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She giggled but then sobered. “Zeph, listen to me for a minute. I know you’ve had a lifetime of churchy therapy that has clearly brainwashed you into believing there’s something wrong with you for wanting the things you want. But can you please listen to me when I tell you there isn’t a single thing wrong with you. You’re kind and sweet and sexy as fucking hell. You aren’t a danger to women or society. You made a mistake, and you’ve been punished harshly for it ever since. I bet Annie grew up to marry a nice lawyer, and now they live happily ever after somewhere in Providence. Am I right?”
He was an accountant, but Lyric was right in that they had a house in Providence. I’d found her on social media and I knew they’d gone on to have a couple of kids. The relief I’d felt when I’d seen that had been immense. I wanted her to be happy.
But Annie’s current happy life was irrelevant. Lyric still didn’t know about the men I’d killed, but she didn’t let me get a word in edgewise. She was still intent on telling me off.
“You aren’t some bad or evil person. You stop when you’re told to stop. You don’t want to hurt people. You just have kinks, Zeph. You ever heard of CNC?”
I shook my head. “Unless you’re talking about machining…”
Her brow crinkled adorably. “Machining? What? No.” She pushed me back against the couch and straddled my lap so she could look me in the eye. “CNC. Consensual non-consent. It’s where I give you permission to do certain things…things like chase me, tie me up, be rough…”
With no permission from me, my hips jacked up off the couch, seeking her entrance.
“Down, boy. I haven’t given it to you yet. There’s terms that need to be agreed on. And safe words that really do mean stop.” She rocked over me and leaned down to kiss me. “Because the things you want, Zeph? To Annie, they might have been scary. And maybe you went about it in the wrong way. These things can’t be sprung on people in the heat of the moment, you know. Besides that, she was young. Even vanilla sex is scary to an inexperienced teenager. You tried to throw her right in the deep end without so much as a floatie.”
I ran my hands up to her breasts again, taking handfuls. “Consensual non-consent is really a thing?”
She nodded, leaning into my touch, and pressed her lips against mine. “We’ll talk about it some more. When I’m not naked and at work. But you can have the things you want, Zeph. With me. Without shame.”
It was her last two words that hit me hardest.
Everything in my life had come with shame. From the circumstances of my very birth right through to joining the priesthood. I’d won back my parents’ respect, and I lived a good life, one where I helped and made a difference.
That life couldn’t exist with Lyric in it.
But I couldn’t give her up either. I couldn’t deny the things I wanted from her. The way I felt when she was near.
“You don’t have to make any big decisions now, Zeph. I’m not telling anyone about any of this. I’m a safe space for you to try.”
I nodded, falling for her a little more for the way she didn’t judge. She was the only person in my life who didn’t.
She nodded and got off my lap. “I’ve got to go back to work. And you need to leave and go home and sleep, okay? Whether we have a contract or not, you can’t be here.”
I nodded, letting her go. But as she got to the door, I spoke one last time. “Lyric?”
“Mmm?” Her long red hair flicked over her shoulder.
“The safe word is llamas.”
She snorted on a laugh. “Llamas?”
“Least sexy thing I can think of. You say llama to me, and my erection just shrivels and dies.”
We both focused on my crotch, and sure enough, the image of a buck-toothed, spitting llama had done the trick.
She laughed, but then she stopped to truly look at me. “You’ll respect the llama?”
I bit my lip, trying to hide my own grin. “I’ll respect the llama if you promise to say it when I’m too much. I mean it. You have to promise me. Because the last thing I want is to hurt you. It would kill me. I swear, I’m not being dramatic when I say that.” The thought of her lying hurt somewhere because of my actions made bile churn in my stomach.
She stole back across the room to kiss me quickly. “You’re being a drama llama, Zeph. But I promise.”
I watched her go, wondering what the hell I’d just agreed to, and if I had the balls to actually carry it through.
20
LYRIC
The morning of Amelia’s Edgely Academy interview, I had Peggy stay back to watch Gran so I could take Amelia out for a special breakfast. I sipped lukewarm coffee at a diner in Saint View, while she gobbled down pancakes smothered in syrup. Maybe it was partly the fact I’d been awake at the club all night and hadn’t slept yet, but tears pricked the backs of my eyes remembering the tiny baby I’d brought home from the hospital, who was now grown up enough to be starting kindergarten next year.
