I stay there considerably longer than a minute and he doesn't say anything about it.
This is what it feels like. This is the thing the books were describing. Not the sting, not the over-the-knee choreographyof it but this. Being held afterward by someone who isn't performing. Being completely known by someone who looked at the most unguarded part of you and decided to take care of it and take care of you in the process.
I've been waiting for this. I just didn't have the words for what I was waiting for.
He leaves at ten. He has early rounds at the ranch.
At the door of the library he stops.
"The grand opening is next weekend," he says.
"I know. I'm writing about it."
"I know you are. I want to talk to you beforehand. About some things."
"Some things?" I ask.
"Things I don't want to wait on."
My heart pounds loudly in the quiet library.
"Okay," I say.
"Tomorrow evening. After the ski demonstration. Come find me."
"I'll find you."
He holds the door open and I step past him into the corridor, and for one moment we are very close. We’re close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, close enough that if I turned my head the geometry of it would mean our lips would touch, and he looks down at me and I look up at him and the held thing between us is almost its own sound in the air.
"Goodnight, Maya."
Just my first name this time. Not Maya Daniels. Something about that is more intimate, not less.
"Goodnight."
I watch him go down the corridor and I stand there for a moment in the warm light and I think: tomorrow evening.
Things he doesn't want to wait on.
I don't want to wait on them either.
MAYA: He held my hand.
LILY: WHAT!
MAYA: After the tree lighting. We went to the library and talked and he held my hand for like half an hour.
EMILY: The LIBRARY?
MADISON: She got to the hand holding. Girl, you are moving impossibly slow.
HOLLY: What did you talk about?
MAYA: The cider thing. The thing where I don't pay attention to myself and act recklessly. He said I was unguarded, not reckless.
CHLOE: ...That's extremely a Daddy Dom thing to say.
AMBER: Extremely.
