Page 128 of Bonetide

“Iris…”

“Yes?”

“You’re sure?”

“Uh huh,” I reply, my breath sharp with anticipation.

His other hand comes up. He reaches across me on the counter, pulls the bottle of olive oil toward him, the green glass bottle I bought in Diabaig, and uncorks it with his thumb.

I go still. Are we…are we making a salad?

“Alasdair.”

“Aye, foxglove.”

“What, uh…what’s the olive oil for?” My voice rises high at the end.

“For you.”

“I think I’m pretty damn wet.”

A pause. “Not everywhere you need to be.”

What?

Oh.

Oh.

“Oh—oh,” I stammer. “Um, I haven’t…I’ve never…”

“I know you haven’t, lass.”

For a moment I think I could be insulted, like how dare you assume I’m not a woman who’s taken it up the ass before?

But he’s right—I haven’t—and yes, he can probably tell.

I tilt my head to the side and watch as he pours oil into his hand, setting the bottle down on the counter. That green bottle, slick with olive oil at the neck, sitting in my kitchen, where I’ll see it every morning for the rest of my life. He rubs his palms together slowly, deliberately, like a masseuse gearing up for a job.

Then his hand goes back to me, sliding his oiled fingers between my cheeks, slow and slick.

“You’ll take it, just how I want to give it,” he rasps.

“I…”

“You’ll take it because you came to my chair on your knees this afternoon, and asked me to be what I am with you. So, I’m being what I am with you. You’ll take what I give you, lass, the way you said you would.”

His finger presses against me.

I inhale sharply, so unprepared.

“Aye, breathe.”

I breathe.

His finger pushes in, slow, the oil slick, the resistance of me giving way to him, and the sensation is nothing I’ve felt before. Ryan asked me once to do anal and I said no and we never spoke of it again, and what I have now is this new sensation and Alasdair’s voice low at my ear and his other hand flat at the small of my back holding me bent over the counter, and the new sensation is more. I want more. Of him. In a place he hasn’t been. The wrongness of it and the rightness of it are cut from the same cloth.

“Aye, you know how to take it, you do. We’ll go slow.”