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“Fucking hell.” He hit the speaker button with a finger on his clean hand without checking the caller ID. “Damn it, what?”
“Cole?” a familiar voice asked, all breathy and feminine. “I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”
“Kate?” he croaked. He carried the phone to the bathroom and placed it on the countertop while he washed his hands and straightened his clothes. “No, this is fine. What’s going on?”
He hadn’t talked to Kate in months. She might not have been the very last person he thought would call him tonight, but she was pretty damn close to it.
“I spent today unpacking,” she said.
She had finally found a permanent place. Before now, she’d been crashing at a girlfriend’s. Cole had thought he was beyond feeling anything when it came to Kate, but hearing that she’d moved into a new place proved him wrong. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of how lonely the quiet guesthouse was.
“I’m glad you found a new home.” He forced himself to speak through the tightness in his chest. “You’ll have to e-mail your address to me so I have it on file.”
“That’s not why I called.”
“Forgive me, then. You don’t have to send me your address.”
“Would you stop being an ass and listen to me?”
He took a deep breath and hoped his tone sounded more civil to her than it did to him. “Why did you call?”
It was easy to picture her on the other end of the phone. She would be holding it tightly in one hand, anger blazing from her cool blue eyes. He imagined her counting to ten to calm down.
“I unpacked some boxes today,” she repeated.
Yes, you said that already, he bit back from saying and instead replied with, “Oh?”
“One of your boxes got mixed up with mine.”
“In that case, I’ll give you the address where I’m staying for the time being and you can post it to me.”
“I know you’re staying with Daniel, you told me when we closed on our old house. It’s the box containing your mom’s jewelry. I don’t think it’d be a good idea to mail it.”
He cursed under his breath. He thought that particular box had been put in temporary storage. His mother could trace her lineage back to the fifteenth century. Back to some earl who lost his title and estate when he pissed Henry the Eighth off or something. The jewelry had been hidden at the time and passed down through the generations. He never did anything with the pieces. He’d actually thought about giving them to a museum. Regardless, they weren’t anything he was going to give to Kate and she was right, she shouldn’t mail them.
“I don’t have plans to visit New York anytime soon,” he said, thinking about his upcoming sessions with Sasha. “And unfortunately I can’t make any plans to visit due to previous commitments.”
“If it’s okay with you then, I’m driving to Mom and Dad’s in about a month. I can stop by and give them to you on the way.”
Her parents lived in Florida. When they were together, she’d visit them every few months. “That would be fine. Thank you, Kate.”
“It’s no big deal.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. The uncomfortable type of silence that could only be shared by those who had once shared everything and now had nothing to say. The air between them was filled with unspoken history and whispered what-ifs.
“Thank you for calling.” They were the only words he discovered he could speak. Four fucking words to the woman he had loved and who had worn his slave collar for years.
“Nice talking with you,” she said, but he didn’t think she sounded like she meant it.
After he said good-bye, he went back to the living room where he distracted himself with the research he’d been avoiding. It was either that or spend hours thinking about Kate. As it was, he knew she’d be visiting his dreams that night.
But it wasn’t a blue-eyed woman with long black hair who filled his head while he slept, rather a wounded submissive with nerves of steel who had admitted she liked it when he touched her.
• • •
Sasha rang the doorbell at the Wests’ residence on Monday after work. When she’d called Abby the day before, she mentioned that she’d be meeting with Cole on Wednesday, and Abby said she wanted to talk before she met with Cole again.
Abby opened the door with a big smile. “Hey, Sasha. Come on in.”
Sasha genuinely liked Abby. She was friendly and down-to-earth, an all-around nice person. And it was becoming harder and harder to find those.
They walked through the house, the sound of childish giggles and shrieks meeting them in the hallway.
“Nathaniel just got home,” Abby explained. “He’s playing with the kids. We’ll go to the office, where it’s quieter.”
She led her to a large his-and-hers-style office and waved to a love seat.
“This is gorgeous,” Sasha said, taking in the large room. Two desks took up most of the space, but the love seat was placed in front of a picture window in a small seating area. It was inviting and warm, just like its owner.
“Thanks. We just had it done. Nathaniel doesn’t work from home often, but when he does, we both need our own space.”
They sat down and Abby faced her. “Tell me how it went with Cole yesterday.”
“He was different than I expected. But in a good way.” She thought back to how he’d calmed her down and rubbed her back.
“He’s a complex guy, but he has your best interests in mind. I know he probably wasn’t who you thought the group would pick.” Abby gave a little chuckle. “I know it surprised me at first, but now I honestly believe he’s the best choice.”
“You knew he wouldn’t have sex with me?” It was a bold question, and Abby seemed to be taken aback for a second—but Sasha wanted to know.
“Yes, in fact, it was that knowledge that finally convinced me to agree for him to do your retraining.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow at her.
“You have to be strong mentally before you can submit physically. Once you get the mental down, the physical will follow,” Abby explained.
“It makes sense in my head.” But damn, she’d like to have sex again. And now, with Cole saying she couldn’t orgasm without his permission, it didn’t appear like that would be happening anytime soon.
“I’ve played with Cole before in a mental scene,” Abby said, surprising her. “And from that I learned two things: one, he knows what he’s doing, and two, he knows what he’s doing.”
Sasha laughed. “What was it like, submitting to him?”
“He’s intense, you know that. So much more so than Nathaniel, and trust me, Nathaniel’s intense. But Cole’s a good man and he’s fair. I don’t think you have a thing to worry about.”
Sasha had once told Julie that she found Nathaniel too intense. Her stomach flipped over hearing Abby say Cole was even more intense than Nathaniel. Why did the thought of Cole not intimidate her as much as Nathaniel did?
“I trust you,” Sasha said. “And I really feel supported by everyone in the group.”
“I’m so glad. You said you’ll be meeting with Cole on Wednesday. Do you have any idea what you’ll be doing?”
“He gave me a writing assignment.” Sasha frowned. She’d started on it last night and hadn’t gotten very far before she put it down. She hated writing. “I guess we’ll go over that.”
“You don’t seem excited about it.”
“I’m not. But everyone talks about how beneficial it is to write my thoughts down, so I’ll do it and see how it
goes.” Those were her words, but Sasha knew exactly how it was going to go. She’d hate every second of it.
• • •
Sasha chewed her bottom lip Wednesday while Cole read over the writing assignment he’d given her. She’d spent hours writing down her goals for the retraining on Monday when she got home from Abby’s. She’d thought she’d done a good job, but kneeling in the bedroom of the guesthouse he used as an office, with him sitting at his desk, she started to have doubts. He had a red pen in his hand and he was using it far too frequently. Judging by the frown on his face, she guessed he wasn’t writing Terrific insight or Excellent
