“We need limits, Shelby.”
“I don’t want limits,” I argue.
He takes my chin in his grip. “I’m fucking serious, Colin. Tell me right now that you’ll use it.”
I hesitate for a moment. This isn’t going how I planned at all, and we haven’t even started yet. Is he expecting me to stop him? I don’t want to do whatIwant. I want to do whathewants.
“I don’t understand. I trust you. You know I do,” I reply softly.
His shoulders melt away from his ears, and I see the disappointment wash over his features. Feeling the need to correct this situation, I add, “Declan, Iwantyou to hurt me.”
He releases my chin and steps away. With a withered sigh, he drops onto the bed and rests his arms on his knees.
“What did I do?” I ask.
“Come here,” he says in a soft command.
I move to all fours and crawl toward him. When I reach hisknees, I settle myself between them. Resting his hands on my face, he pulls me up until I’m nearly kissing him.
“I know you trust me, Shelby. But I need to trust you. I don’t want toreallyhurt you. I want to know that when I’ve found your limit, you’ll tell me. But I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” I plead. “I’ll tell you.”
But he shakes his head. “No, you won’t.”
Deep down, I know he’s right. I won’t. There’s no scenario where I’d be willing to stop him. No chance that I’d ever speak up or make him stop, because even that takes courage I’m afraid I don’t have.
Emotion boils inside of me. It’s anger and embarrassment and sadness. I feel my cheeks heating as tears fill my eyes. Humiliated, I try to pull away, but he stops me.
“I said come here,” he says, holding me closer. And when he pulls me into an embrace, I try to get away, but he doesn’t let me. Instead, I press my face to his chest and let out an angry sigh.
“What is wrong with me?” I ask.
“Why do you always ask that? There isnothingwrong with you,” he whispers. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be dominated, Shelby. But it’s my job to protect you.”
Trembling in his arms, I realize he doesn’t mean his job as my friend, but his job as my Dom, and that shakes me to my core.
“Then, why can’t I do this? Why can’t I speak up for myself?”
“I don’t know, baby,” he replies. Every time he lets that pet name slip, it makes my heart stop. I hate how good it feels. “We can work on it, though,” he says. “I think we just got excited, and we almost jumped into something that takes time and preparation. We can do little things until we get there.”
“We?” I ask, knowing that there are only eight days this summer and then twelve whole months until we’re together again.
“Yes,we,” he says. “Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to send you back to LA like this and let someone else who doesn’t care about you step all over you. Not on my fucking watch.”
I laugh into his chest as he holds me. Then I say something I haven’t said in a very long time.
“You’re my best friend, Declan.”
He squeezes me tighter. “Aye. And I always will be.”
Part of me thinks he says that because he knows I want more, and he wants to let me down gently. He knows that it will always be just sex to him and never beyond that.
But I also think that we are more. We might not live together or be romantic in ways other people understand, but we’re both so messed up that this is enough for us. We don’t make sense to others, but we make sense to each other, and that’s all that matters.
“Let’s get drunk,” he says.
So we both stand up. He grabs two beers from the fridge, and we take them to the roof of the boat, where there’s a small balcony and a beautiful view of the city. It’s not what we had planned for tonight, but seeing as how that was an immediate disaster, this might actually be better.
