Liability

  Although he hadn’t mentioned that part of his sexual history to Mason over dinner. A drunken, bisexual experimentation in bed wasn’t exactly something you talked about upon a first meeting, although he’d found it amazingly easy to talk to the guy.

  More silence. When Kim finally spoke, her voice sounded soft and near tears, a tone he usually didn’t hear unless she was talking about her time spent with Craige—and beating herself up for it. “Thank you.”

  He reached across the seat, found her hand, and gently squeezed. “I was able to admit my past to you. I trust you. You’re the only other person I’ve ever told that story to. If I can trust you with that, I think I can trust you with this. Besides, like he said. For all we know, I might grow into this. If you can be patient with me, we can work this out together. We need to not rush into anything, and we need to take our time, like he said. Everything I heard tonight, I was fine with. The only way we’ll fuck us up is if we rush things and don’t take our time.”

  She sighed. She didn’t speak again until he slowed to make the turn into her apartment complex. “Can you come in for a while?”

  That was her code for “spend the night.” And that meant he likely wouldn’t be signing up on FetLife that night, either.

  Normally, with Mondays as crazy as they were for him, he’d say no to staying over on a Sunday night, unless he’d brought everything he needed with him to stay over so he wouldn’t have to go home first thing Monday morning.

  Tonight he suspected she wanted to talk some more, or at the very least be reassured that he didn’t think less of her for all of this.

  Fucking asshole Craige.

  The fucker had damn sure done a number on her self-esteem over the years. As much as Cole hated the thought, he almost wished Craige had taken a swing at her. Even Kim had admitted that if Craige had ever been physically abusive, or more overtly verbally abusive, she would have left a lot sooner.

  Instead, Craige had insidiously pecked away at her, bit by bit, until there wasn’t much left of her confidence.

  “Of course,” he said.

  It was a little before ten, and she led him straight to the bedroom.

  Time to put some of this new knowledge into action.

  Before she could start getting undressed, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, waiting.

  He felt it. The familiar tipping point where she went from being there with him to being his. As if she melted a little bit, her bones turning to jelly as she molded herself against him.

  Lifting his lips from hers, he softly said, “Get undressed, do whatever you need to do in the bathroom, and meet me in bed.”

  The smile lighting her face in the dim room filled his heart and soul.

  He could almost hear Mason’s voice in his head. Start slow.

  Okay, so far, so good. No, he hadn’t always automatically taken charge in the bedroom. Frankly, sometimes he was so tired he could barely think by the time they’d made it to bed together. If one of the things that made her happy was him consciously stepping up a little and being like this more often, he could do that.

  Easy.

  As she started to get ready, he noted the slight pep in her step now, which made him smile.

  Thank you, Mason.

  Yes, absolutely he was glad they’d gone tonight. Even better, Cole was glad Shayla had met them at the door, introduced them around, and then seated them with Mason. What if the roll of the dice had them blindly stumbling in and finding a corner somewhere and not talking to anyone all evening?

  It felt like puzzle pieces fitting together the right way. While he still didn’t know what the future would hold, he had a positive outlook and a lot less worry now.

  At least he could grab a shower there at her apartment in the morning. They both kept that kind of stuff at the other’s place. While she was getting undressed, he stripped and got ready for bed, sitting on the edge and waiting for her to join him in the bedroom. When she did, he held out a hand to her.

  She walked over to him, almost looking bashful now.

  He loved it.

  As she placed her hand in his, he pointed at the floor in front of him. If she balked at anything he asked of her, of course he’d stop and back up, talk to her.

  But she didn’t. She sank to her knees in one fluid motion, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her, and rested her head against his leg. Then she let out a soft, contented sigh.

  Okay, then.

  So far, he hadn’t hit anything that would make him uncomfortable.

  Yeah, it was pretty sexy having her right…there.

  Where his cock had started inflating.

  All these thoughts spun through his brain at warp speed. Faster, even.

  He still held her hand. After gently squeezing hers, he released it and cupped her face in his hands. Tipping her head up and back, he stared into her eyes.

  “Rule one,” he softly said. “Anything I do that makes you feel uncomfortable or that you don’t want to do, you say so. Immediately. Okay? I can’t do this if I’m not sure if you’ll stop me if I go too far.”

  She nodded.

  “Rule two, we go slow.”

  Another nod.

  “Rule three…this has to be fun for both of us. If it’s not fun at any time, I’ll promise you that I’ll say so, but you have to promise me, too.”

  She nodded.

  Stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, he studied Kim’s expression as she looked up at him. He loved her. He knew he could spend the rest of his life with her, if she’d let him.

  He eased her closer, toward his cock, smiling as her mouth opened, ready, willing, eager.

  She wanted to completely engulf him but he forced her to go slow, controlled how far he let her go down on him, took his time.

  Savored it.

  Thinking about it a little more, he gathered her hair into his left hand, snugly fisting it, controlling her with it.

  Another of those soft sighs escaped her and her eyes started to flutter closed.

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  When her eyes snapped open, something inside him twisted in a good way.

  Oookaaay…

  Mason had told him about this. That the more they tried, the braver they’d get.

  That made perfectly good sense.

  Especially right now.

  “I want to watch you do this,” he softly said to her. “So when I tell you to keep your eyes open, I want them on me.”

  She softly moaned around his cock, which was now about halfway inside her mouth. He felt her struggling a little, trying to go deeper.

  “Hands on your thighs,” he added, earning himself another delicious sound from her mouth.

  Oooh, this was, by far, the best blow job he’d ever had. And Kim gave damn good blow jobs to start with. Even on a bad day she could roll his eyes back in his head.

  Since he wouldn’t let her do this at her pace and speed, she used her tongue, tasting and exploring, stroking his shaft with it, tracing every ridge and vein and exploring his slit.

  Sometimes, he could get her off just by fucking her. Not usually. Most of the time she needed help, or he needed to get her off a different way. It was hit and miss, frustrating for her but fun for him because he loved prolonging her pleasure. He was thirty-six, so it wasn’t like he was good for three in one night like he was when he was younger. He usually had one good one, and that was that. Especially if he was tired.

  His real fun lay in keeping her going, getting her to come and then making her come over and over again once he got her started. He only got to come once? So what?

  Something about the sounds she made, the helpless look she always wore once he got her started, had always made him want to keep doing it to her. He never understood guys who wanted to get their girl over as fast as they could just to get it over with.

  To him, that was the fun in it, keeping her going, holding her there.

  Another piece suddenly clicked into place for hi
m. He’d never really seen that as a Dominant thing before, just being a conscientious lover.

  Eventually, he started letting her go deeper, faster, but he didn’t want her to get him off like this. Not tonight. Tonight he wanted to finish inside her, preferably while she was coming around his cock at the same time.

  Before she got him too close to the edge, he used the handhold in her hair to pull her off his cock and coax her to her feet. Then he bent her over the bed, still keeping one hand in her hair, and nudged her feet wider apart with his.

  “Hands flat on the bed and keep them there,” he said.

  She complied immediately, her back arching as he stroked her ass with his free hand. His fingers trailed down the crack of her ass, between her legs. He was shocked to see exactly how wet she was, her juices running down her thighs as he slipped a finger inside her pussy.

  Another moan escaped her and she started trying to hump his hand.

  Slowly teasing her, he added a second finger to her pussy. Now she was deliciously moaning, whimpering, lost in the sensations.

  Not that he ever had any trouble getting her off before, but he did notice she seemed really deep into it a lot faster than usual tonight.

  Hmm.

  The amount of stuff he did not know about all of this was scary. At least he knew he was stupid about it. He wondered if this was the subspace he’d heard about.

  When he pulled his fingers from her pussy and started stroking her ass, she let out another moan. Hesitantly, he lightly slapped her ass a few times before sliding his fingers back into her pussy.

  Her moans grew louder.

  Cause and effect?

  Be safe, have fun, and do no harm. Apparently he was fulfilling all three of those requirements at this time. His own cock was aching, throbbing, and more than a little perturbed at him for making her stop doing what she’d been doing.

  Cole alternated fingering her, playing with her clit, and slapping her ass for a long time, almost fascinated by watching her reactions. Finally, when he knew he was about to bust a nut just watching her, he stepped between her legs and slowly fed his cock into her pussy. She tried to fuck herself onto him, but he pressed a hand down in the middle of her back.

  “I’m in charge,” he said. “You just enjoy this.”

  She moaned as her hands fisted the covers.

  Oooh. Me likey.

  He reached around her with his other hand and started playing with her swollen clit again. As he did, he slowly rocked his hips, taking his time so he didn’t blow too soon, wanting to time it just right.

  He didn’t have to wait too long, either. Kim’s back arched as she cried out at the same time he felt her pussy contracting around his cock.

  “That’s my good girl,” he said through gritted teeth as he held back his own impending release long enough to know she’d really rolled through hers. Then he grabbed her hips and started fucking her, hard and fast, not holding back.

  Her moans mixed with the sound of their flesh slapping together as she kept coming and coming. He couldn’t hold it back any longer, though. It just felt too. Fucking. Good.

  He plunged deep inside her one last time, holding still there as he filled her, bracing his hands on either side of her on the bed while he caught his breath.

  * * * *

  Kim lay there, trying to catch her breath and figure out what the hell just happened. Yeah, there’d been plenty of times before Cole had taken charge in bed, but this had felt…different.

  In a good way.

  A damn good way.

  He nibbled at the nape of her neck. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  “Love you.”

  She lifted her head and nuzzled it against his chin. “Love you, too.”

  “Why don’t we snuggle?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He chuckled. “Did I fuck your brains out?”

  She turned her head and kissed him. “Uh-huh.”

  He helped her up on legs that felt like they’d barely support her. They curled up together in bed, her snuggled in his arms, her head against his chest.

  “Talk to me, babe,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I really liked that,” she said.

  “Was it a good start? About where you want it to be? Too much?”

  “Definitely not too much.”

  “Okay. Give me some feedback.”

  “I want more,” she made herself say. “Not just in bed, but out of it, too.”

  He nuzzled the top of her head. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem.” She tipped her head up so she could look at him. “I know you’re busy and have a lot to do. It’s not like I want you to micromanage me. I’m just not sure exactly what it is I want yet. I’m still trying to sort out why this feels so okay and so right and why what Craige did…wasn’t.”

  “Fair enough.” He kissed her, and she wanted to lose herself in it, and him.

  “I trust you,” she said. “I don’t think I ever really trusted him. I don’t think I could. But I trust you.”

  “That’s why I’m so desperate not to fuck this up,” he said.

  * * * *

  Mason had returned home after the munch with his mind swirling, unfocused despite Freddie’s texts.

  Damn, it’s good to be home.

  He’d never truly warmed up to living in Nebraska. It’d been a necessary evil, in his mind. It wasn’t even the state’s fault. He was a Florida boy, through and through, and being land-locked in the middle of the country had been a miserable experience for him, even if he never got out on the water much. The winters were butt-clenchingly cold, the summers were miserably hotter than in Florida, and he’d missed all his friends.

  Not for lack of trying on Mason’s part to warm up to his adopted state, but the fact that he could never make himself actually buy a home there, despite very reasonable housing prices, told him something.

  It wasn’t home. Never had been, never would be.

  Florida was home.

  The condo complex where he’d purchased his unit was an older one, with mature oak and pine trees that cast plenty of welcomed shade in all the right places and lent an air of isolation behind the eight-foot wooden fence that surrounded the entire complex. The common areas were landscaped, but allowed to be more free-form and natural-looking than strictly manicured. A walking trail threaded through the complex, and the pool area in the center of the grounds was a gorgeous oasis. There was a retention pond that had been allowed to look natural and was home to birds of various species. He could stand on his small screened lanai and look over at it and relax, enjoy, and simply…be.

  Without a damn lawn to mow.

  He’d looked at several places when he’d flown back for his interview in the hopes that he’d get the job. That way, when he received word he’d made the cut, he already had his choices narrowed down.

  Maybe he’d buy a house one day. He’d had one before moving to Nebraska and had downsized because of the move. What a pain in the ass that had been, staging and selling the place.

  For now, he’d be happy where he was, the best of both worlds. Home ownership in an apartment.

  It also looked like he’d lucked out meeting Cole and Kim. They seemed very nice, easily people he could become friends with.

  Cole’s gorgeous blue eyes would likely stay with him for a while, too, haunting Mason’s thoughts as he rubbed solo orgasms out.

  Hey, just because the guy was het didn’t mean Mason couldn’t fantasize about him. He felt no guilt in that whatsoever.

  In fact, that night, as he lay in bed and tried to go to sleep, he realized rubbing one out was exactly what he needed to do to relax. And it was Cole’s blue gaze he imagined as he stroked his cock, thinking about how the man would look with Mason’s cock buried to the root between his lips.

  Wondering if the guy was loud in the sack, or a soft moaner.

  It didn’t take Mason long to get o
ver. He grabbed a couple of tissues from the box on his nightstand to clean up before rolling over, finally able to shut down his mind and drift into sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Monday morning, predictably, was crazy for Cole. He managed to get out of bed early enough to grab his shower at Kim’s before she got in there, grabbed a travel mug of coffee and a good-bye kiss from her, and made it home with enough time to change and get to work with barely minutes to spare. Fortunately, the day was busy, full of meetings that kept him from dwelling too much on his new personal developments.

  Or the memory of how sexy Kim sounded last night as he made her come.

  How happy she looked this morning.

  Mason texted him around lunch time.

  Hope last night didn’t freak you guys out. :)

  Cole smiled as he pondered a reply. He’d really liked Mason. The more he thought about it, he realized he hoped they could spend more time talking with him over the near future. He felt comfortable talking with the man, an easy rapport he didn’t always feel with others. Not that Cole had trouble making friends, but he didn’t feel he could just open up and talk about his sex life to most of them, either.

  He suspected Mason would end up being a sounding board more than a few times as he and Kim muddled their way through this new aspect of their relationship.

  Thank goodness.

  Knowing that it’d be too easy to screw things up, it was reassuring to have someone to turn to for advice when he needed it. Maybe it was naive to feel that good about someone so soon after meeting them, but Cole had learned to trust his instincts.

  He trusted Mason.

  He’d also had similarly good feelings about Seth and Leah, and Tilly, Landry, and Cris. Seth had taken a moment to reassure Cole that he’d also felt lost—and worse—when he’d first dipped his toe into BDSM.

  At least the circumstances of Cole and Kim’s entry into the lifestyle didn’t come with an imperative, finite, and tragic timeline, or the accompanying emotional baggage. Compared to what Seth and Leah had gone through, Cole realized he should relax and embrace the experience, wherever it led, and try not to worry too much in the process.