Jessie tried not to be entirely too pleased with herself. Certainly it would have been understandable; man decides to give woman ride of her life, and he does so, and then she repays him with an orgasm so intense he basically blacks out afterward. Surely that was the story of situation that allowed a person to be pleased with themselves, no matter how rude it might be.

 

She wasn’t sure if that had actually been an orgasm, on his part, really. She’d heard of people for whom pain and pleasure were so tightly intertwined that that the orgasm was almost an afterthought to the pain. His cock was still hard inside of her, but his head was pillowed between her breasts, and he was gasping, emitting tiny little wordless cries that did not well match his tall, muscular, tattooed exterior.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker with a crutch wearing a hat made of communion wafers,” he said, after a little while. There was a laugh to his voice, but it was nervous. Cautious. “We should do that again. But not tonight. I think I’d die.”

 

“Not sure I’d fare any better,” she said in agreement. “Are you—set?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, shifting loose from her. He rolled the condom off and tossed it into the trash. “Sorry. I didn’t think that would—I meant to have a conversation before -”

 

She put a finger to his lip, and he kissed it. “’S’okay,” she said. “You are not the first kinky person I’ve ever met.”

 

He nodded. She could see him debating whether to sit up, and she stroked his shoulders, inviting him to lie back down. He did. She traced her fingernails ghost light over his scalp, and he shuddered, his cock twitching against her leg. “I’m not submissive,” he said, after a little while.

 

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I’d make a terrible Domme.”

 

“People assume that one means the other.”

 

“I get it,” she said. “Can I ask how you figured it out?”

 

He shrugged. “I’d had fantasies forever, but when I got my first tattoo, I had the most unbelievable boner you’ve ever seen. The guy giving me the tat kept smiling down at my lap, and in the end — well, he helped me with more than just my first tattoo.” She felt him twitch harder, and she was sore and aching, her ass feeling odd and surprised from the unbearable fullness of being fucked by a cold glass toy, but she had half a mind to urge him up her body and take him inside of her all over again.

 

He was quiet for so long that she almost drifted off to that kind of half-sleep that sometimes descended after a really fantastic orgasm.

 

“What about you?” he asked. “What did you like about that?”

 

She had to laugh. “All of it?”

 

“No, really.”

 

“Yes, really.”

 

She could almost feel him rolling his eyes. He twisted to the side, leaning his head on his elbow and looking at her. “Was there anything I did that you didn’t like?”

 

Her cheeks felt bright and hot. “Really and truly, no. That was — not something I’ve ever tried before, but it felt good. It felt like I could move any time I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. And I trusted you. To be good to me. Or to listen if I said to stop.” There was a little hitch in her chest; she swallowed and it passed. She’d never been assaulted, but she’d also had those times when she’d had to ask someone to stop what they were doing, and hadn’t felt entirely sure that they would listen. Feeling the opposite of that, of total trust, was fantastic. And somewhat frightening. But mostly wonderful.

 

He had gone very still. She watched him, the tattoos twisting up his arms and over his chest, and waited. “Thank you,” he said, after a while. “That’s quite a compliment.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

He ran his fingers through her hair. “So, this thing we’re doing,” he said.

 

Her heart started to slam in her chest. It was foolish, and she knew it; this conversation was a good thing. This would lead to a conversation about mutual goals and their potential cohabitation, and maybe more. They’d fallen into step so easily, their friendship carrying forward from childhood without any real hiccups and, god, the sex was unbelievable. She’d never had much respect for people who declared themselves in love after just a few dates, but she could understand how it happened now.

 

She could let him continue talking. She could let him start the talk. Hell, he’d said he loved her just a few hours before. It made sense that the talk was coming. Guys who covered themselves in tattoos and lived on motorcycles didn’t just randomly drop that they loved someone into conversation. She was sure. So she could let him keep going, and tell her how he felt, and she could tell him how he felt, and maybe they’d go from him hiding his bike when he rode it to her place to him actually parking out front and buying a second bureau and — and the funny-scary thing was that she wasn’t ready. Not even close.

 

“Yeah, you said you needed to talk to me about Vanessa,” she said.

 

He froze, and she saw him swallow whatever he was going to say. It twisted her stomach to watch it happen, but he would understand if she could get the words out. She needed more time before she admitted that she was falling in love with him, too. Before she could bring him around to her mother’s and let him move in and admit that she was going to spend the rest of her life with him.

 

“Did I?” he said, a smile that she knew was completely false resting on his lips. He sat up, completely comfortable in his nakedness. That was a skill she’d never managed at all; she wished rather desperately for a way to wrap herself up in a blanket that wouldn’t look like she was closing herself off to the moment that had just passed them by. Don’t lie to yourself, girl. You shoved it off like yesterday’s trash. “I don’t recall having that conversation.”

 

“Maybe it was implied,” Jessie said. She sat up, and then found her blouse tantalizingly close. She reached for it, slipping her arms in and pulling it up to her shoulders, but not buttoning it. It was just having something around her that she could fasten if she needed to. It made all the difference. “You said she was attached to the Racketeers, and that you might need to talk to her more. You implied it had to do with my brother.”

 

She didn’t exactly mean to hit those words with a little extra force, but it happened anyway. She didn’t let herself wince. He did.

 

“You’re still upset,” he said, and that annoyed her more than the previous conversation had.

 

“I’m not a jealous teenager, Tex,” Jessie said. “But you told me we were going to be partners in this, and that’s clearly not the case. I don’t know if you’re underestimating me, or not trusting me, or what the hell is going on, but some bitch informed me that the man I’m —” she choked back falling in love with at the last moment “—sleeping with was her boyfriend, and for all I knew, it could be true. You said you need to talk to her more. I feel like I have a right to know how far that’s going to go.”

 

“It’s not going anywhere,” he said. His voice was perfectly calm, and his hands were relaxed in his lap. His visible peace made her feel even more furious. “What I told you was completely true. Vanessa and I were a thing for a little while, but we’re not now.” He reached out and touched the back of her hand; when she didn’t resist or pull away, he turned it gently, placing his fingers in her palm. “I’m with you,” he said. “Right here.”

 

Everything inside of Jessie twisted around again, and she wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or be sick. “I want to go out,” she said. “We never go out. We just stay here. I want to go out.” Which was ridiculous. She never went out, she hated going out, her mother went dancing more often than she did. But the idea of staying here, with this non-conversation sitting between them, him trying to start it and her trying to shut it down, over and over – she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t have that be the rest of her night.

 

Maybe tomorrow she could tell him that she loved him. Maybe. But not tonight.

 

There was sadness in his eyes now; he’d stopped bothering — or stopped being able — to mask the pain she was causing him. “I’m sorry we haven’t gone out. I said I was going to try and keep a low profile outside of the salon, and you’d said that was fine, so I thought—” he shook his head, and the smile came back without any effort. “Let’s go out,” he said. “I know just the place.”

 

Relief flooded her senses. “Okay,” she said. “Let me grab a shower and get dressed.”

 

“You do that,” he said. “Can I watch?”

 

She play swatted at his leg. “If you follow me in there, we will not get cleaner. We will, in fact, get dirtier. This is a biological fact.”

 

“True,” he said, reaching out and teasing at her nipples. They were tight and sore and she still wanted him all over again. “But it would be a lot of fun.”

 

Her pussy clenched with heat, and she thought about climbing on top of him and having him all over again — but if she did that, if she fucked him like that, her eyes locked on his, she wasn’t entirely sure she could stop herself from saying that she loved him too. “Later,” she said. “Promise. Take me for a ride on that big, hot, metal machine of yours, and I promise, you can do anything you want to me tonight.”

 

He raised one eyebrow. “Anything?”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

He laughed. “It’s a deal.”