ent, and unnerving.
Finally, he started talking. “I met Stephen at the campus kink club. It was an unofficial gathering. Everyone invited came by word of mouth. Really just a chance for the same kids to get together and talk about sex every Saturday.”
It sounded like he had fond memories of the club, if not the man he’d met there.
Neil picked up a cube of chalk from the table and juggled it like dice in his hand. “I knew Domination was something I was interested in exploring, and Stephen was very sure of himself and his skills. Naturally, I was flattered that he wanted to train me. He was so good-looking.”
“Yeah, I bet. Look at his sister.” I could admit that Valerie was objectively attractive, even if I didn’t care for her personality.
Wisely, Neil did not overtly agree with my sentiment. He went on, “He was knowledgeable about some things, to his credit. He knew the tools, the differences between types of rope, the wrong places to hit, those basics. We started sleeping together, and I liked him very much. Perhaps too much. I think I fell for him a bit, and I believe he fell for me, too. So, when he suggested that, as part of my training, I should sub for him, I trusted him.
“I didn’t like having my arms tied back then, either, but he convinced me that it was important to know what it felt like. He had this antique wrought iron bed—the first time I slept with him, I thought, ‘that would be good for tying someone up.’” Neil chuckled quietly at the memory, and my heart twisted, because it wasn’t a sound of mirth. “He knelt me in front of the headboard and tied my wrists, and he flogged me. It wasn’t the pain of the flogging so much as my fear of being tied up, but I couldn’t remember my safe word. To this day, I can’t remember what we’d set—this was before I learned about the red, yellow, green method. He…um…”
I patted the couch beside me. “You can sit here, if you want.”
He nodded and gave me a small, grateful bend of his lips. When he sat beside me, I took his hands in mine, stroking my thumbs across the backs. He looked down at them, and in a very soft voice, he said, “He… Christ, I’m so embarrassed.”
I didn’t push him.
Eventually, he said, “He fucked me. And he wasn’t careful. It wasn’t something we’d agreed upon beforehand. Perhaps because we’d done it before, he thought… I was…” His breath shuddered from him. “I begged him. And he didn’t stop. I was so desperate to get away, Sophie. I can’t begin to describe to you how terrifying it was. Sometimes, I think he knew that I was in distress and he was just a sadistic bastard. Other times, I wonder if he was just so inexperienced, he didn’t know better.”
I knew which one I believed, but it wasn’t up to me to convince Neil either way.
He sat up and pulled his hands back, rubbing them on his thighs as though he would wipe away the bad memory. “The rest you know. I fought the ropes and separated my shoulder. I was in agony. It was only after he finished that he realized I’d hurt myself.”
You weren’t the one who hurt you, Neil, I thought, and my mouth moved to say so, but I stopped myself in the nick of time. It wasn’t my place to tell him what he probably already knew. He was sharing one of the most horrible experiences of his life with me, and I wanted to jump in and correct him?
“When I asked him why he would do that to me…” Neil shook his head. “As I said, I don’t know whether he was lying or inexperienced.”
My helplessness choked me. I didn’t want him to have gone through that, but there was nothing, no force on Earth, that could erase that part of his life. He’d been irreparably cut apart; though he’d stitched himself together, the scar would remain. No matter how much I loved him, no matter how unfair it was for him to have to carry this around in his head, it couldn’t be changed.
I felt like smashing a wine bottle of my own.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t express anything, really. He just shrugged. “That’s what happened. Now, I need you to tell me that knowing all of this doesn’t lessen your opinion of me.”
“Neil! Of course—”
“I know it doesn’t,” he interrupted me. “I just need to hear it.”
“Okay.” I took his hands again and held them over my heart. “Neil Elwood. My opinion of you is not at all lessened from knowing this about you. This doesn’t change the way I feel about you. Nothing like that ever would.”
He folded me into a hug and whispered, “Thank you,” beside my ear.
The relief in him was palpable; he was almost dead weight in my arms. I think I had assumed some of his tension, because the only thought in my head was that Stephen’s book had to be stopped. I refused to let that man hurt Neil again. If there was a way to stop it, we would.
CHAPTER FIVE
Leaving London was good for both of us. So much negative emotion had bubbled up there, the entire city would have to be pressure washed with happiness and gumdrops before anyone would convince me to go back. On the flight home, everyone was exhausted, so we didn’t have to explain our tension to Emma and Michael, although I suspected they’d seen the broken bottle in the hallway. But they didn’t ask, and bringing it up would just alert them to the real problem, so it was fine if they thought we’d had some kind of throw-down fight.
We flew into JFK and briefly considered just going to the Fifth Avenue apartment, but I wanted badly to be back in our own bed, and Neil agreed. I called Deja and told her I wouldn’t be coming back to work until Wednesday. I’d planned to return on Monday, and I hated missing more work after a week away, but with the other development, I wanted more time with Neil, just to be sure he was all right.
I could tell that he was coming around a little when I woke up beside him on Monday and found him staring at the ceiling.
“I think I’ll go to the track today.”
There are no words to express how grateful I was that he was pulling himself out of the sad, stressed funk that had surrounded him since we’d gotten home. I leaned up on my elbows. “That’s great, baby. I think it would do you a lot of good.”
“You should come with me,” he said, and my stomach dropped. I hated the thought of hurtling around a track in an overpriced supercar just about as much as I hated the thought of Neil hurtling around a track in an overpriced supercar. It was so reckless and scary. I didn’t really know what he got out of it. He’d never asked me to be interested in it before.