Mav
Tonight was a shitshow. John had been excited all week, teasing me with his plans for tonight. And what did I do? I freaked the fuck out because I was in uncharted waters. I’d been so damn good for so long at keeping emotions and sex in two very separate boxes. But that wasn’t what I wanted. Not now, not with him.
I hung back as John talked to his boss, letting him know we were going to miss most of the night’s celebration. If Jack was upset by the news, he didn’t let on. He pulled John into a one-armed hug, whispered something in his ear, and pushed him towards me.
We stopped by the playroom long enough to say goodbye to my friends. I felt self-conscious, realizing now what John meant about me not being dressed to be around so much innocence. Or, I supposed, feigned innocence was a better term. I’d heard those boys talking way too often to believe any of them were pure and sweet. They probably had dirtier minds than most of the people on the other side of the club.
“Are you okay?” Sam pulled me aside, keeping his voice low so no one could overhear us.
I shrugged because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say at this point. John had assured me, repeatedly, that I hadn’t screwed anything up, but I knew I had. He was just trying to be nice. The stupidest part was that I’d wanted to play his little game. It was something new, and every time he talked about visiting the themed rooms, my dick got hard imagining what he’d do to me in each setting. But now, I wasn’t sure that would ever happen if this was how I reacted on our first visit.
“Do you need me to come home tonight?” He was sweet for offering, but Theron had spent hours putting together a perfect surprise for Sam. I wasn’t going to screw that up, too.
“No, I’ll be fine,” I promised him. “John’s just about ready to take me back to the house.”
“And he’s staying there with you, right?” My lip quivered, and Sam wasted no time before pulling me into a hug. In my heels, I towered over him. We had to make one hell of a sight. “Hey, if you need me, call. I don’t care what time it is.”
“I will,” I lied.
“And tomorrow, we’re going to the basement for a while and wearegoing to talk about what he did that has you upset,” Sam warned me. He was fierce as shit, and I was surprised he hadn’t stormed over to John and started beating on his chest as he demanded answers. From our years of getting to know one another online, I knew he didn’t have many people he considered friends, but those he did were sacred to him.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” I insisted. “Things got a little too intense for me, and I stopped things before they even got started.”
“Oh, sweetie. You have to trust that John would never do anything you’re not ready for,” he told me.
I trusted John implicitly. The problem was, once things got started, there was no way I would have stopped him. I didn’t want the private room at a BDSM club to be the memory of our first time together. That in itself confused the shit out of me because I’d never wanted memories with the guys I’d slept with.
“I think a change of venue will help,” John said as he approached. He slipped a hand around to the small of my back. I leaned into his body, inhaling deeply, allowing the scent of his cologne to center me. “Thank you for being such a good friend to him, Sam. And I promise, if I everdohurt him, I won’t fight back when you kick the shit out of me.”
“Good. Because I will beat you up.” We all burst out laughing when Sam raised his fists. “But the same goes for you, Mav. John’s a good guy and it says something that he’s stepping out of his comfort zone for you. Don’t take that for granted.”
“I won’t,” I promised both of them. I slid my hand over John’s heart and stared into his eyes.
John kissed me tenderly, and all the boys cooed in between comments about how hot we were together. I had to agree. And we’d be even hotter once we got back to Theron’s, where we could hopefully pick up the game we’d been playing, this time without it being called short.
Neither of us spoke on the way to the house. I knew we probably should, but I wasn’t sure what more there was to add that I hadn’t said already. It wasn’t a matter of not wanting him to fuck me, it was just that I wanted more. And honestly, it seemed to be bothering me a hell of a lot more than it bugged him.
I waited for John to open the passenger side door when he parked at the top of Theron’s driveway. The first few times he’d done it, I’d been shocked and unsure what to do. It was definitely something that wasn’t hard to get used to, and now I adored the way he opened my door and held out his hand to help me out of the car. Tonight, was no exception; once he’d closed the door and locked the car, he slid his keys into his pocket and held me close. I waited as he punched in the keycode for the garage and didn’t let go of him when he swung the door leading into the kitchen open.
The door closing echoed through the empty house tonight. The moment of ease and familiarity vanished.
“If you want me to go home, I will,” John offered.
“What? No! That’s not what I want at all,” I protested. We weren’t going upstairs until I knew for damn sure we were on the same page. I took his hand this time, leading him into the living area. He sat down on what I was starting to think of as his end of the couch, and I curled up close to his side. “I didn’t stop you earlier because I don’t want to have sex with you. I just didn’t want it to be in an impersonal room that is going to be used for play and sex every night from now on.”
“Okay.” John kissed the side of my head and tightened his arm around my shoulders. “I know you said that before, but I wanted to make sure. I don’t ever want to push you into something you’re not ready for.”
“I feel like I’m the one who should be saying that to you,” I quipped. Every step we took was another first for him. He was a very skilled lover, but that didn’t change the fact that he was out of his depth because I was the only man he’d ever been with. “Maybe I’m making more of what we have than I should, but when you talked about doing that, I felt like we needed to be someplace truly private.”
“I’m glad you thought of it,” he admitted. “Do you mind me asking what you meant about making more of what we have than you should?”
Unzipping my boots and sliding them off my feet gave me a few seconds’ reprieve to put my thoughts together. Once I was barefoot, I curled my feet up under me, causing my skirt to ride indecently high. One wrong move and my lace covered dick would be on full, lewd display. Somehow, I didn’t think that would be a problem to him.
“It’s hard for me to put into words,” I told him, staring at the decorations over the mantel rather than looking at him. “At first, I told myself I just wanted to fuck around with you. I didn’t expect anything more than maybe a quick fuck that day I asked you to give me a tour. But then, you were so sweet the night of the cookout. You could have taken advantage of me when we ran into one another in the hall, but you didn’t, even with me standing there naked.”
“Don’t give me too much credit,” John scoffed. “I wanted to do plenty, but I was shell-shocked. You were someone who rocked my world and left, but then you were standing in front of me and I didn’t know what in the fuck I was supposed to do. Honestly, I’m not sure I believed I wasn’t hallucinating you into existence right then.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. He could have taken the praise and rolled with it, but he owned up to how he was actually feeling. “See, and that’s the type of shit I’m talking about. Anyway, I wanted to be annoyed when you told me to go put on warmer clothes, but I knew you weren’t doing it because you were repulsed by how I was dressed. You just didn’t want me to catch a chill.”
