Page 82 of Incisive

He playfully massages my scalp. “The boy said you might be a little stressed today. He saved me a place onAngel.”

I bury my face against his legs. “God, I love him.”

He chuckles. “The boy is very talented. And yes, I already stashed my things upstairs.”

I smile up at him. “You can help me tie my tie later.”

“Absolutely. Although I was thinking of helping you take a shower now. I need one, too, so I waited.”

“Yay!” For a few minutes I do nothing but sit there, savoring this sweet and precious time with him. These moments were already too few and far between and now they’re downright scarce indeed.

After a while, Leo taps the top of my head and I look up again and into his brown eyes. I know every fleck in them by heart, the soft golden browns and the dark mahogany. I’ve seen them look sweetly amused and evilly sadistic, always filled with love.

For me.

I’ve dealt with a metric fuckton of fear in my life.

Fear of failure.

Fear of being ridiculed.

Fear of death—literally.

Fear of losing my family if they knew the truth about me.

Fear of realizing maybe I’ve fucked up and wasted my life—and Leo’s and now Jordan’s—in rabid pursuit of something that IthoughtI wanted.

Fear of losing the two best things that ever happened to me.

Fear that I’m not worthy of them.

Do I honestly need to keep boring you with a list of reasons? You get the drift.

Until my path crossed first with Leo, and then with Jordan, I thought I had my future all laid out despite the really fucking bad choices that nearly cost me my life.

Until I met these two men, I thought I had a handle on what personal satisfaction felt like, on multiple levels.

I was soooo fucking wrong.

On all counts.

Mostly because I finally admitted that I was lying to myself and had been for years.

The true bitch of it is, I’m not even sure if I deserve them. They’re good men, damned good men who’ve kept me going when anyone else rightfully would have saidfuck this noiseand walked a long time ago.

Jordan doesn’t have to be here. He could’ve laughed in my face that night on the plane in Tallahassee, when I begged him to return to Washington and come work for me.

I gave myself to Jordan and made a conscious choice, for once, to set aside at least a portion of my fear, to move forward, and to trust the man I know my Master trusts with our hearts and secrets—a man I’d secretly loved for years—and prayed I wasn’t wrong.

Instead of laughing at me, or telling me to go fuck myself, Jordan stepped up and took over for me.

I know damned well I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for him.

And Leo. But, honestly?

It’s mostly because of Jordan.

Maybe the problem all along wasn’t that I didn’t fully give myself to Leo soon enough, but that I should have openly embraced Jordan from the start. Overcoming my fear back then would have saved all three of us a lot of heartache and aggravation.