“I…okay.” My brain was having a hard time computing as he kept placing pieces of food on my plate. “I…I like spanking.”
He nodded to himself.
“I didn’t order this,” I said.
“Slapping?” he asked, ignoring me and adding the rest of the appetizers to my plate.
I swallowed air, then shook my head. “No. I know my profile said I liked it rough, but I don’t want to be hurt.”
He sat back, eyes on me.
Calder was magnetic. He looked at me in a way I’dneverbeen looked at before. All his attention on me. It was intoxicating.
I didn’t know eye contact could be so fucking hot.
“What part of rough excites you?” he asked.
I chewed my bottom lip.
Fuck it.
If I wanted it, I needed to communicate.
“I like being dominated,” I said. “If you choke me, it’s the threat behind your hand that I like, not actually going breathless. I like…” I struggled for a way to phrase the next part.I wanted to be spanked, bitten, and choked while being praised and worshipped. “I guess I like the dichotomy of rough and gentle.”
His eyes darkened and the air between us stretched taut, wires fraying.
But he only lifted another appetizer to my plate.
“Degradation?” he asked, cutting into the beets.
I made a face.
He laughed. “No, then.”
“Well.” I took a drink. “I don’t get off on being called a slut. But if you called meyourslut, because I was doing such a good job?—”
I broke off. Calder had stopped picking out appetizers, fork and knife frozen in midair.Had I said something wrong?
“Birth control?” he asked, voice harsh.
I nodded. “IUD.”
An undercurrent of sexual tension throbbed through our conversation. Calder asked me questions that even my ex wouldn’t have known, but his tone was so businesslike. As if asking what color car I preferred.
“You already sent your test results,” he said. “Does that mean you don’t want condoms?”
I shook my head, slowly. That just felt to…intimate. He nodded, accepting my answer with ease.
“Anal?” he asked.
I nearly choked on my water.
“I’ve never been able to do it,” I said. “I’m not saying no; it’s just never felt good.”
Another inscrutable look passed over his features, like the clouds covering the moon. Something in his gaze burned bright, but the meaning was obscured.
Whenever Graham and I had tried anal, it always hurt and there was a level of stress that accompanied it, because I was supposed to like it.
