He missed it. I could tell by the look in his eyes and the smile on his face. I remembered what he had said to me last week about how he thought he didn’t want to submit anymore. I decided to see if he still felt that way.
“Of the two people in the room, which would you rather be?” I asked.
“The bottom,” Andrew confidently said.
There was no hesitation on his part. Everything with Elise had probably scared him and forced him into self-protection mode by saying he was done with submitting. It was understandable. He might need some time, but I was certain he would find himself again in it. I’d be waiting for him.
“Which would you be?” Andrew asked me.
“Oh, the Top, for sure,” I said.
“No chance as the bottom?” he asked. Andrew’s scorching blue eyes locked on mine, sending warmth through my body.
“I won’t say never, or that there’s not a chance in hell, but the role of a Top is where I feel most comfortable,” I admitted.
We slowly strolled from room one down the hallway, peering into some other rooms. It wasn’t until we were standing in front of room three that he spoke again.
“Kind of like the role of a submissive is where I feel most comfortable,” Andrew murmured.
He glanced at me sideways, and when he saw that I was looking at him and smiling, his lips parted to reveal a drop-dead gorgeous smile. Were we making some progress in the realm of a session in the near future?
“Mmm, Andrew. That smile of yours tells me that you might be interested in bottoming for me in a session after all,” I lightly joked with him.
His gentle laugh mixed with those blue eyes, and that smile easily made me want to do whatever this man needed. I had been interested in Andrew for a while, but that was from a distance for the most part. Now that I was up close and having personal conversations with him, I was quickly falling hopelessly in love with him. This was dangerous because I knew he wasn’t ready for anything like that right now.
“We’ll see.” He nodded and continued to smile as we walked.
“What’s made you possibly change your mind?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” he said honestly. “I’ve found myself thinking a lot. Actually, that seems to be about all I’ve been doing. I pretty much think, work, worry, and stress.”
“That’s all very understandable considering everything you have going on.”
“Yeah.”
“So all of the thinking has made you rethink submitting?”
“It’s been a combination of a lot of things. One is being back in Oxygen each weekend. Since Elise was banned from the club, it kept me out of here too. She never wanted to go to the club that she used to belong to, so we only played at home. What’s weird, and kind of eye opening, is that when I started coming back here, it felt like it had been forever since I had submitted to someone … capable, I guess is the word I can use.”
I didn’t know the private details of the relationship that Andrew had with Elise, but rumor had it that she had been a submissive at one point.
“Being back here and surrounded by healthy relationships has made me remember all of the positive experiences I had here with Tops. Elise hadn’t been like any of those Tops.” He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “And I miss it.”
While I wanted to top him, above all, I wanted him happy and to have fun again. Club Oxygen was full of great Tops who would love to have Andrew bottom for them.
“Andrew, there are many experienced Tops here, and none of them play recklessly.”
Andrew nodded but didn’t say anything. I worried that I might have said something that had upset him, or maybe he was just thinking about what I had said. We walked to the end of the hallway, and when Andrew saw the room wasn’t being used by anyone, he wandered inside. He walked to the wall that held a variety of impact instruments and tools. With his back to me, he lifted a wide wooden paddle from the rack. He turned around to face me. Gripping the handle loosely in one hand and placing the end against his palm, he spun the paddle.
“Accidents can happen within these walls,” he said.
I detected he was doing a few things here. He was playing a game to see if I could counteract every negative thing he could think of. He wanted to make points as to why heshouldn’tplay. He was looking for a reasonnotto allow himself to play and be who he was.
Two can play that game, though.
Click. Click.
I took two steps toward him, letting my black heels click audibly against the floor. I loved these shoes. They had the perfect pitch to them and were essential for mind-fucking. Though mind-fucking wasn’t my intention, I wanted to see what the sound would do to him. Would it jar his concentration?
