Adam hadn’t been with another woman in over a year. Why should I still care? The thought still stung but I willed myself to build a bridge and get over it. I plunged my hand into the box, grabbed a handful and came back. It occurred to me that I’d never used one—never learned how to use one—and his hands were tied up.

I put the handful on the night table and grabbed one of them. Glancing down, I saw that he was still erect. I bent over and kissed his mouth. He enthusiastically returned the kiss. I peppered some more kisses on his chest and leaned back, tearing at the foil wrapper. “Here goes nothing…” I murmured and he watched me carefully.

I pulled out the condom and put the wrapper back on the nightstand. “Wait—” he said. “What does the date say? That box is at least two years old. Are they still good?”

“Do condoms come with an expiration date?” I said and he only answered me with a glare so I shrugged and looked at the wrapper. The date on it was sometime next year. “Yep, we’re still good.”

“Let me see it.”

Puzzled, I held out the wrapper for him to see. Apparently he didn’t trust me to read the date? I’ll admit that sometimes I forgot things or said stupid things due to chemo-brain but I wasn’t that far gone…

“Okay,” he finally muttered. He didn’t look happy. I frowned at him. The look in his eyes could only be described as…intensity tinged with a little fear. What on earth did he have to be afraid of?

I took the condom and placed it against the tip of his cock, hoping the thing would unroll easily because doing this now was turning me on again and I really wanted to get to it. Adam watched every move I made—like a hawk—and not with an expression of arousal but as if he was afraid I’d make a mistake.

I was aware of my first mistake when it wouldn’t unroll as easily as I thought it should. I put my other hand to the task. I could see why many couples didn’t like using these things…they certainly killed the mood and the spontaneity of being together. I sighed, beginning to feel frustrated.

“You’ve got it upside down,” Adam observed. “Flip it over.”

I did as he asked and it unrolled easily, I pulled it down, all the way against the base of him. Then I ran my hand up and down his length. I could tell it turned him on, but he didn’t take his eyes off what I was doing. “Be careful, you don’t want to tear it.”

“Do they tear that easily? What’s the point if they do?” I got up to swing my leg over him again when he moved his hips away. “Wait…”

“What now?”

“I don’t want to take a chance with that one tearing. Put another one on top of it.”

I paused. I’d never heard of that before. But again, I was so inexperienced. I’d only ever had sex with Adam. So what the hell did I know? Apparently he was all kinds of experienced—even with some of the kinkier stuff, too. My pointless jealousy rose up again. This was starting to piss me off.

“Will that work all right?” I said, reaching for another condom and pulling it out of its wrapper.

“If one tears, the other will hold. The odds of them both tearing are much less.”

“But…won’t they just rub against each other and cause more friction?”

He started to tug against the ties holding his arms. “Untie me. Let me do it.” He gave another jerk, almost frantic to be untied.

“Hold on…wait. Let me get it.”

But he was yanking again, almost panicked now.

“Wait, Adam. Let me untie it. Hold still.”

He visibly swallowed as he watched me and it was the first moment where I realized that it was more than that small fear I had detected in his eyes earlier. He was downright terrified.

I untied him and he sat up, rubbing his wrists. Judging from the marks around them, he had pulled pretty damn hard to get out of his bonds. I sat back, suddenly too worried about him to care that we probably weren’t going to go through with this now.

He pulled off the condom and wrapped the towel around himself again. Tears clogged in my throat. “I’m sorry…I screwed that up, didn’t I?” I said in a quiet voice.

He shook his head. “No.” He leaned forward and put his face in his hands and I watched him for long, silent, tension-filled stretch of minutes.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked, my throat tight.

He didn’t answer, just ran a hand through his dark hair, focused intently on some spot in front of him on the bedspread.

He’d actually been afraid, panicked, terrified of something. I thought back through it all. His reaction when he thought I was going to proceed with sex without a condom—then the insistence on looking at the date to see if they were still good. Then the suggestion to double the layers. I sucked in a long and painful breath.