“Thanks,” I said quietly. “For not making this a huge thing.”
He tipped his head once, like that was all it needed to be.
And maybe it should have ended there.
Maybe a smarter person would have let it end there, gone back to her room, and congratulated herself for surviving the conversation without dying of embarrassment.
Unfortunately for me, I was not a smarter person.
Because he was standing there talking to me like I really was an adult, like this was a real conversation and not some lecture, and that made me feel bolder than I should have. Or maybe I had already been too far gone the second I saw him downstairs with that paddle in his hand. Either way, the thought was there before I could kill it.
If he was this open about it, maybe I could ask for more.
“How does that even happen?” I asked.
He looked at me. “How does what happen?”
“A BDSM relationship.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, trying for casual and not at all sure I was pulling it off. “Like, how do people get into that?”
For the first time since he’d knocked on my door, there was something almost amused in his face.
“There are a lot of ways,” he said. “But the biggest thing is honesty. You have to be open about what you want from the start. Expectations, limits, interests, all of it. If people aren’t communicating clearly, they usually end up making a mess of it.”
I nodded slowly like I was considering the answer in some detached, academic way, which would have maybe been more convincing if I hadn’t immediately followed it up with, “What if you don’t know what you want?”
Yeah, I know what I want, I thought. I want you.
He laughed softly, just enough to catch me off guard. “Then you start there. Figuring it out is part of it too.”
I leaned against the island, needing something solid under me while my nerve lasted. “And what do you want?”
That got his full attention.
His brows lifted slightly, and there it was, that split second where he actually looked caught off guard. It was so brief I almost missed it, but I had never seen him without an answer before, and suddenly I wanted to see it again.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked.
I could have backed off.
I should have backed off.
Instead I heard myself tell the truth.
“Because I’m attracted to you,” I said, and once the words were out there was no point pretending otherwise. “To this version of you, and the one I saw downstairs. And I want…”
I had to force the rest out. “I want what I saw, but with me.”
For a second he didn’t say anything at all.
He just looked at me.
Then he dragged a hand over his face, slow and deliberate, and I stared because it was the first time I had seen him look even remotely thrown.
My confidence cracked almost immediately.
Right. Great. Perfect. I had finally pushed too far.
“I mean,” I started quickly, heat rushing into my face, “unless you’re not interested. Which is fine. Obviously. I just thought maybe there was something there, but if I read it wrong then I’m sorry and we can forget I said any of that.”