Okay, so I may have done an even deeper social media dive on him last night than the one I performed over the summer. I may have also gone so far back that I saw pictures of him, Skylar, and Declan from high school. He looks a little different from the dark-haired, dimpled boy in the pictures, but it’s definitely him. Same chiseled jawline. Same midnight eyes.
“Wait?” I question as he nods to the seat beside me. I scooch over and move my purse to the other side of the lounge.
“She likes to have to wait for it.” His voice is neutral, almost bored, despite the fact that he was the one who started this conversation. “And he likes to make her wait.”
Understanding takes over, and I can’t help but smirk. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
“What are you, some kind of kink whisperer?”
“Nah. I can read people. It’s one of my many talents.”
“I see.”
“Want to know what yours is?” He leans forward at an angle and lowers his voice to a near whisper.
“My talent?”
“Your kink.”
“Sure, why not,” I say, knocking back the rest of my drink. Something tells me I’m going to need a buzz for this.
“Easy,” he says with confidence even I couldn’t muster on my best day. “You like control.”
I scoff. “Lucky guess.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“Maybe you didn’t deserve tofinish.”
“Exactly.” Completely unfazed by my dig, he pretends to study my eyes for a moment. “You’re the humiliation type, aren't you? You get off on making men fall at your feet, begging and desperate. Making them feel helpless.”
He says it so matter-of-factly, like he’s guessing my favorite color. I’m glad I already finished my drink because I would have spit it out all over him if I had just taken a sip.
I snort out a low laugh. “Are you saying I’m a Daddy Dom?”
“I’m pretty sure it would be Mommy Dom in your case,” he corrects, arching an eyebrow.
I narrow my eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. Daddy is a vibe. It doesn’t correspond to a gender.”
“Whatever. You already knew all this. Want to know the part you keep a secret, even from yourself?”
“You’re going to tell me anyway, so might as well get it over with,” I sigh.
“You want all those same things done to you. You want to be controlled and degraded. You want to be told what to do.”
My stomach sinks like I’ve just been caught by a teacher looking at someone else’s answers during a test. How the fuck does he know that? I’ve never told anyone. I’ve barely admitted it to myself. I’m not ashamed of my sexuality. I enjoy sex and I won’t apologize for having a lot of it. This is different, though. Growing up watching my mother in controlling relationships, hearing the vile things her boyfriends would say to her, I promised myself I would never let a man treat me like that. So instead, I became the one who needed complete control. It’s true, I get off on seeing men submit to me. But maybe there is a small part of me that wants it the other way around. Either way, I’m sure I need therapy.
“Your silence tells me I hit the nail on the head.” Declan’s raspy voice drags me from my thoughts.
I cross my legs and avoid his comment, not willing to givehim the confirmation he wants. “So this is what you do?” I scoff. “Sit around judging people’s sex lives?”
He laughs and somehow manages to do it without even so much as a suggestion of a smile. His laughter is deep, but cold, like the bottom of the ocean. “I’m the last person in the world who would judge anyone’s sex life.”
Curiosity outweighs any shred of common sense I have, and I ask, “So what about you?” I lean back. “What’s your kink?”
“Ah,” he says casually. “There’s only one way to find that out.” His gaze slowly rakes over my entire body, landing dead on my eyes. “Unfortunately, you’re not my type.”
I internally scoff. He’s not mine either. I usually go for the finance bro frat boy type. Guys I know for sure are just looking to get laid for the night. Sure, we go on a date first as a pretense and pretend that we’re not both just looking to get off. We make small talk and eat dinner, but I make sure we both know what the endgame is. We go back to his place, or sometimes mine, and after, we part ways with the understanding that we were using each other to feel good. That’s all. I’ve had some repeats, but only during desperate times, and only men who I know want nothing more from me. I like bringing men to their knees, but most of them only pretend to submit to me because they know it will end in getting their dicks wet. I tell myself it doesn’t really matter because it’s all just a means to an end anyway.
