To Say I Love You (Another Way Book 3) Read online

  That’s all I wanted. For him to ask about my day. To tell me about his. We didn’t often fight about stuff like this, but when we rubbed each other up the wrong way, the results were usually explosive.

  “You’re wrong,” he said stubbornly. “I don’t expect anything. If the place is a mess, I’ll tidy up, so what?”

  “You don’t get it!” I shouted. “This isn’t about who does what chores. It’s you expecting me to do it, like I’m your slave. I’m not your slave, Will.”

  “And I don’t want you to be!” he yelled back. “Do what the fuck you want, Jess. I don’t care.”

  “No,” I said acidly. “I didn’t think so.”

  He cursed at me under his breath but I was beyond caring. His keys were on the side table next to the door, only a few feet away from where we were yelling. I grabbed them and my flip-flops, which were by the door, and stalked out, making sure to slam the door behind me.

  It was only when I got a few hundred yards away from the house I realized I didn’t have anywhere to go. I had no friends here beyond Will and my sister, and there wasn’t much to do unless I wanted to catch a movie or eat something, which I didn’t. The mall had too many people.

  I drove around for a while, passing a drive-through and getting fries and a Coke because I knew Will hated when I ate in the car.

  Eventually, I rounded back to my dad’s. He was on the front porch with a pitcher of tea and a newspaper.

  “Will called,” he said as I approached, swinging the keys around my index finger.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t think you can give me that look and get away with it. I don’t care how old you are, I’ll still tan your ass.”

  “Dad,” I said on a whine.

  “Sit down. Have some tea.”

  There was a spare glass next to him, almost like he’d been expecting me. The tea was sharp and sweet, as I liked it, and I sat down in one of the rockers.

  “I swear, I’ve learned more about your relationship in these past few weeks than I ever knew before.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “What are you apologizing for? You already know it don’t make no difference to me, Jesse.”

  “I know,” I said, not without a little affection. “You said.”

  “What happened?”

  “Just a stupid fight,” I said with a sigh. “Will works really hard, but I don’t like that he still expects me to do all the work around the house.”

  Dad hummed. “Does he? Or is that just what you think he thinks?”

  “He doesn’t actually bitch at me about it. He just… sort of expects those things to be done. Like fixing his damn lunch and making the bed. If it’s not done, he gets this funny look, like he’s wondering what the hell I’ve been doing with my day if I haven’t been cleaning up after him.”

  “What are you doing at the moment, though? The house is all fixed up now.”

  “Don’t you start,” I said, only partly joking. “I spoke to my supervisor at the museum a couple days ago. Said I wanted to help out with stuff if I could. She sent me some reports… it’s not a lot, but it’s a way into things again. I’m reading up on what’s been going on and doing some data analysis for them.”

  “Sounds great. What does Will think?”

  I was silent.

  “So you haven’t told him?”

  “I don’t need his approval for every damn thing,” I said, knowing I sounded like a petulant child. “I have a life outside him, you know. Or I used to, at least.”

  “No, you don’t need his approval, but you might maybe need his support,” Dad said easily. “You might even need his help with things around the house, since you don’t have the time to spend doing that anymore.”

  I looked over at him, where he was wearing a serene expression. He sipped his tea.

  “Go on,” he said, shooing me away. “Go make up.”

  I drained my tea, then stood. “You said he called?”

  “He was worried about you,” Dad said. “Apparently you don’t storm off much these days, and he can’t exactly follow you.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Go on,” he repeated on a mumble. “Git.”

  It only took a few minutes to drive home, and I made sure to pick up my empty wrappers before heading inside. I let myself in, went to the kitchen to dump them in the trash, rolled my eyes because it was full, and took the bag out.

  Will was in his office. I stood in the doorway, thankful he hadn’t shut or locked it, and stared at him until he looked up.

  “I’m working for the museum again,” I said defiantly.

  He blinked. “Oh.”

  “For the past week or so. Not much, just doing some reports and stuff, but I wanted to get back into doing something. I miss my job.”

  “Okay.”

  “So that’s why I’ve been tired and things haven’t been done that usually are.”

  He was quiet for a few moments. Then: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The one question I didn’t have an answer for. I sighed. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I think I just want something that’s mine again, you know? You have your job, which is yours, and the only things I’ve got here are your things too.”

  “I didn’t know that bothered you.”

  “Neither did I.”

  He stood and came over to me, gently touching my arm. I folded him into a hug. With his head on my shoulder, I could feel him sigh deeply.

  “I’m upset you didn’t tell me,” he said, the words muffled by my T-shirt.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  He went and turned off the computer, which surprised me, and we made more tea and sat on our front porch to drink it. We didn’t have rockers yet, not like the porch at my dad’s house, so we sat on the step instead and I made a mental note to go and look at rockers sometime next week.

  We so rarely had petty arguments it took a while to remember how to solve them. I still felt weird about telling Will I’d started work again, like it was something I wasn’t supposed to do. Which was stupid, of course; we shared nearly everything with each other.

  Working was a step back toward my own independence, something I’d lost since we moved here. I’d existed to do things for everyone else, and I’d done a lot of that.

  Guilt, I realized. I felt guilty for not doing things. Which was stupid.

  I sighed.

  “Jesse?” he asked, reaching for my hand.

  “Yeah?”

  He just smiled.

  Chapter 12

  Since it was his birthday, I decided to wake him up with a blowjob. Not any old birthday, either—he was thirty.

  My own thirtieth wasn’t for another six months, so there was a part of me that wanted to set a standard, and I knew the few surprises I had up my sleeve were going to blow him away. Doing nice things for Will was one of my favorite activities.

  A good blowjob was the perfect way to start the day, especially since he was still almost asleep, lying on his back and snoring. I wriggled down the bed, licked a stripe over his hip bone, and nibbled down his inner thigh while his cock started to pay attention.

  I felt the moment he woke up properly, a hum of confusion, then a delighted chuckle. I pulled more of his cock into my mouth and wrapped my hand around the rest of it, jerking him softly, then harder to bring him to one of those delightfully satisfying early-morning orgasms.

  “Happy birthday to me,” he sang, only a bit out of tune. “That was one hell of a present. Thank you.”

  “You have lots more presents,” I said, trailing my fingers over his belly to make him squirm as I shuffled up the bed. “You’re a very spoiled boy.”

  “You’re a very spoiled boy,” he said grimly, then smiled hopefully. “Presents?”

  I rolled my eyes, then leaned over the side of the bed where I’d hidden two gifts the night before. As expected, Will took the opportunity to grope my ass before sitting up against the pillows.

 
; “Here. Happy birthday. I love you.”

  He accepted my kiss, then dug into the wrapping paper.

  The first was nothing particularly special—a box set of a TV show he’d been wanting to watch for ages. We were hardly ever in at the same time every week, so we ended up missing episodes all over the place. Box sets were a good way of getting over that.

  The second gift was more special.

  “Are these your collars?” he asked as he set the DVDs aside.

  “Yeah.”

  When I’d officially become Will’s sub, with some degree of permanence rather than just two people who played together, he’d offered me a collar. Some people in D/s relationships took that literally, and the sub wore a collar around their neck to symbolize their commitment to their Master or Mistress. Instead of something made of metal, for my first collar, Will had braided some dark blue thread and wrapped it around my wrist. It meant something different to us: we accepted our relationship would change over time, that in a few years we wouldn’t be in the same place we were when we’d made that original vow to each other. The collar was designed to wear and break, and when it did, Master would give me a new one, and we’d renew that commitment we’d made to each other.

  Our relationship, both the romantic side and the D/s side, was fluid. We knew that we’d change as people, and that our roles would need to adapt to be suitable to the people we would become.

  In the life of our relationship, I’d had three collars so far. Two were pinned in the display box my dad had helped me make. It was shallow, with a glass front, and the wood matched the furniture in our bedroom. The third was still on my wrist.

  “I didn’t like how they were shoved in a drawer somewhere,” I said, fiddling with my current collar. It was a habit. “I want them out, on display.”

  “That’s awesome,” Will said. “Thank you.”

  When he leaned in for another kiss, I pushed my fingers through his hair, relishing the feel of him next to me.

  Breakfast was made while we were both almost naked, carefully dodging the heat on the stove as Will fried bacon and I made pancakes. I liked cooking with him. It was the sort of easy, day-to-day domesticity that had been missing from this house so far. It had been difficult to find that connection while we were staying at my dad’s.

  “Can we sit out on the deck?” Will asked.

  “Mm.”

  It was warm and bright, but not hot yet, and there was a slight breeze taking the edge off the day. We sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the top step, gently nudging each other while we ate, relishing the time spent together.

  “Do we have plans for today?” he asked when I set my plate aside.

  Yes, I thought. Big ones.

  “Not really,” I said casually. “I thought we could go out for a few hours this afternoon, once you’re done with work. I’m going to keep digging stuff up out here this morning.”

  “Okay.” Will kissed me on the head when he stood to take our plates inside. “Sounds good to me. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “’Kay.”

  “Hey, Jesse?”

  “Mm?”

  I looked over my shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow.

  “Do you have your hoops here? For your piercings?”

  I’d taken the silver hoops out of my nipples and replaced them with bars. It was less noticeable under a thin T-shirt that way, and when I went shirtless around my dad or sister, it didn’t look quite so ostentatious.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  He grinned. “You should put them back in.”

  I laughed at that, and he disappeared into the house to wash up. I took the plates into the kitchen and started the dishwasher. When I got to the bedroom, the display box with my collars was on top of the dresser, right there for anyone to see. I wasn’t ashamed of serving him, of being his submissive.

  It turned out I did have the hoops, stored in a small Ziploc bag. There was alcohol solution in the bathroom, and I used that to clean them while Will was still singing in the shower, steaming up the mirror.

  “Does it hurt when you change the piercings?” Will asked, sticking his head out around the shower curtain.

  “Not really,” I said. It was a fiddly job, changing them over, but the bar and the hoop were the same size, so it didn’t stretch the hole through my nipple at all. Since I already had the alcohol out, I gave the piercings a quick swipe, which stung. “There,” I said, thrusting my chest forward for his inspection. “All done.”

  “Much better,” he said with a very dirty grin.

  As promised, I worked like a madman through the morning to get the backyard cleared up and fix the parts of the deck that were broken or unstable. He was on a conference call when I was done so I just waved, then ducked into the shower to wash the sweat and dirt off.

  “I’m just going to WalMart,” I said, leaning against the door to Will’s office. He was done with his call and frantically typing an e-mail.

  “Okay, baby,” he said, his voice calm, at odds with his frazzled appearance. “Can you get me some soda, please?”

  “It’ll rot your teeth,” I told him affectionately.

  “And some toothpaste?”

  I laughed, blew him a kiss, then had to hunt down the keys to his car before I could head out.

  After the incident at the grocery store, I did all our shopping at the big WalMart outside town. It wasn’t what I wanted, we’d made a point of shopping locally at home, but I had no intention of getting into arguments with small-minded people. The last thing I wanted was to invite anything more upon us.

  Will’s family was flying in for his birthday: his parents, plus a few of his cousins who he’d grown up close to and their kids. He didn’t know anything about it. Due to how long it would take me to get to the airport and back, they were renting cars (with GPS) to get them down to the house. My family was going to come over too, and it would be the first time a lot of them would meet each other.

  Needless to say, I was nervous about the whole event.

  I’d been planning behind Will’s back for some time, ever since I tried to convince him to go home and see his folks for the weekend and he’d refused, saying he wanted to spend it with me. Since he’d given me no other choice, I’d arranged the party.

  It was going to be more of a cookout, really. Jennifer had steaks marinating for me back at Dad’s house, and she was making big bowls of salad and coleslaw too. All that was left to get was burgers and hotdogs, plus some beer and buns.

  It didn’t take long to pick up the few things I needed from the store, even when I got carried away selecting paper plates and streamers and napkins in Will’s favorite color. I’d ordered cake, which was being delivered to my dad’s place too, a huge thing with a miniature Space Needle on it to remind him of home.

  The chores took longer than I expected, especially when I was forced to loop back to get the soda he’d asked for, and I was in a flustered rush when I got back to the house.

  “Need a hand?” Will yelled from his open office window.

  “Nah, I’ve got it,” I said, balancing things as I kicked the car door shut. “I’ve got cold stuff, though. I need to get it in the freezer.”

  “Okay. I’m nearly done here. Give me half an hour?”

  I nodded and blew him a kiss, feeling very Romeo and Juliet, calling messages of love from the balcony. It didn’t take long to pack everything away, and then I had to figure out how I was going to keep him out of the house until it was time for his surprise. My original idea had been to get him to take Baby for a walk with me, but it was way too hot, and I knew he’d only grouch about it.

  Inspiration struck while I was rooting around in the second drawer of the freezer.

  “Hey,” I said, taking up my spot leaning against the doorframe outside his office. “If you get changed, I’ll take you out for ice cream.”

  Will laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. There’s this really cute place in town that’ll give you a free su
ndae when it’s your birthday. So pick up your driver’s license as well.”

  “I can’t turn down free ice cream,” he said, eyes twinkling. My stomach lurched—he still had the ability to twist me up with love for him, even after so many years together.

  I left him alone to finish up his work and went about re-tidying the house—it wasn’t messy but I needed to do something with my hands, and this was as good a job as any. Plus, it meant the place would be extra clean for when people came over.

  Will changed into khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt and flip-flops, managing to look stylish and laid-back at the same time. I let him drive, even though he didn’t know the way, and gave him directions, even though he hated it when I did it in a GPS voice.

  The ice cream parlor was locally owned and had been built in the 1940s. My grandfather used to tell me and my sister stories of when he worked there as a teenager, too young to go off to war and fight, instead scooping ice cream for a few cents an hour. It was, so he said, a great place to pick up the ladies.

  There was a long bar in front of the pink-and-white-tiled serving space and a sign over the till with the promised free ice cream for anyone’s birthday. Since it wasn’t too late in the afternoon, it was fairly quiet, and I managed to snag us a booth.

  A pretty girl with a bouncy ponytail came to take our order.

  “It’s Will’s birthday,” I said immediately

  “Happy birthday,” she said with a grin.

  They took care of the whole showing-the-driver’s-license business while I scanned the menu.

  “Thanks, Mr. Anderson. What can I get you?”

  I hooked my foot around his under the table and grinned.

  While he went for a strawberry-coconut-caramel combination, I chose vanilla-pistachio-chocolate and felt entirely more grown-up. Especially when his came out with fireworks and streamers and a paper umbrella stuck in the top.

  “We used to come here all the time when Jen and I were kids,” I said, digging in while Will carefully removed all his adornments. “It was a tradition, that we’d come here for all our birthdays.”

  “Your birthday is in April.”