Page 20 of Reunion
“So Shay and Aaron implied that you left…that you don’t go to the clubs anymore or whatever, which seems like a shame because you’re clearly skilled at…all of this.”
I reached and flipped off the lamp. “Not much since I broke up with my ex a while back, no. We’d been active in the local scene for five or so years by then, and he’d started wanting more than I felt capable of giving him.”
“More how?”
“He was increasingly into the heavier aspects of BDSM. Edgeplay, blood play, serious pain.”
“Is that why you broke up?” Cole shifted on his pillow.
“No. I was willing to try and keep up with him, and if not, I was happy to help him find a play partner who could give him what he needed. But he cheated and that was the end of it for me.”
“But you just said you were willing to let him play with another partner. How is that cheating?”
“It’s different. That would be something the three of us engaged in together, made decisions about together. Instead, he went behind my back.”
“With another Dom?”
“Nope, just a guy he worked with. Plain old garden-variety affair. He confessed it that way as if that would somehow lessen the betrayal, but I think that hurt the most, because I really enjoyed the vanilla stuff, too, and by that time, almost all of our sexual encounters happened only in a structured context.” It occurred to me that maybe I was saying too much, but then again it was Cole and despite not having seen him for years, I felt comfortable with him.
“Jesus, that sounds kind of complicated.”
“It isn’t, not really. At the end of the day, he broke trust between us, pure and simple.” The sting of that betrayal still lodged in my chest on occasion, but it’d grown fainter with time, and now with Cole in my arms, barely even registered.
I slipped from the sheets. “I’m going to grab you that water now.” I didn’t particularly care to talk any more about my ex when my high school fantasy was naked in my bed.
“I really don’t need one.”
“You might want it later.”
Cole lodged another sleepy protest, but I was off to the kitchen regardless and returned a few minutes later with an ice pack and a bottle of water, which I placed on the nightstand next to him, and a warm washcloth that I brought into the bed with me. But when I urged him onto his back and started to wipe him clean of lube and dried jizz, he shoved my hand away.
“Don’t. I’m good just like this. This is like some stand-in for that damn handkerchief, isn’t it?” he teased, and I chuckled as I dropped the washcloth on the table and folded him into my arms again.
“Let me do the ice, at least.”
“This is nice,” he said around a yawn as I laid a towel over his ass and applied the pack.
I think he was asleep before he finished the sentence.
* * *
I woketo an empty bed and pulled on a pair of sweats before heading into the kitchen to find Cole standing in front of my coffee maker. His tux pants hung loose and unbuttoned around his hips, and his shirt and jacket lay over the kitchen table as he grumbled at the machine and thumped the side.
“Try a lighter touch there, savage.”
He startled, then angled a look over his shoulder as he held up a package of coffee grounds. “I’m a little embarrassed to say I can’t remember how much to put in. Keurigs have spoiled me.”
“As much as will fit.”
He narrowed his eyes as I bumped against him and reached an arm around him, enjoying the brush of his skin against mine when I took the package from his hands.
“Meaning to get me hard before I’ve even had coffee?”
“I’ve had worse starts to a day.” I dumped the grounds in the filter, reached my other hand around him, and set the filter inside the basket before mashing the brew button, then skirted off to one side to retrieve some mugs.
Cole started to lean back against the counter, then winced and appeared to think better of it. “I wasn’t planning on hanging around, actually. There’s the farewell brunch—”
“In an hour and a half. But your stomach’s rumbling right now, and I’d like to cook you breakfast.”