Page 25 of The Comfort Trap

"Isn't it?" he snaps, shoving his plate away so hard the plastic fork skitters across the table and clatters to the floor. "You used the safeword. I promised myself it’d never get to that, and itblindsided me. You know what that means? It means I didn't ask you for color enough. I didn't check in to make sure you were okay. I kept taking and taking, until I made you feel unsafe."

"That’s not what happened. It’s… complicated. It upset me knowing I had a limit, it wasn’t your fault," I admit.

"What?" he scoffs, but the edge in his tone has softened. "What are you talking about? Everyone has a limit. I didn't ask you for color enough."

"I didn't think I had a limit with you." I wring my fingers together, taking a steady breath. "What I’m trying to say, Patrick… is that I would have said green, even if I didn't mean it." The last part slips out before I can stop it, surprising both of us.

Patrick's eyes widen, the anger in them replaced by something else—concern, maybe, or understanding. "Ricardo, that's a problem."

"I know," I say, the words barely a whisper, defeated. “That’s why I’m bringing it up. That, and the fact that for some reason you’re seeing the safeword as a sign that you did something wrong.”

I set my food down, the eggplant already cold and unappetizing. I move around the table, dropping into the chair beside him, close enough that our knees touch.

"It's not your fault, Patrick," I continue, trying to make eye contact, but he's looking anywhere but at me. "I'm the one who couldn't handle it. I'm the one who didn't say yellow, or tell you when my heart started racing for the wrong reason."

"I pushed you," he says with a bone-deep weariness that makes my heart ache.

"You didn't. I didn't give you any reason to stop." I take a deep breath, forcing myself to be honest, to lay it all out there. "I don't know what happened to me that night. I wanted to be there, with you. I wanted it to be perfect. But when you cuffed my wrists...That’s when I should have said something. I felt trapped, and I told you green."

Patrick's hand finally reaches out, his fingers brushing against my thigh in a tentative touch. "Why?"

"I have a hard time saying no to you," I say, covering his hand with my own. "I don't want this to be the end of us, Patrick. I don't want to lose you because I can't handle a little fucking bondage."

He finally looks at me directly. "It's not just about that," he says. "It's about communication. You didn't trust me enough to tell me how you really felt about something, and I don't know how to fix that."

“I can work on this," I argue, squeezing his hand. "Every day. I promise. That night... that was a momentary lapse. It doesn't define us."

He shakes his head, his gaze slipping away again. "You keep saying it's not a big deal, but it feels like one. I need to be able to trust you to tell me when something's wrong, and you need to trust me to stop. If we can't do that, we shouldn't keep diving deeper into this… And we need to figure out how to fix that, Ricky. I’m scared we’re not going to work, and I don’t want to lose you. I can’t."

His words hang in the air. I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, and one wrong move will send me tumbling into the abyss.

"I’m not going anywhere," I say, hoping he can hear the truth in it. "I love you, Patrick, and I need you to be patient with me. We’ll work through this together."

He's quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing circles on my thigh. He’s trying to find the right words. "I can be patient," he finally says. "But I need you to promise me something."

"Anything," I say, because it's true. I'd give him anything to fix this.

"Don't lie to me," he says. "If you're not okay, you tell me. Even if it ruins the moment, even if it's the middle of sex, I don't care. You tell me. No more pretending you’re okay with something when you’re not."

I nod, the weight of his words settling over me. "I promise," I whisper, and I mean it. I won't let this happen again. I won't let him down.

He lets out a shaky breath, and his shoulders slump with relief. "Okay," he says, his hand sliding up to rest on my knee. "We'll figure this out together."

"Together," I echo. And finally, it feels like we might actually be okay.

I lean in, pressing a kiss to his temple, my lips lingering against his skin. He sighs, his body relaxing into mine, and I feel a flicker of hope that maybe we can find our way back to each other. We stay tangled up for who knows how long, the food getting cold on the table while the rest of the world just fucking fades away.

And then I realize—the weirdest part of this whole clusterfuck wasn't saying "snail" in the first place. It was what happened after. Patrick didn't get mad at me. Didn't give me the silent treatment or make me think I'd pissed all over his parade. He stopped, held me, like my comfort was the only thing that mattered, more important than whatever twisted game we were playing.

Maybe that's what I'd been scared shitless about all along. Not the cuffs. Not feeling like a fish out of water. It was the thought that saying no would break him, that I'd let him down somehow. But instead, he looked almost... relieved. Like the fact that I trusted him enough to stop meant more than any fantasy we were chasing.

"I love you, you know that?" I murmur against his hair.

He nods, his hand coming up to cup the back of my neck. "I know," he says, thick with emotion. "I love you, too."

Chapter 14

What Comes After