Read Forbidden: A Standalone for Free Online Page A

to sit on the couch?” I indicated the long, uncomfortable divan behind me.
    “Yes.”
    I didn’t move.
    “Come on,” he said, standing. “It’ll be fun.”
    “Are you going to make me cluck like a chicken?”
    “It’s just a relaxation technique. No more.”
    I took three steps to cross the room and sat on the couch.
    He stood over me. “Lie back.”
    I looked up at him, a twisted smile on my face. I could fuck him. It should have occurred to me sooner. I was suddenly ready for sex, all tingling skin and hyper aware. I could sense his cock, its taste, its scent, its pink skin sliding against the silk of my thigh as it found its way home. It would feel so good, and if anyone needed to feel good, it was me.
    “Lie back,” he said again with a voice so devoid of desire, my own need collapsed.
    I put my feet up and my head back. He sat next to me on the edge of the couch.
    “I want you to recall the last time you were at the stables, okay?” He held up a pen, and I watched the angles of his fingers on the instrument. He didn’t have a wedding ring. “Now focus on the tip of the pen.” He moved the pen back and forth, and I fell into the rhythm of his breathing. His voice, a velvet mask of gentleness, said, “I’m going to count backward from five.”
    ***
    I feel a pressure on my hand. It’s Deacon, slipping his hand into mine. The gesture, in its adolescent simplicity, creates a rush of emotions I can’t hold back. I run out to the empty patio. There are candles everywhere from the cocktail hour, still flickering their last heated breaths. I’ve been without him for a week while he was on assignment, and now that he’s back, he’s a scary jar of emotion with a poorly threaded lid.
    “Are you all right?” he asks, closing the glass door behind him.
    “I’m fine, it’s just…” I’m not good at expressing myself unless I’m angry, and I’m not angry. I’m just about everything else.
    He takes me by the waist with his right arm. He’s so tall, so handsome. His body moves like a leopard on the African plain. “Tell me.”
    “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
    He smirks. He knows I’m not serious. He knows I’m broaching painful subjects by running away first.
    “I’ll be more than happy to blindfold you.” He brushes his lips on my cheek. “But my eyes stay open. I want to see you beg for me later.”
    “I miss you when you’re gone,” I say. “I can’t take it.”
    “Ten years ago, I’d have been gone for six months at a stretch.”
    When he says things like that, he reminds me of our age difference. Ten years ago, I was thirteen and he was almost thirty. I’ve never asked him what he sees in someone so young, because that would imply we have something more than a semi-casual open-hot-regular-fuck.
    “Deacon, I’m sorry. I think now is a bad time, with everyone here.” I push him off me and turn away from the strip of twinkling lights that disappears into the black of the sea. “We can talk later.” I collect myself to pull him back to the glass doors.
    I want to do a hundred crazy things. I want to grab a champagne bottle and down it. I want to stand on the railing and play at falling into the canyon. I want to get into my car and crash the gates. But he inspires me to be better than my impulses, and that’s why I need him.
    He yanks me back. “We talk now.”
    “You have guests.”
    “They don’t need me. I can take you to the studio right now and knot you up and they’d be fine.” His face gets hard. He becomes the man who spent years photographing the horror of central Africa, who took pictures and walked away. The man kept behind a rock for three months while he was negotiated out. That man, like a real face behind a mask, or a mask on real face, I can’t disobey. “Talk,”
    He doesn’t have to threaten me. There’s not a consequence in the world that would be stronger than his simple command. I don’t fear him. He makes me strong. He