To Say I Love You (21 page)

“Yes, of course. Hi.”

“Hi,” I said, reaching over Will to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

I had a feeling I’d be saying that a lot.

“You too.”

“Matthew and I have been working together for a few years,” Will explained. “But in different offices. This project has put us in the same room for the first time.”

“He’s probably sick of the sight of me,” Matthew said, and for some reason, I didn’t like the guy. He was too friendly, if that could be a thing, too intimate with my partner. The naughty wink he punctuated his words with didn’t help. “We ended up pulling an all-nighter last week.”

“Oh?” I asked. He hadn’t told me about that.

“Not like you do when you’re pushing a deadline. We were out by midnight. Jesse works as a curator in a museum in Seattle,” he explained.

“That’s a long commute.”

Now I definitely disliked the guy.

“We moved here to be close to my family after my mother died,” I said bluntly.

“I thought I’d mentioned that,” Will said, clearly embarrassed, although Matthew didn’t seem fazed.

“Sorry for your loss.” He wasn’t. “Silver linings, though. Atlanta is a great city.”

“We live out of town.”

Will squeezed my knee under the table, a little too tight. I took the hint and shut up.

The couple sitting to my right, an older guy named Roger and his wife, Sally, were much better company, and I focused my attention in their direction as the first course was served.

I tried not to look at Will, sure that I would only get more frustrated. These events usually ended up being either a big bitch-fest, with Will’s colleagues all taking it in turns to complain about the company and the work or other colleagues, or just an extension of the working day. Neither option was particularly fun for me, especially when people would look at me and wonder how much I knew about all the secret projects.

Will was clearly annoyed with me for not immediately warming to Matthew. As the evening grew on, I decided he was a grade-A douche bag.

From all the years Will and I had been together, I knew he was fairly oblivious when it came to flirting. It was different when I did it because he already knew I was interested in him. Watching Matthew flirt with my boyfriend made me want to scream.

They were touching each other far more than necessary, leaning in close to murmur in each other’s ears so neither me, Matthew’s wife, nor the other diners could hear what they were saying. Matthew laughed too loudly at things Will was saying, things I couldn’t quite catch, and they brushed me off when I asked them to explain.

Matthew’s wife looked bored, and I wondered if she even knew what was going on, or cared that her husband was being such an outrageous flirt with another man. I tried to catch her eye across the table, to try to silently ask if she could see it. But she was ignoring me.

“Do you want another glass of wine?” I asked Will, pushing back from my seat before the entrées were served.

He nodded. “Please.”

“Red?”

The word was pointed. If my boyfriend was ignoring me, then maybe my Master would listen when I used my safeword. It was the word I used to tell him to stop immediately, that I was scared or hurt or panicking. I might not have been tied up or feeling the lick of a whip, but I was definitely hurt. I was close to panicking. He gave me a funny look, then smiled.

“That would be great.”

I left for the bar with an uncomfortable pressure in my chest.

The bartender was cute, so I flirted with him a little as he poured two glasses of wine, then left him a decent tip as I took a circuitous route back to the table.

Matthew was leaning in to my boyfriend, saying something else that obviously wasn’t meant to be overheard.

“Hi,” I said a little too loudly, passing Will his glass.

“Thanks.” He gave me a quick smile, then turned back to Matthew. I tried not to seethe.

I couldn’t tell if he knew I was upset and was annoyed with me right back, or if his attention really was just directed at Matthew. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Little things we did all the time—hooking ankles under the table, rubbing our knees together, his hand brushing mine—he wouldn’t do.

Before dessert I excused myself to the bathroom, and when I was washing my hands, Will walked in.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.

I forced myself to take a deep breath before replying. “Not in public,” I said evenly. “If you don’t see what’s going on… I’ll talk to you later.”

I could practically hear his back teeth grinding as I passed—something he only did when he was really upset. By the time the waiters came around with tiny, perfect cheesecakes, I was ready to jump into my dad’s car and drive straight back to the house. Fuck him and fuck his fancy dinner.

I didn’t care that he had friends at work—I
liked
a lot of the people I’d met at these things. Matthew was just… very different. Slick and charming and probably came from the same sort of background as Will. He was rich, from the “right sort” of people. And my folks were dirt-poor.

If that wasn’t enough, he was definitely sliming all over my boyfriend.

I’d always thought Will was pretty observant, but he seemed oblivious to the smarmy bastard. He was laughing at his jokes and actually leaning in when Matthew touched his arm or his shoulder.

When they came round with brandy and coffee, I declined both, content to keep my wine and my dignity.

“Do you want to take this on to a bar?” Matthew asked, looking first at his wife (whose name I hadn’t bothered to remember), then Will. “There are a few places nearby.”

Will didn’t look at me, so I ran my hand down his thigh. It was time for a different approach.

“I’m pretty tired,” I said, letting my hand trail lightly back up his leg, toward his crotch.

He shot me an annoyed look. “Are you sure?”

Was I sure I wanted to fuck him? Hell, no. We were both revving up for an argument, but if we were going to do that, I wanted to be in a private space, not in the middle of the bar after Matthew made the mistake of grinding on my man. Which he surely would.

I nodded, biting back the acerbic “Do what the fuck you want” that was on the tip of my tongue. Despite everything, I didn’t want to walk out of the dinner looking like a dick.

“Another time then,” Matthew said, sounding disappointed.

“Sure,” I said tightly.

There weren’t any speeches tonight, thank God, just the dinner as a social event. Jeffrey had done the “thanks for coming” bit at the beginning, so after people had finished eating they started to leave in smaller groups. It was a relief to be free—the food had been good and the company, to my right at least, had been nice.

I’d been set on edge by Matthew, and I didn’t like it at all. I was used to other people looking at Will. He was beautiful, by anyone’s standards. But I’d never felt threatened before.

“I’ll get us a cab,” Will said as we walked outside.

There were a few people already lined up at the curb waiting.

“Do you want to go around the corner?”

He nodded tightly. “Wait here, I’ll come round for you.”

“Are you sure?” I asked lightly, joking. Sort of joking.

I got an eye roll in response, and decided to behave myself by waiting at the end of the block, where he’d indicated. I was in trouble.

No—
he
was in trouble. If he couldn’t see that Matthew had been hitting on him, he was either blind or stupid, and I didn’t like either option much. Even worse, he could know and like the attention, and hadn’t told me about it on purpose.

I didn’t know what to think. It was jealousy, plain and simple, and I couldn’t do anything other than talk to him, which was going to be different if we started screaming at each other. We didn’t fight often. When we did, it could get messy.

It took a few minutes for him to come round in the cab, and I slid silently into the seat next to him. If things had been better between us, I would have made a
Pretty Woman
joke—but this was not the time. The whole cab ride back to the hotel was stony silent, and I could feel the annoyance coming off him in waves.

“Do you want to go out?” I said when the taxi pulled up outside the hotel. “I can go on to bed if you do.”

“I don’t want to go out without you.”

I nodded and paid the driver before he could. I’d put the cash in my pocket while I was waiting for him. The elevator ride was as icy as the car.

Will stormed into the room and yanked at his tie.

“I’m really upset with you,” he said.

“Same.”

“I don’t get why you were so
rude
. You can’t act like that at my work events. Do you have any idea on how that reflects on me?”

“Do you have any idea how I feel when another guy hits on my boyfriend for two hours, and I’m forced to watch him not do anything about it?”

“What are you talking about?” he snapped, tossing his jacket carelessly over the back of a chair. I started to undress too, taking more care and hanging each item up as I went. It was a borrowed suit, after all.

“Matthew is my
friend
, Jesse. And he’s straight.”

“So was I when I met you.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath. He’d rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and pushed his hair back from his face in frustration. Even in his anger, he was fucking gorgeous.

“It’s not easy for me to be the docile, loving housewife when I have to watch someone flirt with you. And you were flirting back! You’ve never even told me about this guy before. How am I supposed to react?”

“Did you ever think,” he said, his voice dangerous, “that maybe I haven’t mentioned him to you because as soon as I walk in the house nothing else matters? All I want is to be with you. The rest of the fucking world disappears.”

“That doesn’t excuse your behavior when we’re in public, though! We deal with enough already without people looking at you and another man and thinking there could be something there.”

“No one other than you is thinking those things, Jesse.”

“You can’t know that.”

His jaw worked, the lines of tension in his neck standing out against his white collar. “You’re jealous.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

That took him aback. “Okay.”

“I don’t have anyone here other than you and my family. Not even my whole family—my dad and Jennifer. I know that’s partly my own doing; I haven’t bothered to reach out and contact any old friends down here. It doesn’t matter, though. All I need is you.”

Will shook his head. “That’s not healthy.”

“I don’t care.” I shrugged. “This whole situation is fucked-up. I know you have friends at work. So do I. That’s not the problem. But I don’t like the way he looks at you, and I don’t like the way you look back.”

“Jesse. I don’t see anyone other than you.”

His words made my conviction wobble. “Please don’t flirt with him.”

He took a step toward me. “I won’t. I promise.”

Another step. Then another.

“Will—” I started, but he was already in my arms. He clung to me like a drowning man, like I was the only person who could save him.

“Don’t do this to me, okay?” His words were mumbled into my shoulder. “I can’t lose you.”

“You’re not losing me. That’s what I’m afraid of. Losing you. You don’t know how other people see you. You’re fucking hot, Will, and people notice. Plus, you’re the sweetest guy, and—”

He kissed me. He never did like compliments much.

“There’s really nothing there?” I asked, pulling away. I needed this reassurance, even if asking for it made me feel like a dick.

“No. No.”

“If….” My thoughts led me down a dangerous path, but I voiced them anyway. “If I met Matthew tonight, and I thought he was hot, and I asked you if we could bring him back here and fuck him, what would you have said?”

Will frowned. “I don’t know.” Sensing he was thinking it over, I stayed silent, waiting for a proper answer. “I’m really not attracted to him.”

“Not even for a quick-and-dirty fuck?”

“No.” He sounded more confident this time. “It would make working with him weird, and it’s like… you know when you sort of daydream about someone? When you’re crushing on them. You wonder what they look like naked and what they taste like, and how big their dick is.”

“Yeah,” I said with a smile, running my hand up and down his arm.

“I’ve never thought that about him. Not even curiously. So no, I wouldn’t have brought him back here.”

That was enough. I wanted to put Matthew behind us—for now, at least, I was sure he’d be around again in the future. I couldn’t get rid of him that easily.

“How about someone else?”

He gave me a funny look. “You wanna have another threesome?”

I shrugged. “Do you?”

We had done threesomes in the past, with varying degrees of success. After the first time we had to deal with the jealousy that was probably inevitable, but the next time we tried it, it was more linked to our D/s relationship. Threesomes could be fun. We had some rules that protected us both: we both only topped, so the third had to be a bottom. And it had to be someone we agreed on.

“Maybe,” he said with a grin. “I got a lot of offers when we played at the club last. A lot of requests too. People want you, Jess.”

“They want you too. We should think about it.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

That night, we didn’t have sex despite having been apart for a few days. The separation normally made us want each other more than normal, but the argument still lingered and even though I was over it, I wasn’t yet ready for that intimacy.