That word rattled my skull because it was a wonderful feeling, just one I didn’t have much acquaintance with. Involving myself with Jack would be going so far beyond my knowledge and comfort zone, I didn’t know where to start. But I knew, looking in his eyes, it was serious.
“I want to earn more of your trust,” he rasped. His grip tightened as he moved against me. Like trying to get deeper, closer, but there was nowhere further to go. He set the boundary.
“Why?” My breaths were coming faster, pleasure building. “Look at you. You don’t have to work for a woman.”
I dropped my glance from his eyes to his chest. Those damn buttons daunting me. I wanted to rip them open, but shook off the desire and clung tighter to his back. I didn’t want to go into specifics, but he should know a hint of the truth.
“I’m not experienced in this way.” I rocked my hips a little, meeting his motion, and a low hum broke from his chest. “I don’t think that I’m the type of woman you’re looking for.”
With his palm still on my neck, he raised my face, making me meet his eyes.
“I disagree.” He moved his hips again, hitting my sweet spot over and over until breathing was impossible. “You may not be experienced, but you have the desire. I can feel it—smell it—on you.” His lips were against mine when he said, “Whatever the reason it is that your passion has been smothered is a fucking shame. You have to know yourself before you can have strength and full confidence.”
“And you’ll help me know myself?”
“Yes.”
“And for that, you want power. Over me?” I moaned again, because the ecstasy was climbing higher. “Power like you have over me right now?”
“Is this so bad?” He shoved me even closer, his arm around me like a clamp.
No, it wasn’t. But it was apparent who was in control. And it was Jack. To have as little or as much of me as he wanted. And I sat there, praying he’d take more.
“I want you to trust that I know what I’m doing and we’ll both come out better from our encounters. But in the end, you always have the power. And that comes with one word: No. The moment you say it, I’ll stop. Anything and everything.”
That idea was a heavy one. He respected a single word, and it was up to me when and if I wanted to say it. I didn’t. In fact, I wanted to say yes. But several things were still weighing on me. Things I needed clarity
on.
“I didn’t feel better after this past week. I felt confused. Felt bad.” Not a smart thing to admit, since I was already in a vulnerable state. I ran my lips along his. Desperate for a taste.
He groaned, and it was the one sign I’d gotten that he was perhaps just as affected as I was. In control or not, he felt something too.
“I understand now that you don’t do space without explanation,” he rasped. “And you understand that I had a prior engagement that took me overseas. But neither of those occurrences deters from the fact that I want you.”
I thought back to the night I met him. He was right, a piece of me trusted him. Was this my moment? To explore trust and be a woman who had confidence? To refuse to be wrecked by my past? Wanting these things was different than taking action to get them. But I’d be naïve to think I was the kind of woman who had a clue as to the extent of what Jack wanted sexually.
“I want you too,” I admitted. “So much. But I’m nervous.”
“I know. We can work with that. Just because I take pleasure in power and control,” he gave one final thrust, then slowly slid to his knees, “doesn’t mean you won’t get to obtain the same.”
I looked down at him, half hating that he’d left me when my body was so close to euphoria, the other half realizing what he was doing. He’d purposefully put me in a position to feel above him, to feel confident.
This whole time, he kept a barrier between us because he sensed my limits. Maybe he didn’t want to test them just yet? All the while being a force tightening around me like gravity. He was controlled, enough to understand what I needed. Which should scare me a little, but there he was, just like the night I met him, tapping into a deep need within me. And that need was finally coming alive.
On his knees before me, he ran his palms up my claves.
I shivered and fought the urge to squirm away. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t, because his wide shoulders prevented my knees from closing. My body shot to code red when his lips landed on my inner thigh.
“Wait,” I breathed. “No one has…don’t look…”
Despite my best efforts, I started to fidget. No one had ever looked at me down there before. This was the most exposed, most intimate, I’d ever been with anyone. There was nothing quick or clinical about this. It was slow, hard, raw, and consuming. But it was new. And the nerves got the better of me.
“Shhh, Lana. Look at me.”
I swallowed hard, and realized my eyes were squeezed shut.
“Look at me,” he said again.