CHAPTER 13
Mara
A knock sounded on the door. I took a deep breath. It was going to be surreal to have him in my apartment. My contest partner. My adviser. My professor. A few months ago, I would have considered it unthinkable to invite a professor into my home. This—Nate picking me up before we went to a BDSM club—was not a sanctioned academic event.
But Nate wasn’t just my professor. And this wasn’t my first time seeing him outside of the classroom.
I opened the door.
In a button-up black shirt, the cuffs rolled to his elbow, his toned arms exposed. A bouquet of flowers in his hand, a mix of daisies, lilies, roses, and sunflowers. Dark pants that showed off his strong legs. His hair neat, those blue eyes instantly capturing me in his gaze.
“Mara,” he said. He handed me the flowers.
“Nate,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked down at the flowers. I was more than a student or a pet then, wasn’t I? A bouquet was proof. “Thank you,” I murmured. He looked inside, and I offered the way in. “I’ve just got to grab my bag, but you can come in.”
He glanced around the apartment. One garage sale painting on the wall, a futon set up as the couch in the corner, two overflowing bookshelves, and a laptop on the ground. It wasn’t much. My face turned red at the realization. He was a billionaire. What if my lack of living arrangements repulsed him?
“It’s sparse,” I said sheepishly.
“It’s what you need. I remember those days,” he said.
My heart cringed. Another way we were different, drawn apart by decades. I wanted to know how much older he was than me, but I was afraid to ask. Afraid to see how deep our differences ran.
I grabbed my bag. Inside, I had a copy ofThe Death of Power, you know, in case we decided to talk about academics. But I knew we wouldn’t. I guess it was my way of pretending that we weren’t breaking any rules. That this was nothing.
A sleek black sedan was waiting out front. He opened the passenger door for me, helping me inside. Polite and gracious. The same man who basically slammed me with an atrocious amount of work to get me to quit the contest. The same man who had pleasured me until I came all over his face in the middle of a classroom.
Quiet classical music hummed over the car’s speakers. I nervously folded and unfolded my fingers. What were we doing? Both of us risking our careers for sex.
But it wasn’t just sex. Was it?
I glanced over at Nate driving, almost surprised that he didn’t have a personal driver, but then again, driving himself seemed more like his style. His strong arms held the wheel, shoulders back, his gaze steady. Whatever we were doing, we had decided to risk it together.
“What are you interested in with kink?” Nate said.
“Kink?” I asked.
“BDSM. Fetish. All of it.”
“Oh,” I said. I blushed. I should’ve known that. “I’m not sure. I don’t really have experience with this stuff to begin with.”
His eyes were still on the road. “Restraints? Pain?”
“I think you know the answer to pain.”
He chuckled. “Being forced? Humiliation?”
Having to say yes or no to these questions was weird.
“Do you have to ask me this?”
“This is our negotiation, Mara,” he said. “Your boundaries are important to me.”
“Have you crossed someone’s boundaries before?” He didn’t say anything. My mind wandered to what Jessica had said, that bruised girl. Could it be the same woman Kiley had mentioned? Lisa? What had happened between them? But by the look on his face, closed off, waiting formyanswers, I knew he wasn’t going to tell me now. “I think we’ve already crossed some boundaries,” I said, jokingly referring to the forbidden nature of our relationship. But he didn’t seem amused. “Whatever you want to do is fine by me.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
“I’m willing to find out.”
