“It can be used as a punishment, but I prefer it as a game all on its own.” With his other hand, he reached up and smoothed back a few errant strands of my hair that had escaped my messy top knot. His fingers skated down my jaw as he lowered his hand. “As a matter of fact, there are some rather interesting things you can do with mental conditioning and orgasm training, though the books I gave you didn’t go in-depth. And I would never initiate such an activity without your express consent.”
“What kind of things can you do?” I noticed suddenly how warm my face was, how my pulse was fluttering with anticipation. I was totally turned-on, but I didn’t remember how I got that way. I guess around him, I was in a constant state of sexual readiness.
His answer was much more clinical than I expected: “Training your body to respond to a certain pattern of touches, or a verbal cue, so that you can climax on command.”
The sound of his voice already made me clench in anticipation, so I could easily imagine him being able to make me come from a word alone. “That seems like it could be kind of dangerous. What if you made me get off when we were out in public or something?”
“I would only do that if you asked me to,” he said softly. “That sort of exercise takes an extreme amount of trust. We can revisit the idea another time. Tonight, let’s just start with the basics. Only if you want to, of course.”
“Um, yeah. I pretty much wanted to fuck you when you were in the shower,” I said, shocking my own ears with my bluntness. “But first, let’s eat.”
It seemed counter intuitive to stuff my face with cheap takeout if I wanted to feel sexy, but I was starving, and the sound of my empty stomach would probably not make a good soundtrack to an erotic interlude.
We sat on the couch, happily digging through cartons with our chopsticks, when suddenly a thought occurred to me. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. You said at the office that you don’t eat stuff full of sodium.”
“Rules are made to be broken. Occasionally,” he amended with a guilty pause.
The quiet reservation in his answer pricked at me. “You ate a burger the other night, too, after you said no red meat.”
“I try to be conscientious of my health most of the time,” he said wearily. “But it’s damned depressing when I’m sitting next to someone who was born the same year my metabolism deserted me. My father died in his fifties, and I’m aware that the clock is ticking for me, too. So I try to stay healthy and avoid things I shouldn’t have. Bad foods, stress, the lot of it. But the odd indulgence won’t kill me.”
I felt like an asshole for bringing up a subject that was clearly touchy to him. I plucked a chunk of broccoli from the container of beef stir-fry and held it out to him. “Hey! I found Neil food.”
He gave me a very stern look, but couldn’t keep it up for long, and we laughed as I fed him a bite.
“Ugh, I’m stuffed.” I patted my stomach, which was slightly rounder after my scarfed down meal. “I hope you like a woman with a potbelly.”
“I like you,” he said, quite serious as he sipped from his glass of water. “Any way I might have you.”
“Well, we have that in common.” I grinned at him. “Oh! I got my paperwork in the mail today!” I hopped up from the couch, figuring I could explain away his puzzled expression easier with the documentation in hand. I retrieved the torn Planned Parenthood envelope from my purse and brought it to him.
“Certified disease free.” I handed over the print out. “Well, the diseases they tested for. I could still have Tuberculosis or something.”
His gaze flicked up to me before he briefly scanned the page. “Just a moment, I have mine, as well.”
He set his food aside and wiped his mouth with one of the chintzy paper napkins from the bag. Then he rose and retrieved his iPad from the counter by the wet bar. When he handed it to me, I whistled, impressed. “Your doctor emails you?”
“It’s an online chart, it will tell you everything you need to know.” He paused. “And then some, so don’t...”
“Dig around in your fascinating medical history? I’ll try to restrain myself.” I looked over the pertinent information, noting with interest that his height was listed at 6’ 2”, his weight one-hundred seventy-eight pounds. “Okay. So... now that that’s out of the way, and we covered the whole sub drop issue...”
He smiled as my gaze drifted up to the loft. Chuckling softly, he said, “I’ve picked up on your subtle hint.”