42. Christian

42

CHRISTIAN

“ I ’m bleeding out, aren’t I?”

Jericho rests a cool hand on my cheek and smiles warmly. It’s just the two of us in a bougie charcuterie place near the publishing house where she works in Midtown. I’m not quite ready to put my heart out on blast. Gibson is expecting Marianne any minute, and I left the building, not wanting to be around when she comes home.

Not because I think there’s going to be some nuclear break-up or even a warm reunion—I just don’t want to see her face, hear her voice, or question the look on his face when he lays eyes on her.

“If you were,” Jericho says, “You would have died in the Hamptons. That was when I noticed you were already too far gone on him.”

“That obvious?”

“Yeah. What are you worried about?”

“Same thing you were worried about. He’s married. To the love of his life.”

Her forehead folds in slightly. “I’m not convinced. Look, I get it’s soon, and maybe it feels like it happened too fast to last or be real, but that’s love, Chris. The whole ‘sweeps you off your feet’ thing? It happens all the time.”

I don’t not believe that. Whether it’s enough to overcome twenty-five years of pure devotion and a life built around another person, though? Seems unlikely—especially since we’ve both been burned so bad before.

“It’s not that I think it’s not real. It’s more like everything’s at risk.”

Yesterday was so good. Perfect. It was the closest to him—the closest to God, even, I’ve ever felt. All the signs said yes . The way he looked in the rain—the way he looked at me . Talking about the future like it was something he wanted for us , and I could see it, too. See all of it. I want it. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I don’t doubt the love. It’s a solid certainty in my chest.

His baggage is just so fucking heavy. I’m willing to bear it, though—if he’s willing to share it.

“I mean, the situation’s not ideal. He’s great, don’t get me wrong, love him for you, but that’s as a person. Gibson Hayes ,” Jericho says with air quotes, “Is a big deal. But Drew and Ollie made it work.”

“Ollie had to give up his inheritance. And look what happened to Silas. His rich and powerful married boyfriend dropped him like a bad habit once he thought his fortune would suffer.”

“Silas probably was his bad habit,” Jericho says dismissively. “And to be honest, he should have known better. Graham Lawther ? Jesus. Anyone could have told him where that disaster was headed.”

“He was in love.”

“He’s better off. And if Silas ever starts coming around again, it’s gonna be my mission to remind him.”

“That’s probably why he’s not coming around,” I tell her with a look meant to convey that she needs to lay off him.

“Sorry.” She takes a sip of her hibiscus tea. “I’d rather talk about you anyway. What’s the plan? ”

“There’s not one as far as I know. I figure if he’s planning to leave her, he’ll let me know, and it hasn’t come up. So, I guess it stays like it is.”

“Is that okay with you?”

“It’s not like he’s sleeping with both of us.”

“And you’re a hundred percent sure about that?”

“As sure as I can be without twenty-four-seven body cam footage,” I say. I think about the way he kissed me in Rome—like it had been so, so long since he’d kissed anyone he truly wanted. It wasn’t the kind of kiss that left a lot of room for doubt. None of our kisses are.

“You trust him,” she surmises.

“I do.”

“That’s good. And you talk?”

I nod.

“But you’re worried about his wife?”

“She’s kinda scary.”

“How?”

I can’t tell Jericho what I know about Graham and Silas, but I want to give her a hint. “I get the impression she doesn’t get mad, she gets even.”

“I don’t see Gibson letting anything bad happen to you?—”

“If he knows about it,” I say.

“If she tries anything, just tell him.”

“He’s been so fucking paranoid, Jer. He’s been moving money around, locking his accounts, calling up favors. It’s like he’s expecting a war.”

“So, he is planning to leave her.”

“I don’t know. He thinks she might be about to try and leave him. But it doesn’t make sense to me that out of nowhere she’d do that.”

Jericho gives her head a quick shake, her tight, natural curls bouncing above her bare shoulders. “Okay, so there’s nothing you or I can do about the logistics of their marriage. Tell me what I’m here for.”

“Am I a terrible person if I don’t want to leave him if he stays married to her?”

“Chris… no . You’ve never been a terrible person, and you never could be. His situation is complicated, but your relationship with him doesn’t have to be. But do you really not want him to divorce her?”

“Not for me …”

“Why not for you?”

I shrug and look down at my menu. “What if I don’t live up to the hype? What if I’m his big rebound? I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong—he should absolutely divorce her—he’s miserable. He was so unhappy when I took the assistant job.”

“He looks pretty happy to me,” she says.

“Sometimes,” I admit.

“And other than the bleeding out part, you seem good, too.”

“Half the time I feel delirious, and the other half, I wanna puke.”

She laughs. “Sounds about right.”

“He’s amazing, right?”

“Yes, Christian. He’s lovely. Handsome, smart, funny, totally into you.”

“So, I’m not crazy. I’m not missing something—some huge red flag?”

“Not at all. He’s exactly as obsessed with you as I want him to be.”

That makes my cheeks heat. “Thanks.”

I get a text and check my phone.

Gibson

She’s back

“Here we go,” I mutter, tapping out a quick response.

Can I see you later, or do you want to wait?

Nothing’s changed. I’ll text you after dinner.

I frown. Does that mean they’re having dinner together? Should that bother me?

Okay

I’m about to put my phone in my pocket, but he texts again.

I love you

It makes my breath catch. I can’t let that go unacknowledged, so I remind him I’m right there with him.

I love you. Can’t wait to see you.

I shut off the screen and pocket the phone before I get choked up and start spilling every last gut I have into a long text while Jericho sits silently and watches.

“All good?” she asks.

“I hope so.”

I don’t hear from Gibson again until after nine. I get so little done after lunch, that I end up heading across the park to the west side to look for abandoned properties. I’ve been walking for over two hours when he texts me. My nerves are raw, my thoughts are a mess, and my hand is shaking as I click to open his message.

Gibson

Where are you?

Walking. You home?

At the club.

I’ll meet you there.

Should I prepare the bench, or are you just being accommodating?

I don’t even have to think about it.

Bench.

When I arrive at the club, I’m clean, inside and out. I feel like I haven’t seen Gibson in a month even though we woke up together in my bed again this morning.

He rises from his chair the second he spots me and walks to his private room. I walk through the door he holds open and wait until he closes it before I turn to face him.

He looks okay. Still in the suit I left him in, minus the jacket and tie. Not looking any more troubled than usual. “Check in with me,” he says.

“I’m good.”

“A walk?”

“Yeah, I went on a walk.”

This room is not nearly big enough for the elephant inside it.

I need him to strap me to the bench and move on with the night. Something needs out of me in a way I haven’t needed in a while.

“Christian…”

I give my head a shake and take off my shirt, turning my back on him. I push down my pants where I’m bare underneath, and strip them off along with my shoes. I look at the bench, considering it a moment. I’ve only ever been face down on it before, but what if I weren’t?

It wouldn’t be comfortable…

His hands are on my waist. His mouth on my neck. I stiffen as air rushes into my lungs. He rubs his palms across my abdomen, down and back up my thighs, then over my hips. “I’m trusting you tonight,” he says.

“Is there a way to do this face up?”

He groans, bending his forehead to rub the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. “Mmhm.”

“Show me.”

“Baby…” He kisses my shoulder and folds his arms over my stomach. “I don’t know if I can do this…”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I…” He stops speaking abruptly to clear his throat. When he starts again, his voice is rough. “This is what you need?”

I nod, my limbs aching to be stretched. My skin tingling to be struck. So many crowded, useless thoughts, desperate to be dispersed.

“It’s been a few weeks. What’s your safe word?”

“Sacrifice.”

He squeezes my hips tightly before letting me go. Walking to the nightstand, he opens the bottom drawer with the restraints, pulling out handcuffs and some plain leather straps.

He approaches me. “Wrists,” he says flatly.

I put them together, and he handcuffs me.

“You’ll want to straddle the bench first.”

I kneel on the lower ledges of the bench, my thighs straddling the top.

“Move all the way to the end,” Gibson says.

Putting my bound hands on the other end of the bench, I scoot forward, my shins comfortable on the cushioned leather. But he solves that problem quickly enough .

“Hold on, or you’ll lose your balance.”

I grip the edge with my fingertips as he straps my right ankle to my right thigh, effectively eliminating my leg’s contact with the bench. He does the same on my left side. I have to engage my core in order not to fall.

Once my legs are immobilized, he grabs the chain between the handcuffs, places a hand on my lower back and guides my arms over my head.

My back bends until my spine rests along the leather top, but my arms keep moving until they’re stretched over and behind my head. Another clunk of a lock secures the handcuffs low on the bench.

He straps my chest down before adding what feels like a pillow beneath my ass that lifts it slightly. It puts a strain in my back that extends from the tops of my thighs to my wrists. I’ve been holding my breath, and I let it out now, secure at least that I won’t fall. I test my mobility and almost nothing moves. My hips, maybe a little, from side to side. My neck is free, but with my arms hyperextended, it’s difficult to raise my head. Even my skin feels stretched taut.

“Do you feel safe?” he asks, his voice low and inflectionless.

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“The way you need?”

I don’t know how to answer that. Is he asking me if this is enough?

I hiss when a clamp bites down on one of my nipples and yelp when the same thing happens to the other. “Open your mouth.”

I do. He inserts something and tells me to bite. I close my mouth over a silicone circle I can stick my tongue through. But when I turn to face him, the tug on my nipples is so extreme, I whimper. The clamps are connected to the ring. A strap around the base of my skull secures the whole contraption, and I start to sweat. My breaths, out of necessity, are shallow.

He runs a hand down the center of my chest, my abs, and grazes the hair leading to my cock. “You do look gorgeous like this, though.”

He dips his head. His tongue licks over the tips of my stinging nipples, and I let out another helpless sound. He grasps my flaccid cock and gives it a few tugs. I shut my eyes as the pain and quick jolts of pleasure battle it out for my attention. There’s a shocking amount of both so it’s impossible for my thoughts to settle. We just started, and I’m already half out of my mind.

“I can’t hit you like this. I can only torture you,” he says, sucking too hard on my nipple, making a sound very close to a scream come out. A scream, and drool.

He jerks me quicker, my dick unable to decide whether to get hard or not.

I manage a semi eventually, and he sucks it into his mouth.

I make more noise, but he’s quiet. Not just because he’s sucking my cock, but quiet in general. I want to touch him, but I can’t move my arms. I want to say something, but there’s a fucking ring gag in my mouth. I want to move my hips, but they’re so jacked up, there’s nowhere for them to go. I moan, but not because I’m surrendering. I’m resisting.

I try to relax my tense muscles. Close my eyes and breathe through my nose. I focus as much as I can on the feel of his wet mouth, his swirling tongue, the slight buzzing hum in my balls. It feels good. It does, and I am getting hard, slowly, but his movements feel so mechanical. There’s no sound from him, none of the passion I crave—the need. He’s going through the motions, and it strikes me that so am I.

This is the last thing I need tonight. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. It isn’t right.

Sacrifice.

I fight to concentrate on the word. To remember what it meant to me that day in Rome. Why did I feel more suffering was required of me to absolve myself of the guilt over Trinity’s unnecessary death.

I’m forgiven, aren’t I? Surely by now, after all this time, any god could forgive a teenage boy for not realizing a face on a phone screen in the middle of the night was that of a dead girl and not a sleeping one. He can forgive him for thinking about how pretty she was—how he wanted to hold her and tell her it wouldn’t always be so bad. That one day they’d grow up and leave that town and her church behind.

And if He can’t, I’ve already forgiven myself. I’ve let her go. A few tears leak from the corners of my eyes as the truth washes through me, overwhelming both the pain and pleasure.

“ Sacrifice. ”

My mouth can’t do shit.

He huffs like my indecisive dick is starting to piss him off. I try the safe word again, try to shove the ring out of my mouth with my teeth and tongue, but the tight strap around my head makes it impossible. As a last resort, I snap my fingers as loud as I can. His mouth pops off my cock, and he glances up at me. “Did you snap?”

If I nod, I might rip my nipples off, but he’s experienced enough as a Dom to look harder—and he knows me well enough to read what’s behind my eyes.

Looking stricken, he moves quickly, reaching behind my head to unbuckle the gag then hooking a finger around the ring to yank it from my mouth. The word tumbles out. “Sacrifice. Stop. Please. Please, I don’t want this.”

His brow draws over dark eyes that look too full. His whisper is harsh. “Thank fucking God.”

With his hands on my cheeks, he presses his lips to mine. The kiss lasts only a few seconds before he ducks his head and chokes back a sob. When he kisses me again, I taste his tears on his lips.