“Us.”
A soft smile danced across Ronan’s mouth and he returned our hands to his leg.“What about us?”
“I know things have been a little rocky lately,” I started, and his expression quickly faltered. “Stop it.”
“Kevin.”
“Stop.” I shook my hand free of his and pinched the side of his leg. “I’ve thought a lot about this and I want to talk to you about it. You know, Ronan. If you don’t want me thinking, don’t send me away. Don’t make it so I can’t come for weeks at a time.”
He snorted. “You shouldn’t be thinking about anything besides that at this point.”
“In another life, that probably would have been the case.”
Ronan looked away. Ashamed.
“Jesus. Can you not?” I kicked the blankets off and climbed off the bed, grabbing him around the wrist and hauling him out of the bedroom.
“Where are we going? You need to rest.”
I pushed open the door to the playroom and pulled him inside.
“I’m going to rest, as soon as you listen to what I need.” I moved Ronan over to the spanking bench and gestured for him to sit. Once he’d settled, I stripped out of my clothes until I was fully naked, then I kneeled at his feet. He did what I knew he would—he reached for me, running his fingers absentmindedly through my hair. I closed my eyes and waited for his touch to soothe me.
“I’m not sure how to reconcile the man I am with the man I want to be for you,” I started, and Ronan’s hand stilled, only for a moment, before resuming its work against my scalp. “I want to always be yours, but I don’t know how to not be my own.”
“I don’t want you mindless.”
“Good.” I huffed out an amused breath. “I won’t ever be, but I want…I want more from you. And I want to give moretoyou, and I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know if that’s 24/7 or what. But I know that I need you to take it.”
“What?” Ronan dragged his hand down the side of my face and tipped my chin up so I was forced to look up at him. The submissive pose had my cock hardening, and my notable lack of release pushed its way toward the front and center of my brain after being cast aside for most of the day.
“I trust you,” I said. “And I want you to take from me.”
“Take what?” he rasped, words scratchy as they left his throat.
“Everything. Anything.” I threaded my fingers together at the back of my head, putting myself on full display. “Whatever you want from me, I want you to have. I might not always know how to give it to you, but it’s yours just the same.”
“Kevin.”
“Am I asking too much?” I blinked slowly.
I’d thought long and hard about Ronan. When I’d been in the hallway at Carmen’s, our past and future flashed before my eyes and for so long I hadn’t known what the future was meant to look like for us. I’d imagined a kind of trial and error, where suggestions were made and tried and they either worked or didn’t. And that would have been fine for anyone else, but that wasn’t the life I wanted for myself.
I didn’t want to have the long and rolling conversations about checklists and do’s and don’ts. I wanted to be in the moment with Ronan for every moment we were allowed. And in those moments, I wanted to trust him to make the right decisions for us both. After all, wasn’t that the point of a power exchange? Making the choice to no longer choose?
“It’s not too much,” he answered.
“I trust you with all things, Ronan. I trust you to make the right decisions for us. I hope that is something you want.” I angled my stare toward the ground.Respectfully.
“I don’t think I deserve you,” he muttered. “But I’ll try to.”
“Thank you, Ronan.”
“I bet you want to come now.”
“If you want me to,” I whispered, even though I so very much did.
“Are you hard?” he asked, standing up and stepping away from the bench. I kept my stare downcast, listening to him walk toward the toy cabinet in the corner of the room.
