He blew out a long breath, suddenly looking exhausted. “If this were a normal arrangement, like if we were at a club or something, I’d talk with you about what made you safe word. We could see if there were ways to adjust things to make it work for you. But you’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t want to talk about…anything at all with me. I thought maybe we could work around that, but this proves we can’t. There’s got to be some level of trust there and there’s not. And if you’re not willing to talk to me like a human being, there never will be.”
Elle stared at him, absorbing the words and trying to process them. She didn’t know how to deal with him when she wasn’t fighting with him. So she said the only thing she could. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Something akin to relief loosened his expression. “Okay, honesty. Good. I can work with that.” He stepped closer. “How about you start by telling me what made you safe word? There’s no wrong answer. You can call the word for any reason at all, but I can’t help or adjust things if I don’t know. Was I scaring you? Are you just not into it tonight?”
She closed her eyes. Breathed. “No, it’s the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“You having sex with a client and then coming here. I can’t—” Her voice caught and she shook her head.
“Hey…” The word was soft against her senses.
But she didn’t let him finish. If she was going to say it, she needed to do it now before she chickened out. “My ex-husband cheated on me, all r
ight? He used to fuck someone else and then would crawl in bed with me.” She dared a glance up. “I found out later that he’d sometimes…get me to go down on him, knowing he hadn’t used a condom with her. Some private joke or fetish or whatever.”
Mild horror crossed Lane’s face and his breath whooshed out of him.
The confession hung heavy in the air, and she immediately wanted to snatch it back. It was so goddamned humiliating. She closed her eyes again, shame burning through her.
Hands cupped her shoulders. “Elle…”
The pity she heard in his voice was enough to snap her out of the moment. She opened her eyes and shrugged out of his hold. “Never mind. Just go please. You’re right. I don’t want to talk to you.”
But Lane didn’t move away. Instead he shifted closer, putting his hands on her face. “Hey, look at me.”
“Don’t therapy me, Cannon. I swear to God, I will knee you in the balls.”
He met her eyes, his gaze steady. “I didn’t have sex with someone else and then come here. I wouldn’t do that to you. That’s the trust part we have to find.”
She let out a breath. “Oh.”
His hands moved down to her shoulders. “I’m not going to pretend I have a different job, but I also respect you enough to be upfront. I spent most of my day trying to rewrite a paper, which has sucked up a lot of my week, and then tonight I sat in on a session with Marin and a client we’re both working with. I planned to call you tomorrow, but when I drove by and saw the TV light flickering, I couldn’t resist. That’s it. No ulterior motives or plans to piss you off.” He smiled. “Okay, maybe I enjoy pissing you off a little.”
She smirked. “And getting me to confess my embarrassing secrets.”
“That’s not embarrassing. That’s your ex being an abusive asshole. Don’t discount what it was.”
“Knee to the balls, Lane,” she warned. “Knee. To. The. Balls.”
He raised his palms. “No therapy, I promise. Plus, I don’t want you to turn that shit around on me. I was an escort. My tales of things I’ve had to do would keep a therapist in business for years.”
She smiled at that. “Well, now you’ve got me curious. I need the most embarrassing one ever. Then, we can be even.”
He shook his head. “No way. I made no deals.”
Now she was the one to stalk forward. “Come on, Cannon. Don’t be a scaredy-cat. We’re building trust here, right? Trust involves dirt. You’ve got some of mine, now I need some of yours.”
“Now you want to talk about trust? When you can scent blood in the water? You’re ruthless, doc.”
She stopped in front of him and put a finger to his chest. “Spill.”
He gave a put-upon sigh. “Fine. I was once hired for a bachelorette party. They used me for party games.”
Elle let the hand she’d pointed with flatten out on his chest, enjoying the feel of his heart beating against her palm. Based on the quick beat, he was more nervous saying this stuff than he was letting on. That comforted her somehow. “What kind of party games?”
He pressed his hand over hers and slid it lower until it was resting at his waist. “One was naked charades. Another involved tossing plastic rings at me. I’ll let you figure out what they were trying to ring.”