“Uh…” I don’t know. Maybe? Isn’t it, though? Kind of a game? I’ve heard people refer to BDSM dates as play sessions, which makes me think that’s exactly what it is, but then for others, it’s a lifestyle. I… I don’t know what he wants me to say, which is simultaneously the best and worst sensation.
As an eternal teacher’s pet, I hate not having the answer. I’d feel unmoored, lost, and on the cusp of failure if he weren’t right there behind me. As it is, I want him one step closer. I want more than heat. I want the weight of him, the pressure, and maybe—what the hell, Rae?—maybe a little pain too? Like, if he tries it, just once, maybe I’ll go to that place he took me to on Friday, and everything—all the overwhelm, the anxiety, the uncertainty—will fade and—
“Stay with me,” he says in that low, solid voice.
It’s some kind of magic that makes everything suddenly crystal clear. I’m present, in my body. “Okay,” I whisper, hypnotized.
“Good. Now listen.”
I nod, staring down at the pile of half-rinsed plates, aquamarine frosting running down the drain in a rogue Van Gogh swirl.
“The rules are for your own good. And mine. The rules keep things clear, separate. They keep us safe.”
Slowly, my eyes close to the rich, warm velvet of his voice as it radiates from my ear to my solar plexus and places farther south.
I can’t help the way my back arches, seeking more from this encounter. A hint of friction, at the very least.
“Look at you.” Another annoyed sigh, and he shifts. My breath catches as one arm settles on the sink ledge beside me, the other on the opposite side. I’m boxed in. Trapped. Still, annoyingly, he’snot actually touching me. “You need to be contained, don’t you, naughty girl?”
I try to shake my head, but I’m not sure it works. Nothing works but my heart, which is about to explode from all the pumping.
“Widen your legs.”
I immediately obey.
“You know what I can’t stand? What isn’t remotely acceptable?”
I hope he doesn’t expect a response.
“The way you prance around—”
“I prance?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Okay.”
“Stop. Talking.” One knee nudges the back of my thigh. “You think there aren’t consequences? For disobeying? For sashaying around, all fairy dust and light, like there’s nothing bad in the world, when we’ve got jobs to do.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sen—”
“And this goddamn neck.”
Oh. Oh, that’s it. Here we go. The rule. The one that pushed me too far and made me take a big fat black marker to his precious list.
5. HAIR MUST COVER NECK AT ALL TIMES.
“Yeah, about that, I’m not okay with you telling me what I—” I start to turn, and he stops me with that same knee, only this time it’s flat against my bottom.
“Don’t move.”
“You don’t decide how I do my hair,” I whisper.
“Don’t I? You run around with this pretty little nape exposed, Sunny, and expect to be treated like a colleague instead of the little sub you are? Making me sit there and stare at it, hard as a rock while you staple and type and bop around in that chair, with this soft throat out, begging for…”
He loses it here, his voice gone, scraped raw, as if the last few words were wrung from his lungs, the velvet sound from before has been brushed the wrong way, and now the rough’s come to the surface.
“Begging for what?” I ask, as his breath heats my nape, sending goose bumps out to the tip of every finger, every toe, prickling so hard that my body can’t help but wiggle in response.
