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“Damn right,” I said proudly, shoving myself back from the table. “So when do we —”
“Sit back down.” Manson’s tone brooked no argument. The words felt like a physical force pulling me back, and I ploppedmyself into the chair instantly. “We’re not done here. We need to go over your limits.”
I blinked rapidly as I stared at him. I’d spent enough time watching BDSM-flavored porn and reading kinky erotica that I’d encountered the idea of hard limits — boundaries around what one was willing to do in a scene. There were soft limits too, things one was cautious about trying, but was willing to do under the right circumstances.
But I’d thought my one and only real-life encounter with all this had come and gone. Messing around for one night had led to the establishment of a safeword, but beyond that, there had been no further discussion.
The fact that we were having one now felt strangely serious.
It felt intimate.Toointimate.
“Is that really necessary?” I tried and failed not to squirm in my seat. “Let’s just keep it open for discussion.”
“It’s always open for discussion,” Manson said. He was sitting directly across from me, and I was finding it impossible to look away from him, despite the uncomfortable intensity of his gaze. “But if one of us wants to throw you in a trunk or tape up your mouth, we need to know ahead of time if that’s something you can handle.”
“Do you have any health problems? Or blood circulation issues?” Vincent said.
“What about allergies?” Jason added. “Do you have any problems with silicone? Vinyl? Latex?”
“Are you on birth control?” Manson said, his eyes boring into me like he could extract the answer from my soul.
“I…uh…” This shouldn’t have been difficult, but I was stumbling over every word I tried to get out. I was a big girl. There was nothing wrong with what I liked. So why the hell did it feel like there was? “I’m not…against…the trunk thing.”
Lucas’s mouth twitched. Vincent muttered something thatsounded very much like, “Thank you, Satan, I’ve finally been blessed.”
“I don’t have any allergies and I don’t have any other health issues either. And of course I’m on birth control. I have an IUD,” I finished. Manson nodded.
“Okay, those are the basics,” he said. “Now we need limitations.”
Everything that came immediately to mind sounded like a good idea to me, but I tried to tamp down on my excitement. “Is there such a thing as no limits?”
“No.” Vincent’s response was blunt. “That’s not something we do. Everyone has a limit, and knowing what they are keeps all of us safe.”
“It keeps Lucas from catching a murder charge.” Jason chuckled, despite Lucas’s glower.
I nodded, but I still was unsure of what to say. Where could I even begin? “I mean, I…I don’t want any broken limbs. In case that wasn’t already obvious.”
Vincent snorted. “Damn, there goes my torture scene idea. I’m kidding!” He laughed harder when he saw my expression. “We’re notthatintense, Jess, relax.”
“I know it can be intimidating to start,” Manson said. He sounded surprisingly understanding, sympathetic even. He got up from his seat. “Hang on, I have something that will help.”
He left the room, going up the stairs. The four of us sat in silence, staring at each other like we’d begrudgingly negotiated the end of a war. Lucas wasn’t looking at me, instead staring at the tabletop in front of him as if it held the answers he was looking for on its worn surface.
“Whose idea was this?” I said, looking between the three of them. Jason raised his hand with a cocky grin.
“That would be me,” he said. “I’m admittedly a hard ass when it comes to being paid for my work, and you have certainly causedus alotof work. Seems like fair compensation.”
“Being your plaything is fair compensation?” I tried and failed to sound skeptical. Instead, my voice hitched and Jason’s grin turned cruel.
“Honestly, Jess? Last night wasn’t enough.” He leaned closer toward my seat, one hand spread on the table beside him. I looked at his black-painted fingernails and thick rings and imagined that hand wrapping around my throat. Despite the brightness of his smile, his voice was dark. “I have plans for you, just you wait.”
“We,” Vincent clarified. “Wehave plans for you. And we’ve had plenty of time to think of them.”
They’d had years of time. Years of arguments, bullying, lust, close-encounters…plenty of fuel for whatever sadistic fantasies they had involving me.
When Manson returned, he had several pieces of paper in his hands that he slid across the table toward me.
“This should get you on the right track,” he said. A quick glance told me that it was a list of fetishes, each with a series of questions next to them: my interest level on a scale of 1-5, whether or not I’d done it before, and whether or not it was a soft or hard limit. The questions repeated twice, both for my interest in experiencing the activity myself or inflicting it on someone else.
