Page 14 of Regal Feather
“I don’t think so.” I wasn’t sure. Just as I wasn’t sure what the glint in his blue eyes meant. “I mean, you don’t have to. I don’t wanna do anything with you because you feel obligated to.”
“Easy.” Santos moved his hand to the back of my neck and squeezed. He did that a lot when we were in school and shared one of those two-seat desks. Every time the teachers weren’t looking, he squeezed or massaged the back of my neck, and it helped me sound more confident when it was my turn to read out loud or answer a question. “For the record, I don’t wanna do anything with you because you feel obligated to, either.”
“What does that mean?”
Santos sighed. It was a heavy sound, one he didn’t usually make. Not like this. It angered me that his baggage was this much darker now. “Did you bring up fucking because you want to go back to how things were, or because you want to be a good sub to your Dom?”
“No, I mean…” I clamped my mouth shut. This was much easier to do when there was a screen in between us, and there was no pressure and no words to get tangled up. “I’ll…I’ve come to accept that I’ll always want to please a Domm, but I would never say yes to something that I don’t want.”
That couldn’t be considered a good explanation.
I forced my gaze to the floor, to his bare feet. The floor here was freezing cold. I had to get him a pair of slippers. I preferredfluffy socks with an anti-slippery sole, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate those. He never liked clothes that were too thick. A sensory thing, he’d explained once. They made him itchy.
“So, you want me to fuck you while your dick is in a cage and you can’t come.”
“I can, technically, come. I just can’t get hard.” And my orgasms were ruined, but I didn’t focus on that. “Also, it’s a clit for…kinky times.”
He was going to quit this sham of a job. I’d always been too much for the people who didn’t immediately discard me, thinking I was too little.
Santos hadn’t seen me in person in years, texts and calls aside. He had just come back from the military, for fuck’s sake, and there were adjustment periods and other shit León and Carlos talked about sometimes. I should be giving him that space, not shocking him with all my fem clothing and asking him to fuck me and call my dick a clit.
“Hey.” When I didn’t move, Santos pushed me toward his chest. His furnace-hot, naked chest full of the thinnest blonde fuzz. “That’s hot.”
“You think?”
Santos snorted. “Not that I think I’d mind, but remember the pesky tiny detail of me being bi? You could have any equipment, and I’d want in.”
I pretended to hit him in the arm. It obviously didn’t do much more than caress him. “I remember everything.”
“Yeah.” He buried his face against my hair. “So do I.”
I hummed. “Bed?”
“Y-yeah.” I let him basically carry me to the other end of the hallway. I had a feeling he was using the show of strength to recompose himself, and I didn’t mind being manhandled anyway. “Hey, I forgot to ask you the other day. When you sendhim pictures and videos and whatever, you’re staying safe, right? Not showing your face or anything?”
I bounced on the bed where he’d dropped me twice before I could answer. “Pinky swear. There’s nothing recognizable. He’s heard my voice, but I’ve never shown my face, and I don’t have any ink or anything else that could get back to me.”
“Okay.” He nodded—probably more to himself than me.
I waited him out for what felt like a full minute of him hesitating by the foot of the bed. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just sleep.”
Was it an out he was searching for? I couldn’t tell for certain. So much had changed and so much had stayed the same… My head throbbed trying to make sense of it all.
“I’m just…” Santos shook his head. I bet the buzz cut was bothering him. It had been a point of contention throughout his teens. His family hated his curls, and he loved the way they framed his face. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself. I don’t mean with you, but I know we haven’t been the same. And I’m…I’m sorry.”
“Santos.” I sat up right away, legs crossed, and everything about whether or not he was going to fuck me forgotten. “It’s okay, I’m the one who just dumped all my mess on you. You can take all the time and all the space and everything you need. I don’t want to make things worse for you.”
He snorted, then ran a hand through his hair. It bothered me that he was still at a distance. “You don’t make shit worse for me, babes.”
He hadn’t called me that in years.
I tried to hide my reaction, but I bet I was making a shit job out of it.
Which might’ve been a good thing. Whatever he saw had him getting on the bed, pulling at the sheets until I got the memo and got under with him.
“Your new friends know how fucking touch-starved you are?”
“No, I’m…” I frowned. I was touch-starved, but this wasn’t the time to go down that rabbit hole. “I don’t think they know.”
