“Can you?” I asked.
“Can I what?”
“Be rough with me.”
He laughed under his breath. “Yeah, I can handle that.”
The sheer confidence in his answer brought another question to the surface. I shuffled my feet on the pavement, one hand still resting between my thighs. “Have you done this before?”
Knox blinked, his lips parting as he studied my face. “No. Not this, specifically. I’ve dabbled in a little roleplay and BDSM, but many of my partners have been more… vanilla than I would’ve preferred.”
I turned away, staring at the reflection of the trees on the windows of the apartment building across the street from the park. I cleared my throat, knowing I needed to set at least a couple of boundaries.
After all, I didn’t know what I might be getting myself into.
“I don’t want to bleed,” I said, feeling a little more confident. In my peripheral vision, I saw him nod his head. “And I don’t want to bruise anywhere that I’ll have to explain to my family. Ass and thighs only.”
“Okay.” He nodded, and I watched him add something to his notes. “And how do you feel about… degradation? Or praise?”
I felt the tiniest twinge of frustration, worrying Knox wasn't fully understanding what I wanted out of this. “Other than what I just said about bleeding and bruising, my preferences don't matter.”
“Fine, then I'll decide. Everything that happens to you will be entirely up to me.”
Okay, maybe hedidunderstand just how badly I wanted to be used by him.
“What about our safe word?” Knox asked, his eyes on the hand wedged between my thighs. “It can't be ‘no’ or ‘stop’, because I suspect I'll be hearing those words from you a lot when you think you've had enough.”
Oh, fuck. I felt a hot trickle between my legs, and it seeped through my panties. I knew he’d only said that to get a reaction and prove he knew what the fuck he was doing. But the thought of him pushing me past my limit while ignoring my pleas made my body react–without him even laying a finger on me.
I dragged my thumb along the damp, warm seam of my shorts, my clit throbbing just beneath it. “I–I don’t know,” I sputtered out.
“How about you tell me ‘red’ when you want me to stop, and ‘yellow’ if you need me to ease up?” he suggested, watching my thumb move.
“Okay.”
“And unless I hear you say those words, that means I have your consent, right?”
“Right,” I said, focusing on his thumbs tapping on his phone. “No matter how much I struggle or beg, no matter what I do, I don’t want you to relent unless I use the safe words. Even if I… cry.”
Knox nodded once, inhaling through his nose as he processed my words. “Okay,” he said, clearing his throat as he lowered his phone to the bench beside him. “So this is what I’m hearing. You want me to break into your apartment and have my way with you, and you don’t want to know when it happens. No blood, no visible bruises. If you say ‘red’, everything stops. And unless you do, I’m not going to hold back.”
His eyes met mine again and he waited, like he wanted my confirmation that this was exactly what I desired from him. I slowly nodded, swallowing. “That just about covers it.”
Knox’s feet shifted, and he put his phone in his back pocket. “Okay then.”
That meant we were done.
We’d covered the “consensual” part of this agreement. The rest was up to him.
“You can change your mind anytime, Hallie,” he said, his voice a little softer now. “It won’t upset me. If you’re not fully–”
“I’m more worried about you changing your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“But I think–” I hesitated, swallowing as I considered my next words. “I think you might care about me too much to treat me this way.”
Knox blinked, and the softness in his expression vanished. It was like watching a light go out as his dark eyes bore into me. I tried to picture sweet, caring Knox, the one who mowed the grass for my family after my dad’s back surgery.
