Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 419(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 419(@300wpm)
She felt frozen in place. “I sat on your lap like you asked me to.”
“You complained the whole time. You were uncomfortable, and it was obvious to everyone around us,” he explained. “You flinched when I touched you. I assure you Byrne will notice that you find touching me distasteful.”
That hadn’t been the problem. Not at all. Everywhere he’d touched her, her skin had lit up and something warm had built inside her. She’d worried that damn thong she’d been wearing would show the world exactly how much she’d liked him touching her. Her arousal had spiked when his hands moved over her, and she’d been forced to refocus her attention to the task at hand or she would have forgotten the assignment entirely. “I was trying to concentrate. You wanted me to watch the scenes.”
“Yes, and I felt your distaste for the scenes, too.”
“I didn’t…” How did she explain this to him? “I wouldn’t say I found them distasteful. It was surprisingly different to see it happening in person. I’ve studied. I’ve read up, and it’s not like I didn’t go out and watch some porn.”
He pointed her way as though she’d just made his point. “Ah, there it is. There’s the derision.”
“What’s wrong with porn?” She had no idea why she couldn’t reach him.
“It’s a loaded word and you know it. It’s also not what we watched tonight.”
He was making her so frustrated. She hated this feeling. It made her feel small and powerless. “Then what did we watch, Deke?”
“We watched people connecting. We watched people enjoying their sexuality. There’s nothing wrong with porn. It has its place, but that’s not what D/s is about.”
“It can be. There don’t have to be all these feelings involved. Sex can just be sex.”
“But we weren’t having sex,” Deke pointed out. “We weren’t even having a pleasant conversation. You want to walk in and fool a man who’s considered to be a genius and you can’t even act like you enjoy being around me. You flinched every time a sub got spanked and you closed your eyes when Alex put Eve on the St. Andrew’s Cross. Every single question you asked I found somewhat insulting. Do you honestly think the subs are allowing their dominant partners to hurt them in a way that doesn’t give them something they need?”
Tears pricked her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I was asking questions. I don’t know how to not ask questions.”
He leaned forward, his head coming up to lock eyes with her. “It’s not going to work with me. There are only a few Doms who can do this job. I’ll let you meet them tomorrow, but there’s very little time to find someone acceptable and train you properly. Unless you can get another two weeks out of this impromptu vacation of yours.”
She wasn’t sure how everything had gotten so out of control. She’d known he was upset with her, but not that he was dumping her. All she’d done was ask a couple of questions. And refused to even consider relaxing her guard around him, which kind of defeated the point.
Had she spent the whole night fighting him because she wasn’t sure how to deal with the things that truly bothered her?
“You know I can’t do that.”
He sighed again and sat back. “Then go to bed because we’ll have an early morning. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. I mean that, Madeline. I hated that…it hurt that we didn’t connect the way I thought we would, and I’m sorry if I was having trouble communicating that to you. Despite all the therapy, I’m still a man and my feelings got hurt. I should have been kinder about it.”
Maddie sat down across from him. It would be easy to agree with everything he said, but she wasn’t exactly without blame here. Communication was everything when it came to D/s, and she hadn’t done a good job either. She didn’t want to admit why. Honesty would make her more vulnerable, and that was what she’d been trying to avoid. She was doing what she always did, plowing her way through and trying not to feel too much.
There were three choices in front of her. She could allow Deke to pick another investigator for her to work with and see if not having emotional baggage with a guy made it easier to be in a thong in front of a ton of people. Choice two was to give up her whole career because walking away from or being fired from a major project six weeks before launch would make her unemployable for a long time.
Or she could face the truth. She was sitting in front of the man who’d helped form the base of her sexuality, who’d been her lover, who’d left an indelible imprint on her, and she was scared of being hurt again.