Page 194

He chuckled. “I forgot. Tea is aftercare too.”

“There’s something I want to tell you.” I kissed his forehead. “Except it’s more a case of finishing a conversation, filling in the blanks.”

His breathing hitched. “If it’s the conversation I’m thinking of, then yes.”

I released him and went into the kitchen to fill the kettle. Quinn followed. He grabbed mugs from the cabinet, then the tea bags.

I cleared my throat. “Remember I said there was someone, once?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

I expelled a long, slow breath. “His name was Jordan.”

Quinn stood so still.

“He wasn’t a sub in the way people usually mean it,” I continued. “But we had a dynamic. It was structured. Intentional. Or at least, I believed it was.”

“What happened?”

I stared at the worktop for a moment before answering. “I believed that control meant safety.”

“And Jordan?” he asked gently. “What did control mean for him?”

“Freedom.” I swallowed. “I was very good at rules back then. I thought if I kept everything organised enough, careful enough, nothing could go wrong.”

“And?”

I closed my eyes. “I stopped listening.”

Quinn’s fingers curled around my hand. “What do you mean?”

“I started deciding what was best for him instead of asking.”

The memory rose with uncomfortable clarity. The arguments. The silences. Jordan standing by the door with that look in his eyes, those words on his lips.

I swallowed again. “He told me something once,” I said in a quiet voice. Quinn waited, and at last I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at him. “He said, ‘You’re not my Dom. You’re my jailer.’”

Quinn’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God.”

I nodded. “Your words to Grant tonight were uncannily close. It gave me quite a shock.”

“It didn’t show.”

The kettle beeped, and I poured the hot water into the mugs. “I didn’t understand what Jordan meant at first. I thought he was angry, that he’d misunderstood what I was trying to do.”

“And later?”

I let out a sigh. “I realised he was right.”

Silence settled between us for a moment.

“Did you try to fix it?” Quinn asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He left anyway.”