“But it’s not me. We really don’t have to do this post-sex discussion stuff. This getting-to-know-each-other thing. This can be just sex. I’m fine with that.”
“Okay.” He was looking wary, as if he didn’t quite believe her.
“Really, Dante.”
He nodded. “Okay. But I’m good with the talking. It’s part of being a good dominant, if nothing else. Even if it’s just a little spanking, nothing too hard-core. It helps me to know how your head works. How you might respond to different things.”
“So this stuff, what we’re doing . . .”
“BDSM play,” he finished for her.
“Yes. Some of it is psychological? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Most of it is psychological.” He chewed the last bite of his pancakes. “Think about it. That sense of release. Of relief. I haven’t seen you for years, but just talking to you for a few minutes I can see that you’re probably very much in control in your everyday life. Confident. Competent. Someone who handles everything. The person others come to for advice, or when something needs to get done. Am I correct?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Giving yourself over to me is a natural outlet for you. Not only giving yourself over to me, but to the process. You don’t have to make any decisions. You don’t have to
do
anything. You just lie back and take it all in. You seemed to get that almost immediately. Which says to me that you’ve really needed it.”
“Maybe.” She paused, trying to process all of the information, how it applied to her. “But a big part of it is also that you’re so into this stuff. You didn’t judge me. Not for one second.”
He nodded. “Which goes back to the psychology.” He paused, lowered his voice. “Why is it so important that you not be judged, Kara?”
She froze. She didn’t want to talk to him about this stuff. About the shame her relationship with Jake had left behind. The shame she’d felt so often growing up with her brilliant, overachieving parents.
Never good enough
.
Except that here, with him, she felt good enough. For the first time.
It was too much to take in. And this was casual sex. She had to stop thinking about it in such serious terms. He’d called it “play.” That was all it was.
“Okay,” he said after a minute. “You don’t have to tell me. I have a tendency to make demands. But I can dial it back.”
He grinned at her, and she had the sense he was doing it to make her more comfortable.
“You’re a nice man, Dante.”
It was true. He was a good man. One of the best she’d ever met. She’d known it in high school. He’d only seemed to have grown more into it.
“Except when I’m being mean,” he teased.
“Not mean, really. Just . . . wicked.”
“But you like that.”
He reached out and brushed his fingers over her wrist, picked it up and laid a soft kiss there. Bit into her flesh, just enough that she could feel the sharp edge of his teeth.
“I do,” she said, trying to keep the sudden tremor of lust out of her voice, and not succeeding.
She was burning up inside again already, her sex needy once more. And she could see the desire stark on his face.
“Have you had enough to eat, Kara?”
“For now.”
His tone dropped an octave. “Then why don’t I put you in the shower?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. He took her hand, slipped his other arm around her waist and led her to the bathroom, one of the few walled rooms, which took up much of the back wall of the loft apartment.
He stripped the pajama top off her and she stood naked, her nipples hardening with the cool air and excitement as he reached into the enormous shower stall and turned on the water. He stripped his pajama pants off, opened a drawer in the modern maple vanity and pulled out a string of condom packets.
“Oh, I hope you intend to use those,” she told him, her sex going damp.
He grinned, all strong white teeth and flashing dimples and desire soft around his lush mouth. She glanced down, found him hard, ready. She shivered.
“I intend to do a lot of things to you in there,” he said, pulling her close.
He bent to kiss her, his mouth tasting of hot coffee and maple syrup. Sweet and strong, just like him. And God, the man could kiss. His lips were soft, yet demanding. His tongue slipping in and taking over her mouth. Making her shudder with desire, small ripples running over her body. His chest was a hard plane of muscle against her breasts. His abs were just as solid. And his cock was a rigid shaft pressing against her stomach.
He pulled his mouth from hers long enough to get them into the shower. And then it was all wet heat as water fell, seemingly from everywhere at once. All she knew was that they were soaking wet, their bodies plastered together. Slippery skin and the scent of citrus and something darker . . . the musk he smelled of, she realized. His soap. Even the scent of it was making her body heat, her sex throb with need.
He pulled back then, holding her at arm’s length.
“Christ, you’re beautiful like this, Kara,” he told her. “I love this. To see your wet skin. The water all over you. It’s another fetish of mine, the shower. The water itself.” He ran a finger between her breasts, down the center of her stomach. “Wet skin. I should have put you in here in one of my white dress shirts. I really love that. To watch the fabric go opaque . . .” He touched the tip of one of her nipples with his fingertip. “But this is good, too. Seeing you harden. Seeing the pink turn darker when you become more excited.”
She pulled in a tight breath. She loved to hear him say these things to her.
“Dante . . .”
“What is it?”
“Come on . . .”
He laughed, a low, sexy sound. “Come on, what?”
“Come on and really touch me. I want to feel your hands on me. I want to feel how different it is in the water.”
He laughed again, a low chuckle. “Fucking perfect,” he murmured as he cupped both her breasts in his hands, sliding them over her skin.
“Oh, that’s good . . .” She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the sensation.
It
was
different. Not that she’d never had sex in the shower before. But she’d never focused on the slickness before. On the difference. Not with any other man.
Dante made her see things differently. Feel things in a whole new light. And it was mind-blowing.
“Yeah, I like that,” he said. “Keep your eyes closed, Kara. Don’t move.”
She melted all over at the authority in his voice. At being told what to do.
Maybe he was right about what it did to her head. But she couldn’t think about it. Desire was like a tide, pouring through her in a drenching wave as the water ran over her skin.
“Stand there, yes . . . and spread your thighs for me. Good girl.”
A small shiver at that.
Good girl
.
She couldn’t think now about why she loved hearing those words so much.
Then she couldn’t think at all as she felt a spray of water against her cleft.
“Oh . . .”
“Hold still, Kara,” he said again, and she schooled herself to stop squirming.
She let her lashes flutter open for one moment, saw him kneeling in front of her, the shining chrome shower wand in one hand, a bar of soap in the other. And as she closed her eyes once more, he began to wash her.
She’d never experienced anything like it. He soaped her up with his hand, his fingers slippery. Lovely. Massaging her pussy lips until she thought she would die of sensation. She had to bite her lip in order to keep still for him. Her breath was a heavy, panting rasp in her chest.
“You like this,” he said. “I can feel your flesh swelling under my touch. I can see how plump your clit is. So pretty.”
He massaged her clitoris, and she gasped.
“Ah!”
“Shh, Kara. Be still. Be quiet for me. You can do it.”
The warm spray of water over her cleft then, and the pleasure was like silk. Sleek, sinuous, shimmering through her body.
She took in a breath, held it as he moved the water away and went back to work with his slippery hand.
“Spread wider,” he ordered, and she did it without question.
Her mind was going to some misty place, she realized. Sort of emptying out. Going quiet. Like a soft, white noise in her head.
“Good, Kara,” Dante told her. “Hold still now.”
Water at the apex of her thighs again, but sharper this time, the hard pummeling of a massage cycle aimed right at her clitoris.
She had to lock her legs, had to hold back her climax.
“Do you need to come?” he asked her.
“Yes . . . now!”
“Not now, Kara. Hold on to it. Hold yourself at that edge. Hold it until I tell you I want you to come.”
“God . . .”
But she swallowed, nodded. Steeled herself against the onslaught of sensation.
“Think about everything you’re feeling. Separate it out,” he instructed, his voice gone soft. “The water from the shower overhead. My hand on you. My voice. The texture of the soap. Have you ever felt anything so slippery in your life? I don’t think I have. The soap and how unbelievably wet your pussy is right now. Incredible.”
She tried to do as he said. In her mind, she took a moment to recognize each sensation by itself. It seemed to make it all build, multiply. She took in a deep breath, held it in her lungs.
“Good girl, Kara. That’s it. Think about the pleasure building inside you. And hold it back. Hold it together. For
me
, Kara.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “For you.”
“Ah, that’s exactly where I want you.”
A rise in pleasure at the tone of his voice. Knowing she was doing what he wanted. What he demanded of her.
“I’m going to let you come in a moment,” he said.
“Oh, please . . .”
He ran his fingers into her slit, the soap making his touch unbearably slick as he moved his hand up and down. Faster and faster.
“Dante!”
“Hold it, Kara.”
“God . . .”
He kept rubbing, his soap-slicked hand sending desire through her, piercing her. Amazing how sharp the pleasure felt against the softness of his soapy fingers. Her climax was like a wall of pleasure, waiting to crash down on her.
“Dante, please. Please,” she keened.
“Almost, my beautiful girl.”
His fingers slid over the hard, needy nub, over and over. Then he paused. One breath, then two. He pinched it, hard.
“Oh!”
“It hurts, doesn’t it, Kara?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
“What else?” he asked, command in his tone again.
“It feels . . . so good . . .”
He pinched harder, tugging at the same time.
“Ah, God, Dante. I can’t . . .”
“Take a breath, Kara.”
She did, pulling the steamy air into her lungs, her body poised, aching.
“Now, Kara. Come for me now.”
His fingers started that lovely slide again, and she came almost as soon as he told her she could. It was like white light shimmering through her, arcing into her. Shocking her.
She called out as she fell, and he caught her in his arms. She was still coming. Shivering. His fingers kept working between her thighs.
He whispered into her ear, “Good girl. My beautiful girl. Good, Kara.”
When she stopped shaking so hard, she realized she was sitting in his lap on the floor of the shower. Her arms were wound tight around his neck. And his arms were strong around her body.
She was still trembling a little, the last of her climax a series of tiny shudders deep inside. She felt wonderful. Except for the small portion of her brain that was telling her this was far too good. Too good to last. Too good for her.
The sex.
Dante.
Don’t think. Don’t think
.
She barely
could
think. Her mind was too numb to process an idea fully.
“Hey. You okay, Kara? What’s going on in there?” Dante asked her.
“Yes. Yes. Fine.”
As long as she didn’t go to that place, where she wasn’t good enough.
“You’re more than fine,” he told her, his voice low and full of smoke. “You’re amazing. You came so damn hard. I loved it. That you just fell apart like that.”
God, he said the most perfect thing, exactly what she needed to hear. That approval clear in his tone.
“But I need to fuck you now, Kara.” He took her hand and pulled it down between them, wrapped her fingers around his thick shaft. “Do you feel how hard I am for you? Come on, stroke it.”