Page 69 of Regal Feather
“He said Mondays would be best, and weekends are out, but other than that, whenever.”
“Monday is good.”
It was still four days away, but I could distract myself until then. Maybe text Jaime and get something out of them. It might get us both into trouble because Jaime was a gossip, and therewas no way they wouldn’t pester Tony about it if they hadn’t started already, but these were dire circumstances.
Jaime didn’t help.They just got on my nerves checking in that I was comfortable with Tony coming over and threatened me more than a few times with not making shit easy for their Dom.
And now Tony was here, looking like he belonged in a way that didn’t surprise me, given his family name. In a way, I’d never felt like I belonged within the ornate walls.
I envied his confidence so fucking badly.
“Morning, Ev.” Before it could become obvious that I was frozen to the spot, Tony patted my shoulder. Just like that. Like it didn’t make my heart beat that much faster. “Green looks good on you.”
“T-thanks.”
Fuck.
I hadn’t stuttered around him—around anyone in Plumas—in a while. It had been some sort of record.
Tony didn’t mention it. He just gave Santos one of those manly handshakes that had always made me anxious and asked if he could have a glass of water, which got us all moving to the kitchen.
A glass of water was a good idea.
I knew what Tony was doing—getting a lay of the land, and finding a way to get us moving and acting more naturally. I didn’t know about Santos. I couldn’t read him whenever he’d brought up today and had tried to discuss expectationsand boundaries and the kind of things I should’ve paid more attention to.
I could read how clammy my palms were getting just fine, though.
“So, Ev.” I gulped. Of course Tony was going to focus on me first, even though this was technically Santos’s idea. “What are you in the mood for?”
“Huh?”
Sue me, that wasn’t the question I’d expected.
Tony just smirked. “What are you okay with? Do you want us to sit down and talk about kink history? Do you want me to watch and give your man pointers? Do you want me to demonstrate?”
Fuck.
Okay, that was more along the lines of what I’d expected.
Surprising no one, it didn’t exactly help. Glancing Santos’s way didn’t, either. He reminded me of myself when I’d first started attending workshops. Wanting to try out everything at once because everything looked shiny and fun and alluring.
He had said he was cool with Tony having more of a hands-on approach with me, though. I knew he had. I trusted him.
It still took a minute to push the words out.
“You can touch, Sir. Or…demonstrate,” I corrected quickly. Language was important. I didn’t know if the distinction was important here, but I wasn’t going to start us off with a lesson on why I was a mess if I could help it. “I’ll use my colors if I need to.”
“Well, of course you will.” He turned toward Santos then. “Do you use green, yellow, red as safe words?”
Santos exchanged a look with me. “Kind of.”
“Kind of.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to earn any of us any points.
“He knows they’re my safe words, Sir.” The fact that I couldn’t stop fidgeting while I spoke wouldn’t, either. “I just haven’t used them with him.”
“Because you didn’t need to?”
