Eight

Dax closed the passenger door after Lily settled inside. Before walking around to the driver’s side, he rotated his shoulders to loosen the knots and took a few deep breaths of rain-soaked air. When he climbed into the car, Lily had reclined her seat and closed her eyes.

“Your parents take the merry out of Christmas.”

“Let’s not do a postmortem.” She touched his arm, then, as if her hand was too heavy to hold up, let it flop back into her lap. “I have a headache. I know we need to talk, but right now I just want to go home and lie down.”

He started the engine. “Radio on or off?”

“Off, please.”

He waved good-bye to Anthony and Regina, who were heading over to Regina’s parents’ house for another turkey dinner.

It occurred to him, as he pulled through the open gate, that if he and Lily broke up, he’d never see her parents again. That was a definite plus. They irked him, and he wasn’t all that crazy about who she turned into around them. Still, as he glanced at her pale, strained face, he knew that he’d gladly—well, maybe not gladly—suffer through social occasions with her parents if he and she could recapture the feelings they’d once shared.

* * *

Three hours later, Dax, in the recliner by the gas fire with a half-empty bottle of Granville Island lager beside him, shut down Lily’s Kindle. While she’d slept off her headache, he’d changed into jeans and the hawk tee and finished reading Bound by Desire. A few scenes were titillating, but others he found bizarre and degrading. He didn’t like Neville. Seemed to him, the guy used his “I’m a dom” thing to legitimize disrespecting women and inflicting pain. But on the other hand, the relationship was consensual. Cassandra didn’t use her safe word and Neville gave her what she seemed to want. So, Dax supposed, the two of them were well-matched.

People were different. That was what it came down to. As for Dax, while he could definitely get into some games and toys, he was no dom. If Lily had discovered that she was a true sexual submissive, he couldn’t give her what she needed.

When the bathroom door closed and water ran, he went to the kitchen to mix her a martini. A few minutes later, she joined him there.

“Hey there.” He handed her the drink. “How are you feeling?” She looked fresh and lovely in a long, slim, silver-gray sweater and black yoga pants that clung to her legs. She wore the First Nations pendant and earrings.

“My headache’s gone.” She took a long drink from the martini glass. “Thanks, this is perfect.” She studied him and smiled. “The T-shirt looks good on you.”

“I like it. Great gift.”

“I guess we need to think about dinner.”

“No thinking required. Aldonza has provided. She forgave me for that stupid comment.”

Humor sparkled in her eyes. “She’d forgive you anything. The woman’s crazy about you. What did she give us?”

“Piri piri chicken and fried potatoes to microwave, green bean salad, and Portuguese buns. Leftover mince pie and, of course, bolo rei.” She made the traditional Portuguese Christmas dessert for her friends.

“A feast.” Then the light in her eyes faded. “We need to talk first.”

He read determination in her face, plus a trace of doubt or vulnerability. He could identify. “Yeah.”

When she turned and headed for the living room, he followed. He hadn’t closed the blinds and Lily walked over to the window. With her back to him, she lifted her glass and took a drink.

Figuring this wasn’t a side-by-side-on-the-couch conversation, he sat back down in the recliner and picked up his beer bottle.

Lily seated herself in an upholstered chair, setting her martini glass on a coaster on the table beside the chair.

“Where do we start?” he asked. Knowing Lily, she’d have her thoughts organized to present. As for him, all he knew was, he wanted their old life back, the way they’d been together when they first got married.

She crossed her legs, sitting neat and prim. “You said you thought I might be cheating because I asked you to use condoms. That’s an awfully big leap.”

That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say, but he responded. “There were other things. You seem different. You’re never around. Always at work or—”

“The clinic is busy,” she said defensively.

“Yeah, I know, it’s your baby. But even when you’re here, you’re not. You’re distant.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “So are you. And talk about never being around. You’ve hardly been home in the past couple of years.”

He took a long swallow of beer. “Haven’t felt like there’s much here for me,” he said gruffly. “Or that you want me here. It’s your home, not mine.”

Her mouth opened, then closed, and she glanced around the room. “If you were here more, you’d make it your home.”

“It’s not so much the place, it’s you. It doesn’t feel like you want me in Vancouver.”

“I do, Dax. But yes, I have a life. I can’t sit at home and wait for you to show up every now and then.” She sounded indignant.

He shook his head. “Jeez, Lily, I know that.” But couldn’t she, once in a while, make time for him? Didn’t she ever want to be together, the way they used to be? “What made you think I was cheating?” he asked quietly.

She glanced down at her folded arms, then up again. “You being away so much. Being distant when you were here, even when we . . .” Color stained her pale cheeks. Had sex, she was thinking, and she was right. “And then, last night, you were . . . It was so unlike you.”

Heat pulsed through his body at the memory. Testing, he said, “I thought you might like it.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

“Are you saying you didn’t?”

Her cheeks went a brighter pink, a sexy flush that made his groin tighten. “It was, uh, different.” She firmed her jaw. “And, obviously, I climaxed multiple times.”

She sure did, her body coming apart hard and hot and wet on his lips and around his cock. He shifted and crossed his legs, trying to control his arousal.

“But I feel strange about it,” she went on. “And you didn’t answer my question. Why did you think I’d like it?”

“That book on your Kindle.”

“Oh,” she said on a note of revelation. “You picked up my Kindle instead of yours and found Bound by Desire.”

No need to admit he’d checked deliberately, after finding erotic novels before. “I thought if that’s what you like reading, maybe it’s what you want in bed.”

She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. Above her fingertips, her blue eyes danced with amusement. “Dax, I didn’t choose that book. I haven’t even started it. It’s a book club selection.”

Likely, so were the previous ones. “You belong to a book club? What kind of club picks that kind of book?”

“Mine, apparently.” She reached for her martini glass. “When I joined the club, I was expecting literary fiction. But the other members have their own ideas about what we should read, so I’ve gone along. I did protest against Bound by Desire, but they, uh, made persuasive arguments.”

Not many people other than her parents could best Lily. Dax was really curious about the other members of this book club. “Persuasive arguments about BDSM?”

“About keeping an open mind and discovering why so many women are reading this kind of book.”

Yeah, Lily was big on research and analysis.

She gazed at him over the rim of her glass. “So last night was about what, exactly? You thought I got off on BDSM, so you decided to spank me and tie me up?”

“I didn’t spank you. I gave you one light slap on your ass.” His hand tingled, remembering.

“It stung.” She probably meant it as a protest, but the breathiness in her voice told him she too was turned on.

He studied his wife. Legs neatly crossed; simple, tasteful clothes; hair cut short in a style that was attractive and practical; a touch of eye makeup but no lipstick, no nail polish. Beautiful, but so refined and controlled. Except for the flush on her cheeks. Wanting to rattle her a bit more, he said in a low, suggestive voice, “It made you wet.”

She drank the last mouthful of her martini in an undignified gulp.

“Why does that embarrass you?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded annoyed, though he wasn’t sure whether it was at him or at herself. “I’m a doctor, I spend a good part of my day examining naked genitals, female and male. I discuss sex with my patients. But this is . . . personal.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, yes, it was arousing. But not the pain so much as the, uh, unexpectedness. The fact that you were, well, definitely not being distant. You took charge. You saw me, from suggesting a bath, to massaging me, to the passionate sex. You were more like the way we used to be, back when—”

“When what?” Did she feel the same way, that things had been perfect when they first got together? Could they find their way back?