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His hand was big and hard, and she knew from last time that he burned hot to the touch. But his palm felt cool against her cheek, which only made her flush harder, because she understood in a flash that he could tell. That he could see all these reactions she was having, no matter what she might say.
Conrad brushed his thumb over her cheek, and she felt everything inside her settle. All that noise, all that jangling and worry, smoothed out into a kind of humming.
Like once again, he’d used a tuning fork on her, and all she could think to do was offer him what little music she had in return.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
And for a terrifying second, Rory thought she might actually burst into tears. Great, racking sobs. The sort of thing that would leave her messy and red-faced and swollen eyed for days—
But somehow, she managed to hold that all back.
Somehow, she managed to keep herself in one piece. Nothing more than eyes too blurry to see and a sob that had nowhere to go, because she held her breath.
Like her life depended on it.
“It’s all right,” he told her, his hand still on her face and his voice so calm andsureshe wanted to melt. “Tears are a good thing. You can let them out. I promise you, little one, that there is nothing that you could show me, or do, that I can’t handle.” His thumb moved against her skin, her hot cheek, as if he was rubbing peace into her with every stroke. “There is notoo muchhere.”
It felt like a far worse surrender when tears flooded her eyes and then tracked down her cheeks, no matter the horror in her. And no matter what he said.
But true to his word, he simply let her cry—and that made her cry harder. One big sob, then another, and his hand stayed where it was. She even sagged against him, there against the hard certainty of his thigh. And his other hand came up to hold her there too, smoothing its way over her hair.
Then, after the storm took her and shook her, it let her go.
And Rory felt...washed clean.
“I must look...” she began, as his hands helped her kneel upright again.
“You look beautiful,” he told her, matter-of-factly.
“I know that’s not true,” she started, wiping at her face.
But he caught her hands and drew them away. And then held them, so there was nothing for her to do but look up at him. Rory found it hard to breathe, yet again, because the way he was looking at her was so intense she was sure she must have caught fire.
“Stop thinking about how you look.” Conrad’s gaze was deep. Dark. Another demand. “Think instead about how I see you. You look beautiful, Rory. You look vulnerable. Open and honest. You could not please me more if you tried.”
And again, it was as if she suddenly grew wings and could fly. As if she was already soaring somewhere high above Paris. When instead, she was kneeling down in front of a man because he’d asked her to.
He was still toying with her hair. He’d dropped his hand from her face, but he held a long strand of her hair between the fingers of his other hand, and he was...simply playing with it.
And for a long while, he concentrated on that, with so much focus and intensity that she found herself shivering hot and cold once again.
“Here’s what I want you to do with your hands,” he said after a while. As if it had only just occurred to him. “If you’re kneeling the way you are now, sitting back on your heels, you can rest your hands on your thighs, palms up. If you’re kneeling up, I’d like your hands in the small of your back. Do you understand?”
“Do you really... I mean does it really matter...” He shifted that look of his from her hair to her. Steady. Implacable. Her pulse skipped. “I mean... I’m just...there are so many details. Aren’t you afraid it will get lost somehow in all therules?”
“The details are what make it fun,” Conrad replied, and that gleam in his eyes made her think he was laughing at her. Again.
“I thought it was the sex that was fun.”
“Sex is always supposed to be fun, Rory.” He didn’t shake his head, but she had the impression he could have. “If I were to indulge in a little spot of vanilla sex, I would expect that to be fun, because it’s sex. Everything else is like spices. Some people don’t like spicy food at all, which is perfectly fine. Other people like a mildly spicy food, and enjoy it at that temperature to their heart’s content. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“Sure. Ball gags and cilantro. Totally the same thing.”
Rory was so close to him now, kneeling there before him. She could see when that gleam in his eyes turned to something else. Something that made her think instead of how stern he could be. And all the uses he might have for that hard hand of his.
She repressed a little shudder.
“Just like any other kind of sex, the kind I prefer is highly individual,” Conrad said, that patient tone laced through with something more like steel. It made her sit a little straighter on her knees. “You can go into any club and expect to see certain trappings, but every practitioner is different. We all want different things. We have different enthusiasms. Different things get us off.”
