“You don’t know that.”
“Do people buy your books?”
“Yes.”
“Do they like them?”
She nodded. “Oh yes, I get a lot of messages from people who enjoy them. Of course, there are people who don’t like them either.”
“All right, if I don’t like them then I won’t tell you.”
“No, I don’t want you to lie to me. I just…I don’t know. It feels like letting you read them would be like standing up in front of an auditorium full of people naked.”
“What if I looked up your name?”
“I write under a pseudonym.”
“Huh. All right, I won’t push.” For now. “But just know that I’m dying to read them.” He cleared his throat. Time to open up. “I’m not the best at talking about stuff that has affected me.”
“I get that,” she said quietly.
“You know a bit about my parents. Archer didn’t know the full truth of what happened. Not until I told him the other day, after our argument. We sat down and talked it out.”
“Oh, so that’s why you guys had some tension between you.”
“It was one reason. Most of it was my fault. I never told him what happened, and he believed my parents’ version. I was in medical school, but I’d come home for the holidays. I tried not to do that, especially if Archer wasn’t going to be around as a buffer. I was always the second fiddle to him. Not that he wanted it that way.
“Anyway, Archer wasn’t able to get home. All flights into Chicago had been grounded due to snow. I’d just made it home. Lucky me. My parents weren’t happy. You could tell they wished it was the other way around and it was Archer who had made it home, not me.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. This time, he didn’t tell her to put her hand back. He started to gently massage it. She let out a low noise of pleasure.
“You give the best massages,” she muttered.
“Why thank you, baby doll. I promise my hands have multiple talents.”
She stared at him for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter. “That was terrible.”
“Huh, it was some of my best work.”
She gave him a soft smile. “It wasn’t even close to your best work. Tell me the rest.”
He sighed. “So you know my mother caught me watching BDSM porn. I had just started to explore my sexuality. I was exploring what I liked. At the time, I wasn’t sure what exactly that was. I just knew I liked the feeling of being in control in the bedroom. Mother had a fit. She told my father what she’d seen. They went through my room. Found some magazines. And some stuff on age play that I’d been looking up on my computer. I wasn’t sure I was even into that. That I wanted to be a Daddy Dom. I was just curious. I told you how they reacted. They thought I was depraved. That I needed to be reformed and when I wouldn’t agree, they kicked me out. It was Christmas time. I had no way of getting back to college. My granddad died the year before; besides Archer, he was the one I was closest to.”
“Those assholes.”
“I was walking down the road when a neighbor stopped and asked me what was wrong. I just point blank told him. He took me into his house. I spent two nights there before flights resumed and I could get back to college. I was there a week before college admin called me in and told me that my parents were refusing to pay my tuition. I had three months left then had to make my own way.”
“Oh, Issy, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
“I know it doesn’t measure up to what happened to you—”
“What are you talking about? They kicked you out at Christmas. Cut you off. There is nothing that isn’t bad about that. And you never told Archer?”
“Well…I just figured Archer would take their side. They were always close to him. So, I ignored his calls until he came to talk to me in person. By that time, he was angry. Our parents told him that I’d stormed out after arguing over something and had refused to come back.”
“So they straight-out lied to him.”
“Yep.”