My blood freezes to a standstill, then rushes through me all at once. Good. For him. I want to be good for him, I think. Which is—new, yes. And weird for me, someone who’s been pretty categorically not-good for many years. Well, okay, that might not be true. I like to think I’m good to my clients. But usually, people don’t go out of their way to point that out; it’s an awkward business, what I do. No one is sending me fruit baskets for ruining a shitty guy’s vacation, or slapping gold stars on the report of my life anymore.
Is this a kink? Do I have this kink?
“What about you? What are your rules?” I run my fingers up the back of his head, his damp brown waves soft to the touch. “Likein Paris, when you asked if I was into, you know—it kind of seems like maybeyou’rethe person who’s actually…”
It isn’t like I can’t say it. Dominant. I’m a modern woman. I’ve listened to Lana Del Rey, and I’ve read the filthiest romance novels imaginable for Renata and my’s two-person book club. Things happen that could bend time and space. But, okay. It’s different in real life. With a man beneath my thighs, staring up at me, waiting.
Faust’s jaw shifts. “Arcadia.”
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to him saying that. “Please?”
A second passes and he seems to realize that he’s doing me a favor, saying the truth first. “Yes. But I can—”
“No.”
“It can be as much as you want.”
“I want it all.” I tug at his hair, and his eyes flutter shut, lips parting. Briefly, I wonder if there’s more to his fetish playbook that he hasn’t told me, then his hand finds my wrist and circles it. He isn’t turned on by the hair-pulling. He’sannoyed.
It’s getting harder and harder to not get dizzy again.
“We would need a safe word.” His jaw is clenched tightly, his words sharp.
“Sure, yeah. ‘Lights out’? ‘Safety car’?”
“And we can’t until—we can’t.”
My heart falls. “Not now? Not with just this?”
Faust makes a noise that’s half-thoughtful, half-painfully-frustrated. “It would be worse.”
“Why?”
I’m aware that I’m asking him to dom me without sex, which is objectively weird, but I want to understand every neuron of his fascinatingly strange brain, and we’ve already passed the Rubicon of sexual strangeness, in my opinion. What is a little platonic BDSMbetween friends? SomeSecretary(2002) meal prepping? I rest my arms on his shoulders, feeling strangely more emboldened by the limits we’ve built up. And less platonic, as he slowly guides his hand all the way around my hip to the outside of my thigh.
“You’d have to trust me. It’d make you trust me.” His voice is low, tempting. “And I don’t want to force that.”
“Because you’d be telling me what to eat?”
“Because I would take what I want from you. Over and over.” His fingertips skirt up my leg. “You would be mine, and there wouldn’t be any sex to make you think it was just sex. No excuses. No hiding. And I would make you take such good care of yourself, every day. I would make sure that you’re fed, and you’ve had enough water, and that you’re happy. Every day. You would—God. You wouldn’t get rid of me. Is that what you want?”
Do I? I’m breathless, a deer in the headlights.
“It feels like sex, when you do it right. Like love.” Faust traces the hem of my loose shorts. Doesn’t try to move them, only runs the fabric between his fingers, teasing it. “You’d feel fucked, just by doing what I tell you to do. I’d be all over you, in your life. And I don’t think you want that, sweetheart. We’re playing by your rules.”
Horrible. He ishotandrespectful, and I am going to dream about taking such good care of myself, aren’t I? My skin surges with heat, almost painful, and I pull him into another kiss to let some of it out. If I’m going to burn up, he can, too.
“I think you’re unwell,” I whisper after.
He smiles against my mouth. “A compliment, from you.”
“And if I ever want to do what you said? The, um. The dom thing.”
“You’d have to ask.” There’s that smirk of his, brushed against my cheek. “In a full sentence. And not tonight.”
He might be an actual mind reader. Another minute of humansexuality studies, courtesy of Doctor Fausto, and I might’ve asked for something I know I’m not ready for. Because it’s… alluring. And not just trying his brand of kink, though that’s quickly making me rethink how well I know myself. I want to know what makes him tick, map out the constantly evolving puzzle that is his mind. He keeps so much on the surface, out in the open. How could I not want to see what he doesn’t show anyone else?
“Okay,” I relent. “Then what’s tonight?”
