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She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. My mother loves you. She’s got the whole Catholic mama thing. Girls are okay, but boys are freaking sacred.”
He raised a brow. “Seriously?”
“I know she loves me dearly.” She waved the concern away. “I’m just aware, like most daughters are, that mothers see sons differently. If Rory or Thomas get any accolades, it’s like Jesus has performed another miracle. She tells everyone at church. I get into a good medical school with a scholarship? ‘That’s nice, but wouldn’t you rather stay in town and date that nice Garvey boy, the one who’s getting a law degree?’ Because obviously being a lawyer’s wife is far better than being a doctor.”
“Tell me she didn’t really say that to you.”
“It was back when I was in high school. Before everything went down with our dad, Thomas, all of that. Rory. She didn’t say it directly, but it wasn’t hard to pick up from the subtext. At the time, it made me wonder if she thought I wasn’t smart enough, strong enough to do it…”
She pushed past that quicksand. “But with time and hindsight, I think it had more to do with those residual worries from my birth. Subconsciously not comfortable with me being too far away or out of reach. Plus, having a good marriage and babies was what she wanted in life, so why wouldn’t I be okay with that?”
“So why aren’t you?”
When she stiffened, he shook his head. “I’m not agreeing with her. I’m asking the question. You’ve always seemed like what you most want is a small-town life, close to your family. So why choose being a doctor, when you had to spend so much time and years away, getting the training for it?”
“It seemed right. Felt right.” At his look, she shook her head. “You’re turning me back toward that question you asked earlier. You told me to give myself breathing room tonight.”
She didn’t want to jump into that swamp and try to figure out what kind of debris was floating around in it. She preferred to stay in the sun-warmed pond with him.
“You’re right, doc. I retract it. How about a different topic? Earlier, when you were watching the forced orgasm, I said it keyed into your deep need to let go. But I want to dig under that. Tell me what you felt.”
“My mind got so full. Whirling…but there was a center to it, a still place. Where it was all calm, in an almost painful way.”
“Why painful?”
“Because what I want is clear, but it hurts, because there are no words, no way to let it bleed. So it just throbs.”
Fuck, she couldn’t stay out of the weeds of her own emotions, but she seemed unable to filter or not say what was going on in her head when she was with him.
His response helped, though. His eyes darkened, his mouth getting that firm look before he leaned in and kissed her, hand braced over her head on the column. He took his time, drawing it out, mouth wet and warm, tongue stroking hers. Her hands went to his shoulders, holding on as his other hand flexed on her waist.
He pulled back to look at her. “What do you want right now, Les? Tell me.”
“I want you to take me home. I want you to do…everything. Anything you want. I don’t want to take it farther than that. Everything is uncertain. I might get back to school and not be able to think about any of this.”
At his expression, her heart lurched. She forced herself to say the words. “You won’t do it that way, will you?”
“No.” His tone, the steel gray eyes, were uncompromising. “Earlier, before Dirk called out to us, you were going deeper with it. I won’t force that, but I will ask you to be honest. Everything you’ve shown me tells me what you are to me. You want me to take you home, do everything you’re wanting and I’m wanting, then you make it official.”
He lifted her chin with two firm fingers, not letting her look away. “You say it, mean it so I believe it? Then we pursue it that way until you don’t want me. Not because of school, or whatever else has happened. We’ll work that out.”
Her heart was thumping, her throat dry. She’d driven through a rainstorm to him, of all people, rather than going home.
The urgency she’d felt before Dirk and Lisa had joined them hadn’t been just an in-the-moment thing. Any more than the feelings between them had been born over these two days, or even a few weeks ago. They’d been planted long ago, and had survived. They were even stronger now than they’d been when just the sound of his voice in her family’s house had quickened her pulse, and made her heart beat faster.
The part of her that knew who he was to her, who she wanted him to be to her, sent the words out of her heart and soul, offered them to him on her lips.
Words that were the only truth she was sure about.
“Yes. I want to be your submissive.”
Chapter Sixteen
Their drive home was quiet. He held her hand and she watched the road, the streetlights and the passing cars a dark river of light. When they reached his place and he came around to open her door, she put her hands on his shoulders, holding on. He lifted her out, but he didn’t put her down. He wrapped his arms around her back and under her bottom. She linked her legs around his body, putting her head on his shoulder.
He carried her to the door. When he put her down in the foyer and turned the lock, she stood where she had when she’d come out of the rain. He didn’t turn on lights, so when she looked in his direction, she saw his silhouette, outlined by the parking lot lights, filtering through the sheer curtains.
“Will you do something with fire here, with me? Can you?”
