Page 35 of Up In Flames

“And if I decide I want you to dominate me?”

“You’ll be on your knees before you can finish the thought.”

“Spanking? Tying me up? Pain?”

“If I feel you’re truly enjoying it, I’m up for anything. Any kink, any desire. But for me, personally?” His other hand comes up to stroke my cheek, so my face is cradled between his touch. “I’m not like most men, Jelly Bean. I don’t know why I’m built differently, but I can’t come unless I feel the woman I’m with is enjoying what I’m doing to her. I get my kicks, so to speak, from making her wild. Otherwise, frankly, the endorphins I get from running ten miles and lifting weights last longer than an orgasm.”

Wait. That sounds… “You mean you can’t…”

He nods.

Whoa. That’s a lot to unpack, especially while every part of me is rearranging my atoms to better conform to him.

“You’re kind of perfect, you know that?”

He flips me again onto my back and smiles down into my face. “You’re kind of perfect, too.” And he pulls out only to thrust back in again, sending little electrical sparks up my spine as he hollows out my core and fills it again.

Fucking perfect.

CHAPTER 12

Sampson

Everything I told Nina is true. I’ve never admitted to anyone that I can’t orgasm by myself, or until I know that I’ve made my partner wild. I think it’s some holdover from my knight phase in high school, or the product of being brought up by two people who stressed respect, and the value of giving more than getting. Or maybe it’s just the same need to give more than I get to justify my own existence.

But it’s like serving Thanksgiving dinner at the shelter before finding my way to my own comfortable meal. What started as my parents forcing me to act for others became a necessary balance.

But the first time I ever tell anyone about my physical problem, it’s to Nina, my nemesis… and now something so much more. Which is probably bad. We’re too new, too used to being enemies, even if we hated each other for the stupidest of reasons. The enmity turned to passion. I get that. I should have even expected it, given how I’ve always been attracted to her. But now it feels like there’s a possibility of even more, but this détente, forged in explosions of bliss, is still tenuous. I don’t want to ruin that potential.

I wish we’d been more adult back then. I wish I’d cornered her to talk about my feelings. We could have built a relationship from innocence, one that moved slowly and steadily into passion. We don’t have the foundation I’m afraid we’ll need. There are no memories to glue us together during tough times, except for bad ones.

Maybe I’m fooling myself to think I can build something lasting with her. I can’t build on what doesn’t exist.

As if in agreement with my thoughts, she rolls out of my embrace, leaving only empty space behind where her warm body still lingers as a ghost. “I’m starving. Do you have anything to eat?”

Funny, I only notice the emptiness in my stomach once she points to it. I guess my heart is too full. “Nothing I’m in the mood to put together. However, there’s an excellent French restaurant that just opened up two blocks from here. We can walk.”

She’s busy kneeling on the ground, trying to recover her clothing to hide her naked body from me, now that I’m not slavering over it. I look over the edge. She looks up to meet my gaze.

“I only have casual clothes. French sounds expen…not-casual.”

Expensive, is what she was going to say. But that’s not a big issue for me. “You’ll be fine. It’s a bistro. People go in jeans.”

She nods and bites her bottom lip.

I’ve never discussed finances with anyone I’ve fucked. But Nina’s different. Even without a firm foundation of good memories, we have something sticky between us. I can’t discount that. Plus, I trust her.

“Look, I think we should lay a few things out right up front.”

“Like the fact that you’re living with a woman?”

“What?” I’m about to talk finances, my inability to let a woman pay a dinner check, and she’s… on a different path.

She rises to her feet, clutching her clothing in front of her, blocking all the best bits from my view. “You don’t have to deny it for my sake. I recognized the signs before I slept with you, which should have made me run in the opposite direction, and almost did, but…” She shrugs. “I’m a bad person, I guess.”

“Nina…”

“In the interest of honesty,” she says, interrupting me, “is it serious with her?” Her voice cracks and she swallows before she adds, “Am I breaking up something that means something to her? Or is it casual?”