Page 20 of Weston & Cyrus (Beautiful Shame #6)

Weston

He knew the best ways to fuck with me.

It was frustrating…okay… sometimes it was frustrating.

“I.” Managing not to whine too loudly, I closed my mouth and paused before I tried again. “I’m really working to control my reactions around you. I didn’t have to work this hard before but…but before there wasn’t any reality to think about.”

Reality was crazy real sometimes.

Cyrus smirked. “Reality is distracting, huh?”

“Yes.” I tried not to sound dramatic but I was pretty sure it hadn’t worked based on how wide his smile got. “I should’ve made my thoughts…”

Louder?

Clearer?

Less confusing?

When I shrugged and probably looked dramatic, he chuckled. “I should’ve asked and not backed away from the conversation. But in my defense, in the past you mentioned not wanting a Dom to take over your life outside of the bedroom.”

Oh.

Yeah.

“You’re not…” He wasn’t like that Dom I’d dated. He was Cyrus. “That’s not something you need to worry about.”

Shaking his head, Cyrus tried to look serious. “So what? I’m not a Dom?”

“You’re not like one of those Doms.” That should’ve been obvious. “You’re you.”

He was my Cyrus.

Did I have to spell that out?

I wasn’t sure how I’d begin to do it, so I took the chicken way out and stretched up to kiss him.

“Oh wow. Are you guys out now?” The voice coming from the doorway made me question if we’d shut that at any point. “I mean, I know you’re both out but are you telling everyone you’re dating now?”

Fuck.

Recovering faster than I did, Cyrus straightened. “Yeah, we’re telling everyone now. But you’ve got me curious. When do you think we started dating?”

That was probably a very good question.

Bouncy -ick guy frowned and took it seriously. “Well, you guys went through that weird we’re in an open relationship kind of phase—not that there’s anything wrong with it—but that stopped about a year ago…so…yeah, I’m going to go with a year.”

A year?

Before I could even begin to figure out what that meant, he leaned his head back out the doorway into the main space. “Hey, they’re out now. We don’t have to ignore it anymore.”

Anymore?

Cyrus was doing his best not to laugh as he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Guess I can’t have you take a shower next to me now.”

No, they’d definitely know something was up.

A year?

“Yep. That’s what he said.”

Clearly I hadn’t just thought that, so I clamped my lips together and did my best to make my brain tune back into reality.

Cyrus looked like he wanted to laugh but he had himself mostly under control by the time -ick turned back to us. “Patrick? You off for the day?”

Ick.

Patrick.

“Yeah.” He was even bouncier than he’d been when I’d walked in, so I hoped a workout would help him relax. “I’m gonna get a workout in before I head out.”

“Great.” I tuned out as they went over some work stuff but then back in when I heard my name. “Weston. Yeah, we’re heading out too. Gonna go find some dinner.”

“A date. That’s great.” He really was one deep breath away from actually bouncing around the room. “Have fun, man, and I’m glad y’all are finally out. That open thing didn’t seem to make you guys happy.”

They’d thought we were dating the whole time?

An open relationship.

“We’re figuring everything out, but yeah, we’re happiest just the two of us.” Cyrus seemed to have a better handle on how to respond to everything, so I did my best to nod appropriately and look like I knew what they were talking about.

“That’s great.” Giving us a wave, the oversized handful headed back to the main room before I had to figure out a verbal response to anything.

When he was finally gone, I let out a groan and grabbed the first thoughts that flashed by. “Is he a pup? A year? An open relationship? What did we do a year ago?”

Cyrus snorted. “We’re taking our time sorting through all that. I have no idea what we did last year. I’m still stuck on not being able to shower with you.”

“Um…I think we’d need consent conversations to do that now.” Before, we could’ve looked boring and normal and they’d have pretended we were only friends. That was out the window now. “They thought we were hiding our relationship?”

“An open relationship at first.” Cyrus went back to shaking his head. “I need to process this. Come on. Quick boring behavior and then we’re going to dinner.”

Agreed.

But.

“Um, but we can come back after hours sometime and reenact that locker room idea? Or the workout one we talked about?” I wasn’t willing to let that one go completely. “I can pretend we have an audience for that locker room one.”

Cyrus smiled but it looked positively wicked. “We both know you’d like an audience.”

Oh.

Well, yeah.

Um.

Think.

I had to think.

“Consent and this is your business. I’m not going to forget that because my dick likes your fantasies.” They were both going to get us in trouble if one of us wasn’t careful. How was I the voice of reason? “You’re becoming a bad influence.”

He laughed and nodded. “Yep, but one question for you…who told me about the club?”

Who’d told him about the club?

Oh.

Fuck.

Nico.

“That’s not important.” How did I end up with a Dom who was such a bad influence? “Where do you want to go for dinner?”

If he didn’t stop grinning, they were all going to know something was up.

A year?

****

“So…have you figured out what we were doing a year ago?” Cyrus couldn’t stop poking at the weird comment, but my brain was stuck on the knowing grins everyone in the building had flashed us when we’d carefully gone to get cleaned up separately.

Giggling teenagers…the whole lot of them.

“Nothing. They’ve been reading into things.” I just wasn’t sure what and it was fucking with my headspace, so it was time to pick a distraction for Cyrus. “How would you like for us to have behaved at the gym today?”

Before chaos had descended, I’d have put that topic at the bottom of my distract Cyrus list, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

His chuckle said he knew what I was thinking but he let me get away with it. Probably because he liked the new topic better, but I couldn’t decide if he’d been fucking with me to get me to talk about it or not.

The fact that I couldn’t decide if I’d been manipulated was frustrating and kind of sexy for some stupid reason.

If he gave me another weird kink, I might just kill him.

“I’m honestly flexible as long as we’re both on the same page.” Projecting a calm honesty that made his answer feel true, he raised one eyebrow and leaned back, making me sigh. “It’s the communication issue I have a problem with and not knowing how to handle it.”

Yeah, I could see that.

“I…I realize I shut down when something makes me uncomfortable outside of a scene.” It wasn’t helpful at all, but I couldn’t always stop myself. “I’ll work on that.”

He cocked his head and his expression looked skeptical and thoughtful. “I can’t decide if you’re lying to yourself or me.”

Both?

“Neither.” I wasn’t stupid…just not that bright sometimes. “I can learn to communicate more effectively.”

I did it at work, so I could do it with Cyrus.

Hopefully.

“My thoughts are kind of jumping around, but let me ask you something. Why have you always said that you don’t want…that kind of dynamic outside of a scene?” He paused before continuing. “You’ve mentioned it several times when you dated different guys.”

His memory was frustrating.

“Primarily because guys like that go too far too quick.” It was insane. “Like first date or first scene and then I’m supposed to hand over my life to them. One guy was nice but he wanted to micromanage my schedule and have me check in a dozen times a day. That wasn’t reasonable or sexy.”

I could handle unreasonable if it was sexy, but he hadn’t hit on either of them. Luckily he’d moved for work before I had to run into him too many times after that, but it’d still been frustrating.

Cyrus nodded. “Yeah, that’s not something you’d want or need.”

“It made me feel smothered, not special.” And he hadn’t been able to understand that or the humiliation thing. “I’ve run into that kind of stuff a few times.”

“I think that’s because they were looking to manage things you don’t need help with.” Cyrus let the silence drag out until I sighed, and then he smiled and kept pushing. “You don’t need a thousand texts a day to feel important but a handful of spicy ones seem to do the trick.”

Brat.

I managed not to react too strongly but his smile got wider. “You do need help communicating and being open with what you’re thinking, though.”

I really didn’t like how right he was in our current predicament.

“That’s something to think about.” Grasping for another topic since I’d decided this one sucked as much as the last one had, I picked up the tiny dessert menu. “Have you ever had their chocolate torte thing? I don’t remember.”

I pretended not to notice the way he rolled his eyes, but that was mostly because I wasn’t sure it was the right moment to point out bad manners.

“Like this. You got squirmy and since it wasn’t a turn-you-on kind of thing, you avoided it.

” Cyrus said that like it was a bad thing but I had to disagree with him.

Unfortunately, he kept going before I could decide how to word it.

“But I’ve been thinking, if I pushed you to answer and stay on topic, we could shift it in your… your more preferred direction.”

He could make it embarrassing and sexy? Not just frustrating?

“How?” I wasn’t opposed to the idea because my avoidance was going to fuck things up if I wouldn’t let him push. That was obvious. “I don’t think my…imagination works that way.”

“Mine does.” Cyrus’s eyes sparkled with sexy mischief, so he clearly liked whatever he was picturing. “What if every time you started avoiding a topic we needed to clarify or a conversation we needed to have, I asked you if you were distracted by something naughty?”

Oh.

I must’ve looked stupid, confused, or simply fun to fuck with because he shifted like he was settling into a fun fantasy.

“Earlier when you came in and it was obvious you were jumpy and there were things we needed to iron out, I would’ve pushed and if you’d tried to avoid the conversation, I might’ve asked if you were thinking about being bent over the bench or if your cute little toy needed attention and that was why you couldn’t function. ”

I.

That.

He.

I knew I was blinking stupidly but I was stuck like a computer doing that circle thing.

Cyrus didn’t seem to mind. “If you kept pushing back but didn’t safeword, I might’ve taken you into my office for a few spanks to help get your communication skills working again or I might’ve tickled that little toy to help you think more clearly.

Whatever I thought was necessary to make sure we talked through the problem. ”

He.

That.

“That…that’s probably not…it’s probably not practical.” Reasonable. I should’ve gone with reasonable.

Cyrus jumped in before I could fix that problem, though.

He just had to be helpful like that.

“Don’t worry.” His fake bright and cheerful smile killed a few more brain cells and made my dick sit up and take notice of what we were talking about. “I can figure out how to make it practical.”

Was this my punishment for driving him crazy earlier?

Fuck.

It was worse than that…this conversation had been my idea.

He was an asshole and I was an idiot.