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“Have you always been …” he paused, as if searching for the right words.

While I waited for him to find them, my brain offered up too many wrong ones: obsessed, strange, damaged, unlovable, broken.

“Are you like a dom or something?” he asked finally, the words coming out rushed.

I felt my eyes go wide, and my jaw drop open.

It wasn’t like I got off on tying people up or anything like that. And there was no fucking way I’d ever, like, spank someone. Jesus Christ. I just … hated ambiguity. It made me feel good to give clear, direct instructions. And okay, my dick got hard when someone followed those instructions perfectly, and I really enjoyed doling out praise when that someone did a good job, but I didn’t think any of that made me a dom or whatever.

Then again, I didn’t really know anything about kink.

Wait. Did he?

“Why do you ask?”

“You just seem to really enjoy telling me what to do.”

“I mean, yeah. It was your first time blowing a guy; I wasn’t going to let you just wing it.”

He shook his head, muttering, “Always so fucking literal.” Then, louder, “You were bossy, Cal. And you kind of didn’t sound like yourself.”

“I sounded like myself,” I argued.

Mikey lifted an eyebrow. “So you regularly go around calling people a slut for your cock and telling them what good boys they are?”

I felt my face heat with mortification. “Did I … I didn’t really call you a good boy, did I? Like … like a fucking dog or something? Please tell me I didn’t say that.”

“The ‘good boy’ was more of an implied thing, I think.” He chuckled as if I’d said something delightful instead of embarrassing. “You kept telling me how good I was for you.”

“But you like being told you’re good at things,” I pointed out, feeling relief wash over me. “Back when we started your conditioning work, I saw how well you responded to being told you were doing something well. I just figured you had a praise kink or something.”

Mikey’s eyes softened, his expression turning fond. “I think it might be a you thing, Cal. I want you to think I’m good.” He chewed on his bottom lip, and I stared at it, wanting to lick it.

“I do, Mikey. I always have.”

His brows pursed, making me worry I’d revealed too much.

“Anyway,” he said, his voice overly bright. “You never finished your story about the guy from your prep school. What does he have to do with why you freaked out earlier, and how is your mom involved?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to play dumb.

I didn’t want to tell him the story. Not now. Not after what we’d just done. Maybe not ever. I’d been stupid earlier, overreacting.

Always overreacting.

Mikey gave me a flat, unimpressed look. “I’m not dumb, C. You started freaking out about your mom being a model.”

“Was a model,” I responded reflexively.

She’d pretty much stopped booking real jobs once she took her clothes off.

“Was a model then,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

I shouldn’t have been shocked that Mikey had put two and two together. He noticed everything; he just didn’t always say so. It was one of the reasons I’d known on that first day of camp that he’d be an asset to the team.

It just sucked when he turned those observation skills on me, seeing things I didn’t want him to.

I rolled onto my back to stare up at the ceiling. I didn’t think I could stand to see his pity—or disgust—when he found out just how badly Brooks had humiliated me.