Read Online Yellow (The Safeword Series, #2) by Ava Claire - Free Book Online Page A

clothes tossed in a bundle on the floor.” She swept her hair behind her ear, making a face like she was already screwing up and she'd just begun. “Not my clothes. My roommate's clothes. This dress is mine though. One of like three. I wore it to my graduation a few years ago.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “And now I'm doing that blabber mouth thing. Sorry.”
    I shook my head, beckoning her with a finger. “No apologies. Well, if you want to apologize for telling me to meet you here tonight instead of requesting my presence, feel free,” I added on a wink, just to show her how okay this all was, but her sheen was changing from red with embarrassment to green like she felt sick. “Sophia—I'm not angry. You sharing yourself with me, it's a gift. And it means more to me than I can express.”
    She didn't move any closer, her delicate features hardening to porcelain. “That's just it, D.” She narrowed her eyes. “I mean, sure, I've worn a mask and a wig and itty bitty dresses, but you know more about me than I know about you. I even told you I liked you, and I'm pretty sure you like me too, but how do I know if it's because I'm a good lay or if it's because of me if we haven't done any more than this?” She gestured around us.
    'This'.
    Sex.
    The sense of dejavu was enough to make me feel dizzy, lightheaded. There was some sick irony in the fact that I was standing here, with a woman I cared about, who was taking the first step and looking to me, hoping I'd take the next.
    The void in my heart that was left when I lost Caity seemed big enough to swallow me whole. The old Desmond would have embraced that, made up some BS, and walked away from a woman I cared about, just to avoid the chance of being devastated. Vulnerable.
    I knew that I was taking a risk. Telling her my story, letting her in, could very well blow up in my face. Hell, it could destroy my career if she decided to meet with one of the gossip mags that were constantly on the hunt to dig up juicy dirt on the famous and influential.
    But I looked in her eyes and decided that falling for someone, letting them in, wasn't something you did halfway. You had to let go.
    So I did.
    The bed, and peeling off her clothes, seemed preferable to going back to that place, but I chose the couch in the sitting area instead. I gave no orders, but she followed me. I sat on one end, she sat on the other.
    I thought sitting down would help the words come out, but they sat in my throat, choking me. I massaged the bridge of my nose, almost making some sort of joke. Prolonging the inevitable.
    “A few years ago, I was engaged,” I began. “If I'm being honest, I wasn't ready to be engaged. Or married. But I loved her, so I was ready to take that leap with her.” I cut my eyes at Sophia, expecting her to have that wincing, taut expression like she was holding onto the urge to bolt, wishing she had some sort of fast forward button. But she was just listening, her lips slightly parted, just like she did right before she leaned in to kiss me.
    I loosened the knot of my tie and kept going. “I wasn't nearly as good at keeping secrets back then as I am now. Well, I had a pretty big secret that I was holding onto like my life depended on it,” I edited. “She didn't know about my... needs in the bedroom.”
    That arched both of Sophia's brows.
    “I think I was ashamed,” I explained. “Afraid that she'd see those desires as perverted or archaic or just-” My throat closed when I remembered Caity's dark eyes that day, sure that even though she said she loved me, how could she love that part of me? A part of me that I was still discovering myself? “The thought of losing her over something that I believed I could contain, or maybe slowly warm her to, wasn't a risk I was willing to take.”
    The next part was the thing I hadn't shared with anyone. I refused therapy, I barely saw my mother, and my sister knew that it was a place that no one, including her, including myself,