Cowboy Casanova (Rough Riders 12)

“Didn’t want what?”

Didn’t want to fall for him.

“Ainsley, do you love him?”

Yes. “What if my feelings are from the sex that rocks my world? What if I’ve latched onto the convenience of being with Ben because he lives here? What if I’ve confused submission with love?”

“What if it is love and you’re making all these lame excuses because you don’t believe you can fall in love in a month?” Layla countered.

“That’s not it.”

“Then are you worried Bennett will expect you to become a lifestyle sub like me if you’re outside the club?”

She remembered exchanging harsh words about that very thing the last night they’d seen each other. “No. I know that’s not what he wants. But hearing that he’s leaving the club—”makes me hopeful that maybe we have a chance, “—makes me wonder if he feels pressured to do it.”

“Bennett is a force all his own. He doesn’t do a damn thing he doesn’t want to. He is willingly walking away from the club because he wants you, A, for the long haul. He found something more meaningful than he was getting with random hookups at the club. He found it with you.” She shook her finger at Ainsley. “But don’t for a second think he’ll become some pussified girly man because he’s no longer wielding a whip at the Rawhide. Bennett is a Dom through and through. That part of him won’t change. Ever. He’ll still want a sexual Dom/sub relationship with you, and not temporarily this time.”

“I don’t want that part of him to change.”

“Good.” A long sigh echoed. “I know you, Ainsley. Don’t talk yourself out of what could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you because you’re scared.”

“I am scared. Aren’t you the one who warned me not to fall for Bennett because he wasn’t a long-term guy? You told me I’d be an idiot for taking up with the first Dom I met.”

Layla leveled her with an uncompromising stare. “I was wrong. I can admit it. Can you?” She stood. “Don’t be an idiot. Accept him as he is. Accept yourself for what you are to him. Accept what you two can have together.”

Ainsley watched Layla flounce out of her office. Her friend’s words swirling around in her head.

Accept him as he is.

Accept yourself for what you are to him.

Bennett made no apologies about who he was. He’d given her all of himself while helping her get in tune with a side of herself she hadn’t acknowledged. He’d respected her boundaries, even while pushing them at every opportunity.

And now she wanted to bring those boundaries back in because she was scared? She wanted to use what he was—unapologetically sexually dominant—against him because she was freaked out about what she’d discovered about herself?

Why couldn’t she just accept that she admired the sexual woman she’d become because of Bennett? She liked that he challenged her. She liked handing control to him, knowing he’d never abuse it. She liked how he looked at her, not only the admiring gazes he gave her body, but when he locked his eyes to hers and seemed to see into her soul. He saw the real her. He acknowledged the woman she was—in and out of the bedroom—not just as who she was as his submissive.

Ainsley let her head fall back and stared at the ceiling.

So what to do now?

Call Ben and share the news she hadn’t gotten canned?

Confess she’d fallen in love with him? Not only as Bennett the Dom, but as Ben the man? That she wanted them both?

Or would he believe her confession was only a knee-jerk reaction to her relief at not losing her job?

Or would he think she’d only come to him because he’d quit the Rawhide Club?

Don’t think about it now. Get back to work.

But the rest of the afternoon was a total wash.

So many thoughts bounced in her brain, she pled a headache to her staff and shut off the lights in her office. Her mind kept drifting to sex, specifically the night she’d shown up at Ben’s house to seduce him with plain old vanilla sex. Intending to prove they didn’t need foreplay in the form of ropes, cuffs, vibrators or restraints. They could get naked, roll around between the sheets, until hungry kisses and fevered touches weren’t enough. Then Ben could pin her body beneath his and gaze into her eyes as he slowly slipped inside her. Loving her as fiercely and hotly as he always did.

It could’ve happened that way.

But it hadn’t.

He’d gotten off. She’d gotten off. It wasn’t bad sex; it just wasn’t great sex.

Afterward, she laid beside him, feeling like she used to before, during, and after sex—awkward. Anxious. Self-conscious.

Then his hot body had spooned behind hers, because he’d sensed her retreat and he hadn’t allowed it. “So while that was fun, what the hell has gotten into you, Ainsley?”

“I came here to prove I can seduce you. We can have sex anytime we want without all the kinky accoutrements.”

“And?”

“And I realized I couldn’t have seduced you if you hadn’t let me.”

He’d laughed. “You accept that I’m a Dom, but you’re still fighting the idea you’re submissive.”

A statement. “Maybe. When I’m with you, when we’re in the moment, I don’t think about anything but how you make me feel or how much my surrender pleases you. But when I’m by myself, or at work, those feelings of…wrongness pop up. Like there’s something wrong with me for loving when you dominate me. There’s something wrong with me for liking that you use cuffs, ropes and handcuffs on me. There’s something wrong with me for wanting to get my butt paddled or to feel the flogger on my skin or the riding crop connecting with my flesh. I wonder why I can’t be satisfied with—”

“Vanilla sex?” he supplied.

“Yes. Then when we have vanilla sex…it’s not as satisfying and I wonder why I want to give up fantastic sex because what we do behind closed bedroom doors isn’t the norm.”

“It’s a vicious circle, angel.”

Then he’d just held her. Stroked her. Let her wrestle with her thoughts, until she’d asked, “Does the level of kink increase the longer a Dom/sub are together?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He’d placed a soft kiss behind her ear. “You’re the first woman who’s tempted me to find out.”

That’s when she’d squirmed away and reminded him she’d only signed on for a month.