“I only have deep respect and fascination where you’re concerned,” he corrected, taking another step forward. “No hate. No disdain. The more I learn about you, the more I want to know.”
Uncertainty drizzled through my thoughts. “You can’t feel that way. You don’t know a thing about me.”
This brought the smile back to his mouth, and how had I never noticed how unsafe that smile was before? Arrogant, yes, attractive, fine—but the way he smiled at me brought to mind the way a wolf might smile at a lost, innocent doe.
Except I wasn’t a doe and I certainly wasn’t innocent. I made a noise at his smile and turned to leave—I was going to go and damn the consequences—but he stopped me with a single sentence.
“I saw you at Persepolis last night.”
Panic, cold and meanly jagged, dragged through my entire body, shredding my composure and sending my thoughts flying in all directions like woodchips from a log being split.
Persepolis.
He saw me.
Oh God, how much did he see?
Is he going to tell other people?
Is he going to find a way to convince the church to fire me?
I stopped and turned back.
“Would you like to shut the door now?” he asked.
Yes. Yes, I would.
I shut the door and then leaned against it, eyeing him warily.
“I know lots of things about you, Corabel Dennis,” he continued. “I know that you could be making three times what you earn anywhere else, but that you choose to work here. I know that you haven’t had a boyfriend or girlfriend since I’ve met you and that you prefer to walk around the grounds on your lunch break instead of eating in the staff room. I know that you use the word peremptory in a sentence.” He took another step forward, close enough now that I could see the individual arcs of his sooty eyelashes. “And I know that last night you let a man strip you bare on a stage and give you pleasure while a crowd of people watched. While I watched.”
My heart pounded in my chest like it was fighting to get free. Because I finally realized the source of my déjà vu earlier, the reason for my earlier responsiveness and arousal.
He’s exactly the kind of man I like in bed.
Godlike.
Dominant.
Fuck.
I grabbed for self-control, lifted my chin. “I hope I don’t have to explain to you that you don’t have a right to anything—to any part of me—just because you saw me at a sex club. Just because I like certain consensual games in my free time does not make me easy or a whore.”
The word whore earned me a severe look. “That was never my assumption, nor is it necessarily what I wanted to talk about.”
“Okay, good,” I said, his reply leaving me fumbling a bit. I’d expected condemnation or entitlement to my body, and he’d displayed neither, which was of course a relief. But also a bit unsettling—because what else could he want with me? My earlier worry resurfaced, and I blurted, “And you better not use this to try to get me fired, because you were at the club too, and don’t think I won’t tell—”
He silenced me with the press of his warm, blunt fingertips to my lips, not pressing hard enough to actually stop me from speaking, simply using the surprise of his touch and the stern glare of those blue eyes to rob me of my words.
“You really think the worst of me, don’t you?” he said, his arrogant displeasure now sounding more like frustration. “You honestly think it’s more likely that I would judge you as a Jezebel or make a pass at you or try to fire you, than…” he trailed off, his gaze dropping to where his fingers still pressed against my lips.
“Than what?” I whispered from under his fingers, and his eyes snapped up to mine.
“Than if I wanted to ask…” His voice turned shy and red dusted the tops of his perfect cheekbones. “If you would like to play together sometime.”
Of all the ways this conversation could have gone, of all the things he could have said, this never would have occurred to me, this respectful request that was made almost sweetly.
My lips parted under his touch in pure shock. “You want to play with me?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “Ever since I came here I wanted to ask you for a date, but I also wanted…” His fingers fell from my mouth and began to trace along the column of my neck. I knew what he was imagining, because I was imagining it too. Collars, ropes. Maybe even a little playful choking.
I flushed so much at the thought that I could feel the burning in my toes.
He continued. “I didn’t think it would be ethical for me to date a staff member anyway, but especially a vanilla one…it would be courting trouble.”
“But now you know I’m not vanilla.”
“And I don’t think I can hold myself back from courting trouble. If you’ll let me, Corabel.”
I searched his face, finding only honesty and unfiltered longing there. His fingers had started trembling where they touched my neck, except I was trembling so much underneath him that it was impossible to tell who was the more affected.
Did I want this cocky, peremptory man in my bed? Did I want him playing games with me, did I want to call him Sir, did I want to trust him with the deepest and most unruly parts of my mind?
The answers came before I could even really consider the questions.
Yes and yes and yes and yes.
God, who didn’t sometimes dream of a partner like that? Unbearably good-looking, unbearably confident, their only apparent weakness how much they wanted you?
Because wanting me was a weakness of his, I could see. In two months, I’d never seen him flounder for speech, never seen him blush, never heard him say anything in a voice that wasn’t precise and clipped and controlled. But with me, he almost seemed boyish. Uncertain. It made me flush even more—out of flattery and feminine pride, of course, but also out of happiness. Just plain, uncomplicated happiness. It made me happy to know that he wanted me. It made me realize that I wanted him back—and had wanted him for quite some time.
Tale as old as time, Corabel. Girl meets boy, girl thinks she hates boy, girl actually wants boy to use her as a footstool before he fucks her senseless.
Go figure.
“I’m not a masochist,” I finally said, wanting to say yes, yes, go ahead and fuck me right now on top of your unfinished sermon instead but also wanting him to know all the facts.
“Luckily for us both then, I’m not a sadist,” he replied. “What else?”
“Nothing illegal, no edgeplay until we know each other better, and no one at the church can know about us.”
“Done. Do you want to make sex a part of play?”
Oh God, yes, my pussy wanted to scream on my behalf. I managed to keep myself from nodding a thousand times in rapid succession. “I would like to do that, yes. With you. Very much.”
My obvious fluster seemed to please him, a bit more arrogance creeping back into his expression. “And birth control and disease prevention? I’m happy to wear condoms.”
“I’m on birth control,” I said, thanking Jesus and all His angels that I was a Methodist nowadays, and Methodists generally didn’t fuss about such things. “And I’m clean. If you are as well, I can go without the condoms.”
He nodded. “I’m clean. And your safeword?”
“Cherubim.”
“Not seraphim?” he teased, and I thought it might be the first time I’d ever heard him make a joke, even a bad one.
“They come first in the hymn. Seemed right.”
That netted me a big smile, which faded fast into a look of intense concentration. “I want to touch you again,” he said in a low voice. “Right now.”
“Yes.”