I left his office and swung into the bedroom to change into jeans and a T-shirt before going downstairs to cook. After I’d put his coffee cup in the dishwasher, I stared into the refrigerator and tried to remember what it was I’d planned to make.
Ironically, now I was the one struggling to concentrate. I eventually remembered I’d planned to make balsamic chicken and potatoes, but as I went about pulling everything I needed to make dinner, my mind stayed upstairs in my husband’s office. I went to the refrigerator three times before I actually remembered the butter I’d gone looking for.
By some miracle, I managed to assemble the dish. I was just putting it in the oven when Will came down, and my stomach tightened. Whatever had been bothering him upstairs, it still was now, so it wasn’t just something he could leave in the office. That happened sometimes—he’d be stressed as all hell or struggling to focus, but as soon as he shut off his office light, he bounced back.
Not this time.
As I was setting the timer on the oven, Will put his coffee cup on the kitchen table, then faced me, thumbs hooked in his pockets. “So, about last night…”
My heart jumped into my throat. It wasn’t so much the words, though they gave me their fair share of an anxiety spike—it was the uneasy tone. “Um. Okay.”
He nodded toward the living room.
I quickly set a timer on my phone in case I didn’t hear the one on the oven, and we left dinner cooking. As we sat down on the couch, Will wrapped his arm around my shoulders. That was a good sign. Whatever was on his mind, he still wanted us to be close. If he was mad about something, or if he was so upset he was restless, then there’d be more space between us, but not this time.
I curled against him and slid a hand over his thigh. “What’s on your mind?”
“I, um…” He was quiet for a moment, absently running his hand along my shoulder. Then he drew back enough we could look at each other, and he slipped his hand into mine in his lap. “I’ve been thinking a lot about last night, and about what we’re doing, and…” He hesitated. “I guess what I need to know is, what happens when Kelly isn’t here anymore?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he won’t be here forever. Sometime in the future, it’ll just be you and me again.” He searched my eyes. “I guess I’m worried we’ll get to the end of this, and I won’t be enough for you.”
I jumped. “What? Of course you will! Do… What makes you think you won’t?”
“The fact that we needed Kelly in the first place?”
My shoulders slumped. “Okay. I get that. And I’m sorry I made you feel that way. But I meant what I said before we met Kelly and before we even placed that ad: we’ll find a way to make this work. Yes, I’m loving that we’ve got someone who we’re both into and can give me that much pain, and I’m super excited about what the three of us will be able to do together. But no matter what, you’re my Dom, you’re my husband, and you’re my best friend—nothing is going to change that.”
The fact that he didn’t quite look convinced hit me in the chest.
I squeezed his hand. “Do you want to nix this thing with Kelly?”
His eyebrows rose. “Do you?”
“I do if it’s going to make you afraid that you won’t be enough for me.”
“But what about the pain you need?”
I put my other hand over ours. “Will, I need you more than I need pain.”
He swallowed but didn’t speak.
“I mean it,” I went on. “If we hadn’t placed that ad, and we’d never connected with Kelly, we would’ve been fine. We’d have figured something out. We always do. And now that we have met him, we’ll still be fine.” I smiled cautiously. “The fact that you’re willing to bring someone else in means the world to me.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I know that’s not easy for you. But I can’t think of anything that’s made me trust you more as a Dom than you being honest with me and saying, ‘hey, this is beyond my limits, so I’m going to let someone else tag in.’”
Will looked down at our hands, rubbing his thumb alongside mine. “I just want to make sure you have what you