He did?
Huh.
Maybe I could un-fucking-clench a little. I wasn’t on trial here.
“We’re not ready yet, Ash.” He grabbed my hand on the table and squeezed it. “I’m not ready to share you.”
That felt absurdly good to hear, because he often came off as way more open than I felt.
“All I want is for us to talk,” he said. “The more we discuss things, the better we can prepare ourselves, find our limits, set boundaries, and get used to the idea.”
I knew he was right. He was right. I had nothing to freak out about because I could pump the brakes whenever I needed to.
I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat. “Have you thought of any boundaries?”
“A couple.” He nodded and dropped his other hand to mine, and he cradled it in both his. “I always want to protect us and what we have. I need a barrier of some sort that separates us from whoever we end up playing with.”
I liked all those words. “I’m listenin’.”
“The first one is easy. Protection. We always wear condoms for sex with others.”
Whoa, okay, so he was already thinking about sex.
“We should always play together too,” he went on. “I don’t think I can handle you going off with a Little without me there.”
Yeah, my discomfort was back. I just wasn’t sure I was wired for including others, even casually. It caused a rift in my mind, because on the one hand, I didn’t believe I was capable of exploring Daddykink and remaining stone-faced. I’d want to beclose to my Little. I’d need intimacy and honesty and a strong bond. And on the other hand, the thought of sharing that with someone else made me wanna hurl. I had Nathan, and he was all I wanted.
I coughed and stared at our hands. “Have we been here an hour yet?”
It sure felt like it, as opposed to…what, fifteen minutes? Ten?
“Yes,” he surprised me by saying. “Maybe even longer.” He withdrew his hands and took a big swig of his beer. “Take me home, love. I think we need a movie night on the couch.”
Thank fuck. I could’ve kissed his damn feet.
A couple of months later
Boston
Nathan Mills
“I want us to be those parents who travel the country in an RV,” Ash murmured.
I smiled and looped the thin jute rope around his middle finger. Finger bondage was my latest obsession, and he didn’t mind being my guinea pig.
“I like that.” I lowered the volume on the TV. We weren’t watching the movie anyway. “Explore a bunch of national parks and—oh, we should get one of those National Parks Passports.”
He dropped his gaze to what I was doing, and he tried to wriggle his fingers. “What’s that?”
“Like a little book you collect stamps in from the parks you visit.”
The harness was almost done.
“That’s cool,” he said. “So is this. You’ve gotten damn good at ropework.”
It was my drug of choice, no doubt. I couldn’t get enough.
The days he let me tie him up properly, like a chest harness or something similar, nothing could describe my inner peace. And then, when I removed the rope and saw the marks along his perfect body… God.
