“How are you?” I asked him instead.
“Good,” he answered. “But I left my lotion at work and my arm is really tight. Do you have any I can use?”
I swallowed hard and nodded, jerking my head toward my station. He followed after me and shrugged out of his pea coat before sitting down on the chair. Instead of holding out his hand for the bottle, he held out his entire arm. The instruction was as much an order as any submissive had ever given, and I sat down on the stool and slid up to him.
Taking his wrist in one hand, I gave a careful check to the tattoo to make sure everything was healing well. It looked great, only a little irritated where the cuff of his coat had rubbed against it. I squirted some lotion into my hand and gently smeared it up the length of his forearm. Smith sucked in a breath when my fingers curled around his muscle, stroking up toward his elbow and back down again. Everything about it was suggestive, even though it was innocent, and the air in the shop grew thick and heavy with his want.
Yeah, I definitely had to have the conversation with him.
“Better?” I asked, clearing my throat and propelling myself far enough away from him that I could breathe again.
“Yeah. Yes.” He studied his arm, smiled. “Thank you.”
“So, you wanted to talk about the other night?” I asked.
“I wanted to talk aboutanothernight,” he corrected. “But yes.”
With Smith on the massage chair and me on my stool, he had physical leverage over me, and I rubbed my hands on my knees to steady myself for what I was about to say. Years of knowing myself hadn’t made the conversation any easier to have, but I had found the best approach was straightforward and truthful.
“Before that, there’s something I have to be honest about.”
His stare flickered wide, and he shifted his weight. The leather beneath his ass creaked, and I didn’t miss the way hewinced. He must still have bruises, and fuck if that wasn’t the hottest thing ever.
“Do you have an STI?” he asked
I chuckled, scratching my ear. “No.”
“I wouldn’t care if you did,” he said quickly. “It’s…there’s so many ways to be safe.”
“I don’t have an STI,” I told him again. “Do you?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“Okay.” I nodded, trying to fight back the way I wanted to scoop him into a bridal carry and take him upstairs and never let him out of my sight. Smith was a breath of fresh air, not only with his preference for submission but also his innocence. He was obviouslynotsheltered, but he was so new he wasn’t anywhere near jaded.
Not like me.
“You look like you want to get hit by a bus,” he observed, and I laughed at the statement.
“It’s not that serious, I promise.” I cracked my knuckles, cracked my neck. “I’m normally much better about having control of a situation?—”
“I know.”
“I just…I’ll be honest. I think I like you, and I don’t want this to be a dealbreaker.”
Smith’s brow furrowed and he cocked his head to the side. “Just tell me,” he said softly.
Sitting before this man I was genuinely interested in, it was hard to not see the face of the people who had come before him, the people before and between him and Ev. So much wasted time and heartache over people who couldn’t see beyond their own purview of the world, couldn’t even entertain my affections for them because my body didn’t respond the way they wanted.
Fuck.
I hated feeling off base. I needed to say it and get it over with so my skin stopped feeling like it was ten sizes too small.
“I’m asexual,” I finally told him, clearing my throat. “Gray ace, rather. Kind of.”
If Smith was surprised, he didn’t show it.
“What does that look like for you?” he asked.
