He didn’t even hesitate. “If you make an A, that can be included.”
I let out a huff. “You could have just said no.”
He held my gaze steadily. “I believe you can do it.”
That should not have meant anything, but the way he held my gaze when he said it made it feel like he actually believed I could do it, and for one stupid second I almost believed it too.
I started to shift, finally trying to get up. “Fine. Then I really do need to study.”
His arm tightened before I could move very far.
“Just a few more minutes,” he said.
I looked at him, then at his arm around me, and let out a breath through my nose. “Fine. But then I’m actually going to study.”
He nodded like that was exactly the answer he wanted.
So I settled back against him for a few more minutes, trying not to think too hard about the fact that maybe passing would actually be worth the effort this time.
Chapter Eight: Earned It
I fucking did it.
Passed that damn test with a ninety, and I was still riding that high hard enough that I did not even care how obnoxious the whole thing had been. I had to fight my professor for part of it too, because there was one open-ended question where my answer had not been written out the way he wanted, but it was still right, and I was not about to let him dock me just because I had not worded it like a textbook. I annoyed him until he gave me the points back, and whether he did it because I was right or because he got tired of arguing with me honestly did not matter. I got the grade. I got the A. And now I was standing at the Club Temptation bar with Jonas’s hand on the small of my back and a whole private scene waiting for me down the hall.
So yeah, every second I had spent studying and every second I had spent arguing had been worth it.
I should have felt calmer than I did, considering all of this had been planned out. We had talked through what I wanted, what he wanted, what I was nervous about, what I definitely wanted to try, and what he thought I was ready for. None of this was supposed to be a surprise. But apparently knowing what was coming did absolutely nothing to make me less excited, becauseI still felt half giddy and half out of my mind just standing there with him.
He had not really stopped touching me since we got there either, and that was not helping. His hand at my back. His fingers brushing my hip when he leaned in to say something. His arm settling around my waist for a second while we waited at the bar. We had crossed paths with a few people he knew on the way in, other Doms, other subs, a couple I was pretty sure were swingers, although honestly at this place it got hard to tell who was into what after a while. I had smiled and tried to act normal while secretly feeling so smug I could have floated. I was there with him. People could see that. They could see where I stood.
And I liked it way more than I probably should have.
Jonas leaned in close enough that his mouth almost brushed my ear. “Are you ready?”
I looked up at him and nodded.
That was all it took. He took my hand and led me away from the bar, down the back hallway where the noise from the club shifted into something different. There were doors cracked open, movement inside some of the rooms, flashes of bare skin and ropes and mouths and bodies, and weirdly enough it was not as embarrassing as I had once thought it would be. Maybe it should have been. Maybe seeing people naked and fucking in a hallway like it was the most natural thing in the world should have made me want to run. But I was with Jonas, and that changed everything. With him there, I felt held inside it instead of thrown into it.
We stopped outside one of the private rooms, and he opened the door and let me step in first.
The room was simple but still intimate. A bed. A small side table. A padded chair in the corner. Soft lighting that made the whole space feel private without turning it into some cheapfantasy set. It was not a voyeur room. Not the dungeon. No audience. No strangers. Just us.
Jonas stepped in behind me and shut the door.
He was wearing black jeans and that black t-shirt again, the same kind of outfit he had on the first night I saw him downstairs in the dungeon, and it looked unfairly good on him. The shirt fit tight over his chest and shoulders, and I caught myself staring before he even moved. Then he reached into his back pocket, pulled out a pair of black latex gloves, and slid them on one hand at a time.
Watching his hands shouldn't have turned me on this much, but it did.
He flexed his fingers once, then looked at me. “Why did you want to do this here?”
I blinked. “What?”
“At Temptation,” he said, taking one slow step closer. “We could have done this at home.”
I realized now anytime Jonas asked me to spell things out like this, is because he wanted to be sure I myself knew why I wanted things. So I swallowed and told him the truth, didn't try to make it sound sexy. “Because I wanted people to see me with you.”
His gaze held mine.