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And then I’d run.
The realization of how it felt and how wrong it was had just come crashing around me, and I’d panicked. I’d thought that after a few days of ignoring each other, things would have gone back to normal, but they hadn’t.
He hadn’t teased me about kneeling. He hadn’t made scornful remarks about how the “research” was going. He hadn’t commented about the need for locks on the doors or even made a joke about me needing to tie a scarf around the door to let him know when I was researching.
It was getting harder to hear his tight, angry voice in my head. It was softer since that night at dinner, warmer and calmer, and not like him at all. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. The gifts only made it more difficult as well.
They’d just been little things, but I couldn’t even remember the last time he’d even wished me a happy birthday, so the extra money for the bills and the leash had been… surprising. The wicked part of my brain that I hadn’t even realized was there kept pushing that it had to mean something.
But it didn’t. He’d never look at me—
“No, you’re not going to even think about it.” That was a path I wasn’t going to follow again. I had more willpower than that. I wasn’t going to think about him that way. Not again. Just thinking about what I’d done the other night made my stomach twist.
I hadn’t been able to get the sight of him out of my brain. The thin towel, draped low around his hips, the tattoos on his arm and shoulders, the way he’d looked at me… He hadn’t meant anything by it, but my mind had twisted it into something dirty.
I’d woken up that night, drenched in sweat and I’d—
“No, remembering won’t help.”
I had to push it away, but the guilt and the… desire both kept trying to bring it back to the front of my mind. Two sides to the same coin, and neither would let me forget. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to. Maybe my penance was going to be knowing there was something out there that I wanted more than anything and I could never have it.
It was a fitting punishment.
It was also going to make me fail my human sexuality class if I couldn’t get a handle on it. I hadn’t been able to touch the toys in days, and when I’d tried to do more online research, I’d just found myself watching the blog videos of the master and his pup over and over.
The master’s face was never in the videos, but when he spoke, I could almost pretend that Owen had sounded the same way. It was just too hard and too confusing. If I was going to do a good enough job on the project to get a decent grade, I was going to have to move forward, but I wasn’t sure how.
I was no closer to getting the tail… where it was supposed to go, and every time I looked at the collar and leash, I could hear Owen calling me a good boy. It was all getting tangled up in my head, and I wasn’t sure how to fix it. There had to be a way.
The knock on my door scared me so badly my heart stopped for a moment. The sound of Owen’s voice didn’t help any either.
“Hey, you up? I know it’s early for a Saturday, but I made coffee so we could get started.”
The tone in his voice was still calmer and more understanding. He knew how hard this was going to be, so maybe it was that. Was he just trying not to make it worse so we could get it done?
“Um, yeah, sorry. I… I’ll be down in a minute. Um, thanks.”
There was a short pause, then a quiet, “Welcome.”
If I didn’t count the half-naked, wet interaction, and I was trying not to, it was the longest conversation we’d had in days. Maybe hiding all week hadn’t been the best idea because spending the morning with him was feeling a bit like I was planning to climb Mt. Everest.
Only mountains couldn’t laugh at you when they learned your deepest secret.
****
Stumbling downstairs was harder than I’d imagined. I’d been up so long that my body was ready to go back to bed, or at least take a nap. I was hoping coffee would help, but I’d bought the cheap stuff at the store last time I’d gone shopping. It wasn’t nearly as strong or as good as the name brands, so I wasn’t feeling confident in its ability to wake me up.
“What do you like in your coffee?” Owen asked without looking at me, and for a moment, it felt almost like a rejection. But he had two chipped coffee mugs out, and he was stirring sugar into one of them already. “I wasn’t sure what kind you liked, so…” He glanced at me, expression unreadable. “Medium roast, unflavored.” He lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug.
This was somehow every bit as shocking as the fact that Owen hadn’t been tormenting me lately. He’d gone out of his way to buy coffee? He’d thought about what I might want?
Of course, neither of us knew what the other liked. Not what kind of coffee, or what we liked in it, or anything that might’ve seemed easy.
“Um, thanks.” This was almost as startling as finding the leash on the table had been. “Um, just sugar. Milk’s good too, but we never buy that so…” I was rambling, and Owen must have realized it too.
He looked over at me and cocked one eyebrow but didn’t say anything. I watched as he put sugar in what I was assuming to be my cup.
He glanced up at me again. “More?”
