Page 50 of Kyle

“But—”

“Babe, I hate to sound so crass, but if the need arises, I gotta hand and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Her lips twitched and her face flamed.

“I wasn’t thinking about you,” she grumbled and my dormant cock twitched, thinking about her needing to get off and all the ways I could help her with that.

“Yes or no, do you want to explore those feelings?” I asked again, needing to steer my thoughts away from bringing her to a screaming orgasm. Twelve years was a long time to go without having sex and when we got to the point where she was in my bed, and she could trust me enough to let go, I had no doubt it would be magnificent. But it was going to be a time-consuming endeavor, one I was going to enjoy.

“Yes.”

“Good.” I hadn’t realized how hard my heart had been pounding waiting for her to answer. “There are plenty of other ways for me to make you feel good without me on top of you making you feel trapped. Things that do not involve my dick anywhere near you.” My cock jerked in my pants making its protest known.

“Um…”

“Never been in a situation like this,” I started. “But my take is, we need open communication. Total honesty about everything. There’s no room for embarrassment. Physically we’ll go as slow as you need and I’ll take you as far as you want to go. You’ll never need to worry about me and my body’s reaction to you. Straight up, Anaya, I think you’re beautiful, sexy, smart, and so damn strong I can’t control my dick from getting hard when I touch you, but I promise I can and will control what I do with it.”

“I like it when you hold my hand,” she whispered.

“Good. We’ll start there.”

“I like when you slept behind me and held me.”

“I like that, too.”

Anaya was quiet for a long moment and I gave her time to process her thoughts before I prompted, “What are you thinking about?” She remained silent so I reminded her, “Complete honesty. You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you and I’ll never be mad—unless you call yourself a bad name.”

She smiled and straightened gathering her courage. “I don’t want you to treat me any different than you would any other woman you’ve been with.”

My brows pulled together and I said, “But you’re not any other woman. Not even close, sweetheart.”

“I just mean I don’t want you to hold back, always waiting for my reaction or for me to, you know, freak out.”

My eyes narrowed as she came dangerously close to saying something disparaging about herself.

“I need to have a care and watch your reactions to me.”

“But—”

“Didn’t say I’d hold back, babe, I only know one way to be and that’s me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be watchful, so don’t mistake that for hesitation.”

“Are we really talking about this?” she whispered. “Is this normal?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Really, I don’t give the first fuck what normal is supposed to be. Bottomline is, it’s who we are and how I want us to be. I want to get to know you better and when the time comes when sex is introduced, we’ll both be ready.”

I’d told Anaya the truth, I didn’t know what normal was. But I knew I’d never started anything with a woman that began with extreme openness and honesty like this. There was no need when there’d be no relationship. But Anaya was different for a variety of reasons, and one of them was she’d been hurt in the past. The fact couldn’t be denied and swept away no matter how badly she wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened to her.

I had one shot at making this right for her.

One attempt to prove to her I was a man she could trust with her body and her heart.

“Let me wrap your ribs so we can get into bed.”

She wordlessly repeated the process of pulling up her shirt and exposing her midsection. This time I didn’t shy away from allowing my knuckles to graze her bare skin. I was as gentle as the situation called for, but didn’t waver in my confidence to take care of her.

Chapter 15

It had taken me a few minutes to find a comfortable position, but when Kyle propped some extra pillows behind me keeping my head elevated, I could breathe. That was, until Kyle pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on top of his open backpack.