“You almost got hit by a car,” I said, sharper than I meant to. The words tore out of me, still raw. “Don’t call yourself a coward after that.”
He flinched, and I immediately regretted the edge in my voice. I stepped closer, forcing myself to breathe slower, to meet his gaze.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” I said, quieter this time. “You scared the hell out of me, yes. But you didn’t ruin it.”
His breath hitched. “I didn’t mean to run. It just—” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I couldn’t think. When that man said I’d be sent home, it was like…I was there again. On my knees. Waiting for someone to decide if I mattered.”
The words shattered something in me.
I reached up, brushed the wetness from his cheek with my thumb. “You matter,” I said fiercely. “You don’t wait for anyone to tell you that. Least of all me.”
His eyes met mine then—wide, tear-glossed, aching. “Then why do you look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to fix me, but only so you can give me to someone else.”
I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing until he said it, and my heart ripped wide open.
He wasn’t wrong. Every instinct I had told me to control the situation, to contain the emotion before it became something I couldn’t manage. I’d been doing that my whole damn life—with my parents, with work, with my own heart.
But seeing him here, shaking, eyes full of pain and trust all at once…I couldn’t hold that wall anymore.
I reached out and cupped his face in both hands. “I want you to stay,” I whispered, “In my bed. In my heart.”
His lips parted. “Sir…”
“I tried to keep this easy,” I went on, my voice rough. “A temporary arrangement. Just through the holidays. But every time you smile, every time you call me ‘sir,’ every time you let me see you—really see you—it stopped feeling temporary.”
He blinked, tears spilling fresh. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I’m not saying it because I have to.” My thumbs traced his jaw, trembling slightly. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”
He drew in a shaky breath. “What’s true?”
“That I love you.”
Silence. The kind that hums between two people right before everything changes.
Clayton’s breath stuttered. “You do?”
I nodded. “I love you, baby boy. And I’m not pretending otherwise anymore.”
His face crumpled—not with fear this time, but relief so pure it almost hurt to look at. He let out a soft, broken laugh and leaned into my chest, arms sliding around me.
“I love you too,” he whispered. “I just didn’t think I was allowed to.”
I held him tighter, burying my face in his hair, breathing him in.
“You’re allowed,” I murmured. “You always were.”
“But I’m old.”
I put my finger across his lips. “Did you just contradict your Dom?” I arched an eyebrow, and for the first time, I saw teasing humor in his eyes and not fear.
“Because,” I drawled out the word, “naughty boys get spanked.”
I heard the indrawn breath and watched his gorgeous brown eyes widen, and catalogued every delicious reaction. And knew—absolutely—I was going to revisit that.
