His dark brows lift. “Yes?”
“Did you get my email?”
He squints at his computer monitor and scrolls down his screen. “Looks like I did. Yes.”
“Did you see it?”
He double clicks, his brows rising again like he’s impressed.
Good.
He should be.
“Is it okay?” I hate that I’m craving his approval.
“This will work.”
“I can change it if you’d like.”
“I said it’ll work.” He clears his throat, tilting his head to the side. “This insecure thing, it’s not a good look for you.”
“Insecure?” I scrunch my nose.
“I knew better than to take your virginity.” His fist clenches around a pen and then he releases it, dropping it in the center of his desk. “I had a feeling this would happen.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You told me you were okay with it being just sex,” he says carefully. “You weren’t looking for a meaningful experience. Those were your words.”
“And I still stand by them.”
“Then why are you flitting around here acting like you need reassurance that I still find you completely and utterly fuckable?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and hold my breath. He’s spot on.
“Do you?” I ask. “Do you still think I’m…fuckable?”
His full lips arch, flashing the dimples I’ve yet to have the opportunity to worship the way I want to.
“Yes, Bellamy. Even more so.” He rises and walks around his desk, perching on the ledge in front of me. “I told you, I’m busy today. I don’t have time to play. I’m insulted you’d take that so personally. You should know by now I’m a man of my word.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” Relief fills me from head to toe in the form of warm tingles.
“I have an assignment for you today.” He reaches back, pulling his drawer and sliding out a small, caramel-colored notebook wrapped in leather and hands it to me. “This notebook, by the time you’re finished, will contain your deepest, darkest, wildest sexual fantasy. The one you’re afraid to tell anyone. The one that scares you. You’re going to write it down for me. Every last detail.”
My face burns at the thought. “I don’t even know what that is. I don’t think I have any fantasies…”
“Bullshit.” He folds his arms. “Everyone has fantasies. Yours are probably so deep and so repressed it’s going to take a little time before you find them. But they’re there. Trust me. The thing you want most, the thing that heats you from the inside out and pushes every last button you have, you’re going to share that with me. And your reward, Bellamy? Is that I’m going to make it come true.”
The dimples of the soft leather cover tickle my palms, and I flip the empty notebook open, fanning the pages.
“I don’t know if I can do this. Not that I don’t want to. I’ve just never–”
“I won’t give you an unreasonable due date,” he interrupts. “Set it aside. Think about it. Dig deep into the darkest corners of your mind. A day will come when I’ll ask you for this notebook, and I’ll know if you just wrote some bullshit, plagiarized fantasy.”
I nod, agreeing but racking my empty mind for some kind of a sign that I even have a deep, dark fantasy.
“This is an exercise in both trust and submission,” he says. “Trust me with this, submit to my request, and you’ll be rewarded.”
***
Dane stays busy the rest of Monday. Tuesday I see him once in the morning and again in the afternoon in passing. He’s colder than before, and I don’t care what he says, I’m blaming it on Saturday night.
I spent most of Wednesday in a daze, avoiding him in order to avoid the sting of him avoiding me.
My notebook sits empty, the pages naked as the day I first saw them. It’s tucked in my top drawer at work, waiting for inspiration to strike.
Wednesday night I head to Bible study and walk my younger siblings to their respective classrooms. Here I’m just the “nanny,” and they’re just children from my neighborhood. That’s what I’m supposed to say if anyone asks why we always come together. Most of the time people leave us alone. They all think we’re LDS here, obviously, since it’s an LDS church.
By the time I head to the chapel for the adult study group, I catch the back of a blue checked shirt that can only belong to one person.
“Cortland,” I yell. “Wait up.”
It’s been over a week now since I last heard from him, and I haven’t seen him since two Saturdays ago. I’m not complaining, and I’m definitely not trying to rock the boat, but my ego is feeling dangerously curious for reasons even my mind can’t fully comprehend right now.