach

“Can I ask you a question?” she finally murmurs.

“Sure.”

“Who is Renee?”

My body goes rigid. I hadn’t been expecting that.

Which was probably dumb. I knew she’d heard the name at the club earlier. Of course she’d be curious.

But that doesn’t mean I have any intention of talking about her tonight.

I make my body relax, force my voice to come out easy and light. “She’s just an ex of mine. It’s been over for years.”

She peeks up at me, a confused frown on her face. “But at the club?—”

I place a finger over her plush, gorgeous lips. “I think you’re changing the subject. We were talking about your doubts with this lifestyle.”

I can tell she wants to argue, wants to press it, but her submissive side wins out when I add the heat of dominance to my gaze.

Her eyes flick away from mine. “I do have doubts.”

“Why? You clearly enjoyed yourself.”

Color comes to her cheeks. “I did. I really did.”

“So what’s holding you back?”

Her eyes still don’t meet mine and I bring a hand to her hip, squeezing gently. “Harper, you have to be honest with me. It won’t work otherwise. The most important part of this lifestyle is being open with each other. My job is to take care of you, and I can’t do that if you’re keeping things from me.”

Her gaze flicks back to mine, her eyes warm. Trusting. Heat expands throughout my chest at that look in her eyes. Knowing that she trusts me feels better than anything else we’ve done tonight.

“I’ve always been ashamed of this,” she whispers, and I can hear the pain in her voice. “Of the things that I want.”

I push a silky lock of hair behind her ear. “I think that’s pretty normal. The world tells us to feel that way, tells us that we’ll be judged for our desires.”

She frowns. “I think it might be a little different for me.”

“How so?”

She shrugs a little. “Just…I don’t think it’s only your typical cultural repression, not for me.” She takes a deep breath. “I think it has a lot to do with my parents.”

I still, trying to keep from tensing up. I know other people in this lifestyle who come from a difficult place, people who’ve turned to the games of control and pain to help them cope with abusive issues in their past. The idea of someone hurting Harper?—

“Because I lost them,” she goes on, and I relax a little, even as my heart clenches at her forlorn tone. “I think there’s a partof me that’s been desperate for someone to take care of me for a long time. And the idea that I’ve taken that desperation and turned it into a sexual kink…it makes me feel shitty. Like there’s something wrong with me.”

“Harper.” I shake my head. “We all want to be taken care of, in our own ways. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “My last boyfriend—Jeremy—was an asshole,” she finally says, and I go tense again. “He treated me badly. Everyone could see it. I could even see it. But I stayed. I put up with it. Because it was better to be with someone, even someone who mistreated me, than to be alone.”

“Did he hurt you?” I ask, my voice low, barely controlled.

“Yes.”

Fuck. “Physically? He hit you?”

She looks away, nodding once, and the world goes red and hazy around me.

“Hey,” she murmurs, her hand on my face. It’s only then that I realize I’m half-sitting, my hands clenched into tight fists.