Danny barely made a sound as I shoved the widest part of the plug past his ring of muscles. He’d been put through his paces today, and we were only getting started, so it was a good thing he was already asleep.
After quickly cleaning up both of us with the wipes he kept in his nightstand, I curled my body around his. This wasn’t what either of us had planned; it was better.
14
Danny
Blake was becoming an addiction.Even though I swore I wasn’t ready to move in with him, it was too damn easy to let him lead me to his car when I got done with work and drive me to his house. I knew it was becoming an issue, but I felt incapable of doing anything about it.
“Hey, what’s going on in that head of yours this morning?” Blake set down a plate of eggs and toast in front of me, then draped his arms over my shoulders, kissing the top of my head.
I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. I knew what needed to be done, but things between Blake and me had been good recently, and I didn’t want to do anything to threaten the peace I felt when I was with him. But lying wasn’t an option. “I think I need to spend some time at my place.”
As necessary as the words were, they tasted bitter against my tongue. I didn’t want to be away from him. It was more than the nights of insanely hot sex or waking up covered in a sheen of sweat because he was a human furnace.
The few nights we’d spent apart were almost unbearable. Every time I drifted off to sleep, the noise of trucks passing by or people talking on the street below woke me. The sounds that soothed me as I settled into the first place that had truly been mine alone, now grated on my nerves. I could barely force myself to eat without him across the table from me. The bed was cold, empty, and smelled wrong.
But none of those were valid reasons to give into old habits.
“Okay, yeah. If you want to split time between our places, we can definitely spend part of the week at your apartment.” Such a sweet, sweet man. I still struggled to figure out what I’d done to deserve someone who had no problem twisting his life around to appease me. But he either didn’t understand what I was saying or he was being intentionally obtuse.
I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. I need to spend some time on my own.”
Blake’s chair screeched as he pulled it out. His crestfallen expression as he sat and reached out to me made my heart ache. It wasn’t my fault that we were in different places mentally and emotionally, but I hated being the source of his pain.
“This isn’t about you,” I rushed to reassure him. “I love being here with you, but I know myself. I wish it wasn’t so easy for me to hand over control to you. It scares the shit out of me knowing I told you I wasn’t ready to move in, and yet I haven’t spent any time at my place since the day of that scene.”
My body heated just thinking about how Blake had pulled me apart and then put me back together. As soon as I woke up in his arms later that day, I knew I’d passed the point of no return. My body and heart were his, which triggered my need to do whatever necessary to keep him happy.
When he suggested I pack a bag so I could stay with him for a while, I’d nearly tripped over my feet, racing so we could spend some time in the townhouse that was starting to feel like home before he drove me to work.
“Okay.” Blake cradled his coffee mug in front of his mouth. His brow furrowed as he stared out the sliding glass doors leading into his small backyard. The longer he contemplated my words, the more restless I became. I needed him to say something, even if it was to tell me I was making a big deal out of nothing. At least then we could discuss why I felt this way.
He sighed before finally sipping his coffee. “Thank you for telling me how you’re feeling. I don’t want you to feel suffocated or like you don’t have a choice.”
“No, I don’t feel that way.” Yet. “This is something I know I need to work on. I love being with you, Blake, and I don’t want to eventually…”
My explanation faltered because I couldn’t find the words to convey my fears.
Blake took my hand in both of his, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. I turned to face him, struggling to lift my gaze to his. “It takes a strong man to admit to his weaknesses. I’m proud of you for wanting to correct behaviors that contributed to you being in a bad position in the past. If that means you need time on your own to prove you don’t need someone to take care of you, I will happily give you that. When you surrender to me, it has to be a conscious choice on your part. Tell me what I can do to help you.”
My throat constricted with an overwhelming sense of love and relief. As my heart slowed, I realized I didn’t have to worry about him feeling threatened by my needs. And there was something that would help bridge the distance between us.
I slipped off my chair and kneeled at Blake’s side. When I looked up, Blake cupped my jaw, brushing his thumb over my cheek. I turned my face and kissed his palm. “Sir, can you set some rules for me? I want to do prove to myself that I’m capable of being independent, but I’d feel better if we both knew there were expectations I still had to meet.”
“Tell me, boy…” Blake dug the tips of his fingers into the nape of my neck. He applied just enough pressure it would be impossible for me to look away. “Are you asking for this because it’s what you need or something you think I expect in order to agree to you spending time away from me?”
“No, Sir, it really isn’t like that,” I quickly reassured him.
One of the biggest fallacies among those who were ignorant to relationships like ours was that I somehow didn’t have any say in my life. They thought I was allowing my Dom to control me when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I…I do better when I know what’s expected of me. That’s part of why it’s so easy for me to fall into relationships where I can give up control. But that scares me, too. I’m hoping that maybe taking this step back will help prove that I’m not some mindless twit who’s incapable of taking care of himself.”
Blake jerked his chin toward the table. He took my hand and pulled me upright. “Eat. Once you’ve loaded the dishwasher, we’ll make a schedule and write down your rules. If anything is going too far, I expect you to tell me. This isn’t the time for you to be holding back because you’re afraid I’ll be upset.”
“Yes, Sir.” I didn’t even care that my eggs were cold and my toast had the texture of cardboard. I tucked into my plate as if it was the first meal I’d eaten in a week.
There wasn’t really a good time for the two of us to sit down to talk about our expectations of how things were going to proceed. I blanched when Blake called his boss to tell him he needed to take a personal day. I wasn’t used to having someone who would put my needs ahead of his own career.
