20. Christian

One thingI'd learned over dinner with Kale and his friends was that his stomach was a seemingly endless pit. He drank whiskey, he ate oysters, he had salad and soup, then pasta and bread. There didn't seem to be an end to the volume of food he was capable of consuming, and by the time the waitress came through with a dessert menu, I worried the button on my pants would burst.

I'd spent most of the meal talking with Kale's friend Brooks, whom I found to be a more tempered version of him and Ford. He was witty without being over the top and almost soft-spoken, though I imagined that was a side effect of having friends like the two of them.

"What was your other friend like?" I asked, shoving the dessert menu toward Kale, who eyed it with an unnatural level of interest.

The question caught Ford's attention and he leaned closer to Brooks, pushing into our conversation. "Are you talking about Beamer?"

"That's such a horrible nickname," I said, "but yes."

"He was more like you," Kale answered, and Brooks nodded his confirmation.

"In what ways?"

"Submissive and breedable," Ford answered.

Kale balled up the napkin on his lap and flung it directly into Ford's face. "Don't be crass."

Ford threw the napkin back, and I snatched it before Kale could return the volley.

"Take the stick out of your ass," Ford teased, mouth twisting into a baiting grin. "I'd bet my 401k on how your prince likes it in bed."

Heat flooded my cheeks, and I threw a glance at Kale from the corner of my eye. It looked like steam was ready to billow out of his ears. While the conversation bordered on embarrassing, it was only because I wasn't as familiar with Brooks and Ford as I was with Kale. The thought that I considered myself familiar with him should have been absurd, but it had only taken a handful of encounters with his nimble fingers and talented tongue to pull back the layers that I'd always imagined kept me so well hidden. The conversations weren't anything Parrish and I hadn't talked about before either, so I swallowed down any ill-placed sense of propriety and decided I was game to play along.

"Don't take the bet," I stage-whispered to Kale, shifting in my seat to alleviate some of the pressure on my bruised backside. Ford smirked and Kale's nostrils flared. I settled my hand again on the top of his thigh and whispered into his ear, "I'm not ashamed of the things we do together."

"Neither am I," he grumbled, stare still steady on Ford across the table.

"You're far more protective than I ever thought," Brooks said. "First with Beamer and now with Christian. Do you just have a thing for submissive men?"

"I don't have a thing for submissive men," Kale snapped.

"Don't you, though?" I slid my hand a little higher up his thigh. Heat radiated from between his legs like there was an open-door furnace blazing inches away from my fingertips.

"I like him," Ford said, giving his head a playful little shake to the side. "Let's take him to The Black Door."

"No," Kale answered at the same time I said, "Yes."

"If you don't want me to play, I'm more than happy to call up Stefan again," Ford said.

"He doesn't work for me anymore, I'm surprised you're interested."

An unexplained feeling bubbled up in the pit of my stomach, and I tried to get an answer from either of their faces before I asked the question. I raised a brow, ready to ask when Ford answered for me.

"Kale's former assistant," he said, looking proud.

"Ford can't stop fucking the help."

Ford's grin split his mouth and he let out a giddy little laugh, leaning back in his chair and tossing his napkin onto his plate. "Can we please go to The Black Door tonight?" he asked again.

"Don't you have the staffing agency on speed dial?" Kale questioned.

"I might, and if you don't want me to fuck my way through your list of talented candidates, we should get going."

"I'd like to go," I said, low enough for only Kale to hear me.

"I'm sure you would."

"You took me there the night we met," I reminded him, the earlier feeling in my stomach turning into something hotter and more consuming. From jealousy to arousal, my nerves were a live wire, ready to combust at the slightest spark.

It was all Kale's fault, of course.

Whatever happened between us at the house after my nap had seemingly rewired the circuitry in my brain because trying to make someone happy by acting right had never felt so good. We'd danced around it at The Plaza, and I'd had the orgasms to prove it. Coming my brains out with his handprints emblazoned against my ass had given me enough to think about. But it was more than the pain that had gotten me off better than anything else ever had before. There was something in the acts of it. Of the listening, of the receiving, of the choosing. I'd consciously made the choice to let Kale control my body, my orgasms, my decisions. Not outside of the bedroom, or not outside of sex, rather, but…

I ached with the need to understand these new feelings, the motivation for all of them. After a lifetime of fighting against people who made decisions for me, why was Kale's control so goddamn appealing? I craved it, which wasn't good for either of us. I had two days at most left with him before I had to go back home, and what kind of life would that be for us? Even if I dared give myself the leeway to entertain a relationship with him…what would it be like? It would take this perfect kind of control and ruin it with the kind I'd spent years running from. I didn't want whatever this thing was with Kale to get tainted by home. It was better for us to only have it now and to only have it in America.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he reminded me, but I knew after this current stay, that possibility might still ring true.

I swallowed down that truth and turned my gaze toward the place my hand rested on his thigh like it was home.

"I'm here now," I told him. "Let's just have some fun."

He clenched his jaw, and I rolled my eyes.

"We talked about this before we left your house," I reminded him. "You told me what your friends were like, what they would know about us. You can't seriously be mad now that you were right."

"Kale loves to be right," Brooks said, pushing his chair back and standing up from the table.

"He does," Ford agreed, standing and smoothing his hands down the front of his black slacks. "We should celebrate just how right he is. By going to The Black Door."

"Give us a second," I said to Brooks, because I knew between the three of them, he was the voice of reason.

Brooks pushed a giggling Ford toward the front of the restaurant, and I turned to face Kale, the look on his face beyond stressed.

"What's your problem?" I asked.

His brows knit together. "I don't have a problem."

"You're acting like you have a problem. Why don't you want to go to your little club? What are you scared of?"

"I'm not scared." He was quick to answer, but some unclear emotion flashed behind his eyes before his normal resting arrogant face was back.

"They're not here." I waved my hand toward the two recently vacated seats across from us. "You can drop the mask."

"Not a mask."

"You're not acting the same as you were when you bent me over your desk and spanked me black and blue," I said.

Kale let out a low growl, sucking in a breath that puffed his chest up like the demonstrative little predator he fancied himself to be.

"I can handle the sex jokes from your friends," I said. "I thought you could too."

"It's different." The tip of Kale's tongue darted out, worrying the corner of his mouth nervously.

"Why?"

He shook his head.

I grabbed his face. "Why?" I asked again.

He squeezed his eyes closed like a petulant child.

"Why, Kale?"

"Stop." He ground the word out as if it hurt him.

I was going to have to try another tactic if I wanted to get an answer out of him. It wasn't a surprise to me that Kale was stubborn and immovable, but I also knew there had to be a way to get through to him. I was fairly certain I had the key, so I batted my lashes together, tilting my chin toward my chest and looking up at him as demure as I could manage.

"Mr. Sheffield," I whispered.

"Don't manipulate me."

He was harder to crack than I'd expected. I dropped my hands from his face, making a mental note of the way his mouth twisted into a frown when I let him go.

"I'm not here for a long time," I said, running out of ideas. "I'm here for a good time, remember? Just like the first night. This is all we've ever had, so what's different?"

"This is all we have," he repeated. "That's the fucking problem, Christian."

I pursed my lips, rubbing them together while I waited for him to finish his thought. There were a hundred different things for him to follow that up with, and for as much as he'd had me on my back since I arrived, I'd never been more on my toes. I had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth, but if anyone had read through the laundry list of possibilities, the reality of his next confession wouldn't have been anywhere in the notebook, let alone on the page.

"I didn't love you then," he said with a sigh, like the act of loving me caused him physical harm.

"I'm sorry. You what?"

My heart was in my throat, and Kale looked like he wanted to throw up in both of our laps. He shook his head, eyes darting in every which way except toward my face.

"Forget I said that," he mumbled.

"Absolutely not."

"Please?"

"No," I said.

"I like it better when you do what you're told."

Finally, an embarrassed glance in my direction.

"You know I'm not a good listener," I said softly.

In a sharp contrast to what had naturally become our standard roles, I reached toward him and pressed the side of my finger against the bottom of his chin, tipping his face level with mine. His eyes were wide and a little frantic, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he worked it back and forth.

"You are when you want to be," he said.

"Then give me a reason to want to be."

He swallowed, another shake of his head and the misdirection of his stare, but I grabbed his chin and pulled him back to my level. Kale sucked in a breath and looked at me for what felt like the first time since we'd sat down for dinner. I didn't need him to repeat himself, because the words—the feeling—it was clear as day all over every curve and angle of his face.

"Give me something worth listening to," I whispered.

Another muscle twitch in his jaw, and then the concession rolled off his shoulders, sending all of the nerves down to his feet. He visibly relaxed, save for the panicked look in the depths of his eyes.

"I didn't love you then," he said quietly, almost under his breath.

"And now?"

He nodded.

I leveled him with an unimpressed look that had him huffing out a low laugh that almost sounded like the man I knew him to be. Though, that felt unfair to say. This man in front of me, he was also Kale Sheffield. Just a very hidden version of himself that I didn't think many people had the luxury of knowing. And here he was, bared and raw for me.

"I didn't mean to." It sounded like an apology, and I couldn't think of anything worse than someone feeling sorry for falling in love with me.

I swallowed back bile and cleared my throat, fighting down a surge of biting commentary that I wanted to deliver in response to his bullshit apology.

"But I'm not sorry for it," he continued. "I know it's…not ideal."

I scoffed, and he shrugged helplessly, eyes lightening back to their normal shade of brown.

"It's far from ideal," I agreed.

"I don't think I stood a chance, though." Kale reached for my face, cradling my cheek in his hand. I leaned into the softness of his palm, enjoying the way his fingers danced across my cheekbone and toward my hairline.

"No," I said. "I don't think you did."

Because the truth of the whole matter was…

Neither did I.