CHAPTER ELEVEN
Seattle, Washington
Saturday, November 25
By mutual agreement, we decided on Friday morning to head back to Seattle, rather than staying in Maui for another nine days. My siblings and their spouses were sorry to see us cut our visit short, but no one pressed us to stay, as if they understood that Nia and I need the time to figure out our next steps.
We arrived home to rain that hasn’t let up since we landed. As we settle into the car, not many words pass between us. Nia isn’t silent out of anger. Neither am I. It feels more like we simply don’t know what to say.
As I near her house, I try to shake my lingering, puzzling disquiet. “What are we doing?”
“I assume you’re taking me home.”
“And then what? What’s going on with us?” So much is unsettled. December is days away, and at its end I don’t know whether she’ll be working with me, living with me, marrying me—or completely out of my life.
Nia takes in a deep breath. “We continue as planned. You gather some things and move into my place when you’re ready. We go back to work as scheduled. We spend the next five weeks together and figure out where we go from here…or if we call it quits. At some point, I guess you’ll sign the papers to sell Stratus to Lund.” She shrugs. “That’s it.”
That’s not much of a plan. There’s so much open-ended. My practical side rails, but I can’t think of a better suggestion.
Will I be able to make Nia happy if I won’t give her the love and children she craves? And if that’s the case, should I be doing my damndest to marry her?
Maybe not…but I can’t bring myself to let her go, either. Even considering it hurts like hell. Imagining life without her feels like a piece of myself is missing, like I’d become an emotional amputee.
I drop her off at her cottage with a promise to see her soon, then leave her with a kiss on her cheek. She doesn’t press for more or even ask when I plan to show up at her door, suitcase in hand. I’m not terribly surprised. Nia knows me well. She must know I need the time alone to examine what I’m doing with my future and why. Hell, she probably knows that better than I do.
When I let myself into my apartment with a weary sigh, it feels immediately dark and still, heavy. Opening blinds and flinging back drapes to the stormy night does nothing to lift the oppressive air around me.
As I stand in the middle of my stark gray living room and stare out over the rainy bay, I feel alone. I can’t remember ever feeling this isolated or gloomy. Not when the social worker dropped me off with my first foster family, who barely took notice of me. Not when I locked Diana’s door behind me the morning of my eighteenth birthday with a duffel full of my things and one hundred twelve dollars to my name. Not even when I returned here after Becca’s funeral and it finally hit me that she was really never coming back.
My sense of solitude now is gloomier. It’s bone-deep. I don’t know why this nagging misery followed me home from Maui, but staring out my twelve-foot wall of windows and onto the churning bay below magnifies it, along with my every concern, by reminding me precisely how alone I am.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you home for another week.”
I whirl around to find Bas standing at the end of the hall, wearing a T-shirt and boxers. His hair looks mussed, and he’s wearing a scowl.
“What are you doing here?” I glance at my watch. “And why do you look like you’ve already gone to bed when it’s only eight o’clock?”
Bas scowls. “Last night, my toilet started leaking about midnight. I was bailing water until the plumber finally showed up a little after eight, so I’m freaking tired. I needed a place to crash while my place airs out, and you weren’t supposed to be home for another week. I didn’t think you’d mind. Why aren’t you in Maui?”
Long fucking story. But is putting my best friend off even an option? “It’s complicated.”
Bas yawns and pads into my living room, tossing himself across the sofa. “Well, I managed a couple of hours of sleep, so I’m all yours. Start talking.”
“I’d rather not. Go back to bed.” I prop my suitcase against the wall and set down my briefcase with a sigh.
“Well, I’d rather not see you sulk because something’s wrong that caused you to cut your vacation with your new family and your new girlfriend short. And…based on your expression, the family isn’t the problem.”
“No.”
He rears back. “Are you and Nia still together?”
I sit at the end of the sofa and sigh tiredly. “I seriously don’t want to talk about it.”
My best friend is silent for a long minute. He bobs his head like he agrees and respects my privacy. But this is Bas we’re talking about. He doesn’t give two shits about privacy or boundaries or personal space.
“You must have seriously fucked up if you’re on the outs with a woman who’s totally in love with you.”
That sends my gaze whipping over to him. “How did you know her feelings?”
But obviously he did, way before I did.
He rolls his eyes. “I’d ask if you’re kidding but I know better. Dude, she offered to organize your life. She slept with you when she had a million reasons not to. She agreed to go with you over a major holiday to meet your family. She looks at you like she’s head over heels. And you didn’t figure that out?”
“I can figure out how to keep personal data stored safely, protected from hackers wielding every code and virus known to man, yet completely internet accessible.” I shake my head. “I can’t figure out how the woman’s mind operates.”
Bas braces his elbows on his knees. “She wants to get married and you don’t?”
“The opposite, actually. I would marry her today. She only wants to get married if I can tell her I love her.”
“Hmm. And you don’t?”
“I loved Becca.”
“Who’s now gone,” he says as if that’s obvious.
“A heart isn’t something you give twice. Once you’ve given it away, it’s gone.”
Bas laughs. “Why the hell would you believe that?”
“Because it’s true,” I bite out at his ridicule. “I don’t expect you to understand. You probably think you’re in love all the time and—”
“I don’t. Lust? Yes,” he concedes. “I was in love once. It didn’t work out. She was married and I respected that. I had a good man cry about the fact she’d never be mine, then I told myself to move on. I’ve fucked around a lot to distract myself, I admit. But eventually, I’ll fall in love again. I’ll never love that woman less, but I’m ready to find someone new to fill my heart.”
This is the first I’m hearing of Bas believing he was attached. “Who were you in love with?”
“Does it matter? It didn’t work out. But the pain of losing her isn’t stopping me from looking. If the right woman comes along at the right time, I’ll happily give her my heart. I’m on the downhill slide to thirty, man. I’d like to hope that’s going to be soon. But even if it takes until I’m eighty to fall in love again, I’ll wait. It’s worth it.”
“Why? It can bring a lot of pain.”
“It can also bring a fuck-ton of happiness. Look at it this way: If you didn’t have people in your life, what would you have?”
I frown. “My business. My…hobbies.”
Then I fall silent because I can’t think of anything else.
“You’d have shit. You’d have meetings and balance sheets, taxes, paperwork, and strategic plans. In between all that…what hobbies? You’d have meals and errands, maybe a favorite TV show or two, a few meaningless lays when you could manage to pry yourself away from the office and scrape together a little charm at a local bar or do some random swiping right. You wouldn’t even have painting since I’ll bet you stopped doing that months ago. Am I wrong?”
I don’t say a word because I’m stunned by how right he is.
“It would be empty as shit,” he goes on. “Believe me, I know.”
Something bleak in his eyes tells me he’s not lying.
“What are you saying?”
“Yes.” Sitting in the semi-dark with my best friend in his underwear and talking about hearts and love just isn’t very manly.
“Give love a try again. It’s right in front of you. Don’t piss it away.”
“Like I already said, I can’t give my heart twice. So why aren’t friendship, commitment, and fidelity enough for Nia?”
Bas sighs. “I should have known the short version wouldn’t convince you since you need logic for every fucking conclusion, even an emotional one.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“In business, no. But that won’t work with emotions. It’s as if you’re determined to treat love like a science experiment. You seem to have some hypothesis about love being a singular event. You get involved with Nia and stir the beaker a little, then start recording her reactions, studying the data and making comparisons so you can draw conclusions. Dude, no. She’s a different woman than Becca. Nothing is going to be the same. Hell, you’re not the same.”
I want to refute him. And I can’t. On some level, I’ve assumed that, because my relationship with Nia isn’t like the one I shared with Becca it can’t be love. But I didn’t take into account the variables, like the fact that my control samples are totally different.
Sitting back, I regard him with a solemn stare.
“And the kicker is…” He shakes his head as if he’s reluctant. “Never mind.”
“No. I’m listening.” Because I suspect he’s on to something.
“You’ll just get pissed off. So, let’s talk about something else. I’ve been doing some digging into Lund, trying to figure out why he has such a hard-on to buy Stratus, but I’ve hit a brick wall, so—”
“We’ll get back to that. But first I want to know what you won’t tell me.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Jesus.” I want to throttle him. “I do or I wouldn’t be asking you.”
He pauses. “I guess you’d only be asking me if you’re actually listening. All right. Here’s the truth: You didn’t love Becca.”
Gritting my teeth in fury, I jump to my feet. “That’s bullshit.”
“No, it’s not. I watched you two for years. She was your friendly helpmate. You were her savior. She respected you. You relied on her. But that’s it. And that’s not love.”
“You don’t know the first fucking thing—”
“How often did you and Becca have sex?”
“That’s a low blow. You know she had a lot of personal demons to overcome and—”
“How often?”
I rake a hand through my hair. “Maybe every couple of weeks. It always took her time to…deal with it.”
“Uh-huh. And did you want it more? Feel desperate when you couldn’t have her?”
“Sex isn’t the only measure of love.” I don’t know why I’m so defensive.
“It’s a fucking big one. Compare that to the way you want Nia. Think about how much you crave her when you can’t have her.”
His logic punches me in the gut. I can’t breathe. For a moment, I’m stunned and disoriented.
“If not love, what do you think I felt for Becca?”
“Responsibility and guilt. I’m not saying you didn’t like her. She took care of your life. Hell, she was able to put up with you. And you were faithful to her for months after she died. There was nothing wrong with that. It’s commendable. You weren’t unhappy with her. But look me in the face and tell me that being with Nia isn’t somehow brighter, more intense. Like the difference between flipping on a light and sticking your finger in a socket. Like staring at the sun and being willing to go blind for the privilege because you can’t not look at her.”
No, he’s right. His words seem to have unraveled the tourniquet around my perception. Suddenly, I see my marriage from a completely different perspective.
I’ve missed what Becca did for me. I’ve missed the space she filled beside me. Have I actually once missed her yoga pants hanging from the shower door? Or the way she used a whole bag of oranges to squeeze her juice every Sunday? Have I even missed the way she’d curl up to me after having a nightmare about her foster father? If I’m being brutally honest, no. I haven’t kept her possessions because I’m loath to let my last vestiges of her go. I’ve kept them because I haven’t wanted to admit I’m alone and I haven’t wanted to expend the energy to make that even more obvious.
“So you think I still have my heart to give…and that I should give it to Nia?”
Bas shakes his head. “I think you had your heart to give until a few weeks ago, but it’s Nia’s now. But you should stop trying to put labels on what you two have and just go with it.”
“Go with it?” I raise a brow at him. “You’ve met me, haven’t you? You know I’m not good at that.”
He laughs. “Yeah, you suck. But here’s the thing: If you keep fucking around with this, trying to name it and figure out how it fits in your practical view of the world, she’s going to slip through your fingers. Then I think you’ll grieve the loss of a woman for the first time because she won’t come back. Then, you’re right, there might not be any recovering. And you really will spend the rest of your fucking life alone.”
As I march up Nia’s walkway, the icy rain pours, sluicing down my face and seeping into my clothes. I really don’t care. I hit the button of the fob of my sedan, drag the suitcase I didn’t even bother to unpack, and start pounding on her front door.
“Nia! I need to talk to you.”
The whole drive over, I considered what Sebastian said, pondered the probability that he’s right. Am I in love with Nia and I’ve been too blind to see it? I need more time with her to know for sure, but the concept no longer feels impossible.
Mostly because I’m beginning to suspect he’s also right about the fact I didn’t love Becca.
That fills me with guilt. Shame. I’m an asshole for that, right? My wife devoted her life to me, and I didn’t give her even half of myself. As least I know now why I would rather have been with Nia than Becca on Thanksgiving Day. I also know why my sex drive has been in hyper mode since I first touched the assistant I should have left at a professional distance. And I definitely know why I challenge Nia and her feelings, rather than simply placating her. They matter. She matters.
How the fuck did I not see any of this?
Suddenly, she opens the door. She’s wearing a berry-colored pajama top and a coordinating pair of floral pants that are far more practical than sexy, but at the sight of her, instant need fires through my blood.
Nia gasps at me. “Oh, my god. Come in. It’s got to be freezing out there, and you’re soaking wet.”
I step inside and shut the door. “I had to see you.”
“I’m just making a cup of Bangkok tea. Do you want some?”
I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t care. “No. I want you.”
She studies me, and something shifts on her face. “Let me get you a towel and—”
When she turns away, I grab her arm and haul her back against me. I’m drenching her clothes and dripping on her floor. I’m invading her space. It’s impulsive and impractical. Probably unreasonable, too.
And I can’t stop.
I cup my hand around her nape and drag her face under mine. Her gaze skitters. Her lips part. Our stares meet. Then I crush her lips with my own, instantly opening her to me and claiming her with a thrust of my tongue.
For an instant, she’s shocked stiff. Then her fingers crawl up my biceps. Her arms curl around my neck. She loses herself in the kiss.
My blood goes up in flames.
As I kick off my ruined loafers, I attack the big white buttons down the front of her pajamas. I’m thanking god they seem to melt under my hands, especially when she attacks the fly of my jeans and moans.
I tear my mouth away, panting. The sofa, where I already know she’s taken another man into her body, taunts me. I also refuse to take her on her bed for the same reason. “Where can I fuck you?”
She blinks at me as if she’s trying to understand my question. As I wait impatiently for her answer, I spread the lapels of her flannel top wide.
She’s not wearing a bra.
“Too late,” I growl. “Let’s go.”
Suddenly, I know the perfect spot.
Wrapping my hands around Nia, I fill my palms with her ass and lift her against my body, seizing her mouth as I cross the room and deposit her on the counter next to the kitchen sink.
“Take off your pants,” I demand as I reach behind my head and pull my wet shirt off and dump it in the sink. I barely notice when it lands with a splat. “Now.”
Then I’m lifting her breast and bending to take her nipple in my mouth. Beneath me, she wriggles, shifting her weight from one side to the other until she’s finally shoving her pants past her knees and kicking them away.
As soon as I push the top off Nia’s shoulders, she’s naked. She’s got my fly open and her hands around my cock. We’re both breathing hard as she presses kisses across my chest. I close my eyes and groan. I want to get inside her. I want to feel her close around me. The urge is so strong. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt.
Bas’s words float through my head. Being with Nia really is like sticking my finger in a light socket—in a good way. She lights me up, makes me feel alive.
“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” she murmurs. “After the way we left things, I worried you wouldn’t show up for days.”
I shake my head, fighting to find words as she gives my length another heated stroke. “Need you too much.”
“Condom?” she asks.
Fuck. “In my suitcase.”
“Mine are on the other side of the house. Can you wait?”
I know the practical, responsible answer. But… “No.”
Surprisingly, her lips curl up in a smile. Then she gives my chest a little shove and hops off the counter, onto her feet.
Instant denial flares through me as I grab her wrist. “Don’t go.”
If she leaves me, even for thirty seconds, I won’t make it. It sounds ridiculously melodramatic, but my breath is heaving, my heart thudding. It’s as if my whole body is a live wire. More electrical pulses are frying my brain and melting my defenses. I need Nia to take the surge and ground me before I overload.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises as she brushes a kiss across my mouth.
Then she drops to her knees.
I barely have time to gape and process the new charge to my revving heart before Nia’s tongue flicks around the head of my cock, then she slips my crest between her lips.
The hot velvet of her mouth has me groaning in an instant. I stiffen and try to process all the pleasure she’s giving me. Before I can, her lips purse tighter around me and she sucks me deeper. It’s a scalding, silken paradise.
Then I feel my tip at the back of her throat and her tongue cradling my shaft. She hums, digging her nails into my ass. When did she shove my pants around my ankles? I don’t know. I don’t care. All I know is that, as she glides her pretty, pouty mouth up my length, my only imperative is to nudge her back down until she takes all of me.
I slip my hands in her hair, grabbing tight fistfuls at the crown, and push. She doesn’t panic or protest or cry. Not Nia. She complies with a hearty moan and engulfs even more of my cock in her mouth, then swallows slowly when I bottom out.
“Jesus…” I mutter, feeling conscious control slip away in a matter of seconds.
Around me, she whimpers, the sound becoming a crescendo as I start ruthlessly fucking the back of her throat.
The sensations are a revelation, like the videos of those color-blind people wearing specialized glasses for the first time that allow them to truly see. Feeling Nia take every wild pump of my hips as my dick shuttles past her lips, over her tongue, and deeper than I imagined is completely blowing my mind…and unraveling my body. I both love and hate that she knows exactly what to do to dismantle my composure and drive me to climax.
Her firm hand wraps around the base of my shaft, sliding up and down with her mouth. Her tongue wraps all around me. The gentle nip of teeth slides over my sensitive crest before she takes me deep enough to feel her swallow again.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“Oh, we will. Eventually,” she taunts before she cups my balls and licks the underside of my shaft before taking me impossibly deeper.
I grip the edge of the sink, my body pulsing with energy. My toes grip the tile floor. I’m trying like hell to stay upright. My knees feel like melted butter. The higher my pleasure climbs, the more my head spins. When her cheeks hollow out, blood pounds through my veins. My heartbeat hammers like I’m a drummer on speed. My skin feels too tight. I’m going up in flames, burning to death. And I don’t give two shits. As long as Nia doesn’t stop…
Her breathing turns harsh. I can feel her willing my ecstasy as she digs her nails deeper into me with one hand and gently tugs on my testicles with the other. As those sensations rack up, she nips at me again, then sucks me deep and performs some maneuver where I swear I feel the head of my cock slip past her throat and…
Holy hell. I’m done for. I can’t stop bellowing for breath, can’t stop the electricity from boiling my blood, liquefying my veins, lighting up every nerve ending in my body. I tense. My balls feel tight and heavy. I swell. I turn atomic.
I’m going to come.
“Nia…” I manage to grind out as I fist her hair and fuck her mouth hard.
She can’t answer with words, but she moans. Encouraging. Inviting.
“If you don’t want me like this, in your mouth…” I grit my teeth and try to find the strength to pull away.
Nia sucks me deeper, holds me tighter. Her mewls sound like a protest.
I grip the sink tighter. This orgasm is coming hard and fast. It’s going to be like crashing into a concrete wall at warp speed. It’s going to mean certain death—and I don’t think twice. I let it happen.
“Jesus. Motherfucking… Oh, my… Yeah. Nia… Honey! I’m—”
Climax rips away the rest of my nonsensical babble. In its place is the most astonishing, spine-bending explosion, a nuclear mushroom cloud that’s somehow a good thing. It’s peeling the skin from my flesh, tearing the muscle from my bone. It’s utterly dissolving me. And it feels so good I’d give my entire fortune to do it again.
Slowly, consciousness returns. Nia laps at my softening cock and hums in what sounds like satisfaction. My ragged breathing and the pelting of raindrops on the roof fill the rest of the space.
Struggling to assimilate, I tug on her silky hair and stare down at her. She relinquishes my cock from her mouth with a soft pop, then blinks up at me with fluttering lashes and a temptress’s smile.
Two thoughts hit me at once. First, she has every right to feel supremely satisfied with what she’s done. Second, I don’t want to know how many times she had to perform that act on other guys to do it so perfectly.
Like everything else with Nia, she infuriates me. She enthralls me. She conflicts me.
“Evan?”
Still struggling to find words, I help her to her feet and search her face. “Nia.”
She presses her lips together. “Has any woman ever done that to you?”
Slowly, I shake my head.
“Seriously?”
Nia is probably thinking it’s crazy that a grown-ass man has never had a blow job. I’m thinking how brain-bending it is that, in less than five minutes, she redefined pleasure. I still can’t wrap my head around it.
“Seriously.”
She regards me with solemn eyes. “Becca never…?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. “Becca… Remember I said her foster father abused her? Yeah. Sexually. He especially liked to force her to give him head. So when we got married, she tried, but she couldn’t bring herself to…”
“Without having flashbacks. Got it. What else couldn’t she do?”
The list is long, and in the face of Nia’s obvious experience, I’m almost embarrassed to admit all the sexual acts and positions I’ve never performed.
“I need to know,” she says softly. “If we’re going to live together for the next few weeks and really give us a try, then—”
“She…” I swallow nervously. “She preferred to be on top.”
“Where she was in control?”
“Yes.”
“And you let her.”
“Yes.”
“Even though it went against your grain?”
Nia sighs. “Evan, you like to control everything, all the way down to the kind of pencils we buy in the office. Why would sex be any different for you?”
I open my mouth to refute her, but can I? Should I? Unlike Becca, she’s not crying or blaming me for being insensitive to her past. She’s simply trying to understand me. “You’re right; it’s not.”
My whispered admission seems loud in the room.
She cups my face. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.”
“I’m overbearing. Demanding.” At least according to Becca.
“No, you’re not.” She seems to laugh at my contention. “You obviously restrained yourself to accommodate her. But at some point, she had to concede that you aren’t her rapist.”
“Sex…was something she did for me.”
“Not for her own pleasure. I see.” Nia frowns. “Missionary?”
“Every once in a blue moon, usually only when I couldn’t climax with her on top.”
“Could she climax?”
“Eventually. It took a lot of effort. I learned patience, figured out her body, and discovered a lot of shortcuts and tricks.”
“No wonder you always seem so focused on making me come and you can do it so fast,” she murmurs. “What else? Did she like it when you went down on her?”
“Yeah. That was a guaranteed orgasm. Jesus, why am I spitting all this out? What I really want to know is how many blow jobs you’ve given to be that good at it.”
“I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. I don’t have any sexual baggage that’s going to stop us from being happy in bed. But I think you have a whole lot of unexplored territory. Why couldn’t Becca stand missionary sex?”
“Because that bastard fucking climbed on top of her, pinned her down, and took her virginity against her will. I don’t want to talk about her hang-ups. I want to talk about you.”
“And I’d rather talk about us,” she says calmly. “Tell me your fantasies.”
I blink at her. I’m standing in the middle of her kitchen, hair still wet, shivering, with my pants around my ankles. And she wants to know what I think about when I jack off?
“Nia…” I shake my head. “The sex seems to be pretty fucking awesome without this conversation.”
She raises a brow at me. “Just because Becca never wanted to talk about sex doesn’t mean I don’t. I do. I really do. Don’t filter. Don’t worry that whatever you’re thinking is something she wouldn’t have approved of. I’m willing to try anything once. If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you. But I want to devote the next week to letting you try whatever your heart—and cock—desires and hopefully put a huge smile on your face.” She leans in and places her lips against my ear. “Tell me.”
I shudder. “I’ll never get tired of being on top of you.”
“I’ll never get tired of you being there. But I know there’s more. I’ll bet there’s way more.”
She’s not wrong, and I should be freaked out that she sees me so deeply. Instead, I’m relieved. “I want to fuck you from behind.”
She smiles. “Hmm. And?”
If I’m really going to let my mind go there, I have a lot more to say. “I want to fuck you in the office.”
Her smile turns naughty. Her teeth nip my ear just before she whispers, “That’s one of my favorite fantasies, too. You bending me over your desk and muttering filthy words to me while you smother my mouth with your hand to keep me from screaming out in pleasure.”
I just had an orgasm less than five minutes ago, but her words stiffen my cock. “Yeah, that. Totally that.”
“Keep going.”
“I want to fuck you against a wall. I want to finger your pussy in public, under a table, where you can’t do anything but take the pleasure I give you and figure out how to stifle your cries when I make you come.”
Nia shivers. “Hell, yes. What else?”
Do I dare go on? The rest of my fantasies are filthier, things Becca would never have consented to, no matter how slowly I took them, no matter how much therapy she had. Nia is clearly more open and irritatingly more experienced, but that doesn’t mean she’s willing to go to these dark places with me.
“Evan, you’re thinking, not talking. Lay it on me. Every bit.”
I huff in a breath. She’s serious. My brain races, but I keep coming to the same conclusion: I’m either going to freak her out or light her up.
“All right.” I drag in a bracing breath. Here goes nothing… “Anal?”
“Yeah.” She sounds breathless.
I’m both thrilled and piqued. “You’ve already tried that?”
Nia is silent for a long minute as she regards me with a little furrow between her brows. “I’m a girl who likes to be touched. I don’t have a lot of hang-ups about sex. In my mind, any expression of affection and pleasure between two consenting adults is good. I like to fully enjoy whomever I’m with, doing things I want and trying things he likes, too. So yes.”
She’s not saying anything wrong. Logically, I know that’s the way sex should be—without fears and limits and artificial boundaries. I’ve simply never had that. I’m jealous of her experience, both that it’s been so easy and that she’s had more than me. But I’m the man with her now. She’ll give me her sexual curiosity and passion if I stop fixating on who she’s fucked before. She wants me. I need to embrace that and let the other shit go.
“Bondage?”
Her breath catches. “I’d like to try.”
I let out a breath. Finally, something we can explore together. I’m stupidly relieved that we’ll be on a level playing field for something.
“When?”
She shrugs. “Whenever. Tonight, why don’t we have tea and talk some more and—”
“I want inside you.”
A big smile curls up her lips, and I can’t stop staring at the full, pouty bow and remembering it wrapped around me. “When you look at me like that, there’s no way I can say no.”
Kicking my pants away, I stalk naked to my suitcase, conscious of her gaze on me as she follows. I hear her footsteps behind as I crouch to retrieve the box of prophylactics. Then I toss it on the coffee table and grab a fuzzy white blanket off the back of the couch. Ignoring the wrinkle of confusion between her brows, I spread it out on the living room floor.
“What’s that for?” she asks.
But her voice sounds suggestive, challenging. She knows exactly what I want. “On the blanket. Hands and knees.”
Nia looks between the furry throw and my face. She must see the resolution there because she draws in a shaky breath, for the first time looking nervous. “What do you have in mind?”
“Did I forget to mention that I’ve fantasized about spanking you?”