Page 46 of Bared

“All right. The very beginning,” he said, expelling a meaningful sigh. “Have you ever done this before, Jayd? Agreed to letting a man dominate you? Given him your willing surrender?”

“Are you jok—I mean, no, Sir. Never.”

She was mortified when her stammering had him chuckling. She was more horrified when he would not let her hide any of her emotion, using his other hand to cup her chin and raise her stare.

At once, he was not laughing anymore. Also at once, she knew why.

His action brought her chin high enough to rest on the prominent rise in his jeans. And Creator help her, she reveled in every second of it. She could already feel the pulsing heat of him. The surging stiffness there, blazing at the confines of his crotch…

“Jayd. Fuck. What are you doing to me?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Do you want an answer to that one too, Sir?”

“No.” He jostled his head. “Definitely not.” And then pointedly cleared his throat. “Now you will clarify for me… You have never let a man spank your bare ass? Is that correct?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Or stripped you the rest of the way and tied you down?”

“N-N-No, Sir.”

“Or used a paddle, or any other toys, on other parts of your body?”

“No, Sir.” Her lungs worked for air as her core clenched with need. She was petrified and mesmerized in the same stunning moment. “Toys? What do they have to do with anything? At least in…the current context of things.”

All too easily, Brickham burst with a fresh laugh. She didn’t find this one so disconcerting. Actually, she was glad to be somehow pleasing him.

“They’re called toys because the people who enjoy this lifestyle are fond of calling it play.” His smile, strong and determined, got a little wider. He fondled her chin with his equally mighty fingers. “After all, the results are supposed to be pleasurable. For everyone.”

Jayd allowed herself a smile too. “I think…I understand.”

His face flashed with surprise. “You do?”

“I feel like I want to,” she admitted. “But I can only relay what I feel right now, I suppose.”

“Which is what?” Brickham’s query was a soft husk.

“That when we had to leave that place earlier tonight…I did not want to hurry so much. And truly, it had nothing to do with the things you had just done to me—”

“At all?”

“All right, maybe a little.” She giggled. “But in many ways, not at all.” She paused again, letting him watch her frown from deeper consideration of the memories. “I only knew that I wanted to watch more. Learn more. Feel more.”

“Of what?”

Stars and saints, the man was not letting her off any proverbial hooks now. He insisted on her thoughts even when she knew not what they were.

“Enthrallment,” she confessed at last. “And bewilderment, I suppose—because of that. I felt as if I were watching a dozen perfect ballets. There was symmetry to it all. Beautiful balances of power, energy, surrender…stimulation.”

She paused before that last impression because she meant every raspy inflection. As she dreaded but also hoped, Brickham took notice. The surges in his eyes, intense as warning flares, told her so. But his answering words were soft as the flares’ smoke.

“That’s a wonderful way of describing it. Like a dance, with equal power to both partners. So many people see it as the Dominant exercising all the energy, but a Dom can only use what their submissive gives. They take all that magic and transform it into new, different power…”

“Like the kind they can display with toys.” Though Jayd’s pulse quickened as she spoke, she was grateful for Brickham’s calm ocean veneer. She called it such because she knew the truth already. Oceans only looked calm. That was the case now. She could feel his excitement in the blood that pounded through his fingers. The palpable surge of the bulge so close to her face.

“Yes,” he finally offered. “Sometimes they do.”

“But not all the time.” She supplied it because she sensed he would not. And because she needed—needed—to know…