“I’d planned to get you to read to me.Part of the Dom/sub relationship is about the submissive learning to please the dominant partner.”
Keeping the blanket wrapped around my naked body—honestly, it was the softest thing I’d ever felt and my nerves were still hypersensitive—I leaned forward enough to look him in the eye.His grip on my hip tightened almost reflexively before relaxing again.I loved that he didn’t seem to want to let me go almost as much as I hated moving out of the shelter of his arms, but I had to know where he was going with thepleasing the Domthing.It didn’t seem all that different than what a vanilla couple would do and if it was, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“I thought I did that a couple of minutes ago,” I said, deliberately biting the corner of my lip.
Erik caught my chin with his hand, pressing his thumb against my bottom lip and holding me in place.
“You did.Please me very much,” he said, his voice pitched low in a way that sent heat unfurling deep in my body and flooding my sex.
I shifted on the smooth leather cushion, squeezing my thighs together in a ridiculous effort to make my arousal less obvious.I don’t know who the hell I thought I was fooling.I’d spent enough time with him to know Erik didn’t have any trouble seeing right through me.It was like a badStar Trek-resistance is futilekind of thing with orgasms at the end.That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
“So what did you want me to read?Were you thinking a copy of theStory of Oor do your tastes run more toward Michener or SCOTUS opinions?”
“Smart ass,” he said, pinching my still tender nipple.
I yelped and felt my face flush with a mixture of embarrassment and arousal.I couldn’t explain why the slight bite of pain did it for me, but I was done trying to deny it.After the way I shattered for him under the bite of the leather tails, he wouldn’t believe it anyway.I could psychoanalyze the shit out of my responses later but for now I intended to enjoy the way Erik made my body feel.I’d worry about the rest another time.
“Since you handled the flogger so beautifully, Iwasgoing to let you off the hook.”He punched the word in a way that made it clear my smart-ass mouth put me firmly back on the hook.
Erik leaned toward me and I sucked in my breath in anticipation.Instead of touching me again, he reached past me to snag a well-worn paperback from a sweetgrass basket beside the sofa.He placed the book in my hands and relaxed back against the leather, looking like the king of the world.The complete self-assurance in his stance—like he knew whatever he commanded would happen—made my body tighten, but I managed to curtail the urge to roll my eyes.
Honesty, both about my feelings and about the way my body responded to him, was a hell of a lot harder than I expected.It was so much easier to go for the snark.I’d always been a basically truthful person.I prided myself on my integrity.I hadn’t realized how much I lied, even about simple meaningless things, until Erik demanded my honesty.Not that orgasms were meaningless, not at all, but somewhere along the way it had gotten easier to simply smile and hide my genuine responses to things.Not my opinions, those I was perfectly comfortable sharing—hell, broadcasting if necessary—but my feelings were a different thing.
I didn’t want them to be.I wanted to be as honest with my body and my heart as I was with my mind.Erik could help me with that.Although I had no intention of telling him.The irony wasn’t lost on me.Baby steps.Needing a buffer between the thoughts in my head and the half-dressed would-be king radiating heat next to me, I glanced at the book in my hands.
“Outlander?You want me to read Diana Gabaldon’sOutlanderto you?It’s like six hundred pages long.”And one of my favorite books of all time but that didn’t seem the salient point at the moment.
“You don’t have to start at the beginning if you don’t want to.My page is marked.Or we can start over, if you’d rather.”For the first time in all time we’d spent together, Erik seemed—not unsure exactly; that would be too strong of a word—less than completely in control was probably more accurate.And he’d given me a choice.
My attention shifted with laser focus to what could possibly make him feel like that.It was, after all, a hell of a lot easier to analyze someone else’s weaknesses than it was to look at my own.Although even thinking about weak and Erik in the same sentence felt disingenuous.
“You’re a hundred and ten pages into the book,” I said, flipping to the spot he’d marked.“Why would you want to start over?Why have me read to you at all?”Never mind for the moment, the fact that when the big bad attorney wanted to read, he picked a time-traveling historical romance.
“I like your voice,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.“I’m not expecting you to do the characters.Unless you want to.”He gave me a cocky grin that made me want to strangle him and kiss him at the same time.
It was a toss-up which desire was stronger, and then his expression shifted to something less guarded and kissing edged out bodily harm.
“I’m dyslexic, Alex.I love the stories—the language—but I have to work so hard at reading; it takes the joy out of it for me.”
I had about a million questions about how he got through law school with dyslexia.Hell, how he handled his daily life.It wasn’t like he’d chosen a profession that didn’t rely on the written word.Brevity with words was a legal oxymoron.Thinking about how hard he must have worked to get where he was tugged at my heart, making me care even more.The man never stopped surprising me.
“Alexandra,” he said, using the same voice he’d used in the playroom earlier to get me to answer him.“I have an abundance of coping mechanisms I’ve developed over the years.I’d be happy to talk about them another time.I’m sure you have reams of questions, but we’re done with this issue for now.Either use your safe word or read.”
I hadn’t considered the idea that we were still in a scene, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it—that he could just play the Dom card whenever he wanted.At some point, we were going to have to talk about where the line was, but it didn’t have to be today.
Settling back into my spot against his chest, I opened the book to the first page and started to read.
