Babies were a hard limit, but how was she going to say that without coming off like a bitch? Who didn’t love babies? Even she loved babies . . . as long as they were someone else’s.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face and she realized she’d completely zoned out.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap. She felt small and silly there. She’d never dated a guy who was so much bigger than she was.
“I’m afraid of waking Beau,” she admitted. It was part truth, at least.
“The kid sleeps pretty solid,” he said. “But it’s the whole getting-involved-with-a-single-dad thing, isn’t it.”
She grimaced up at him, but he was smiling.
“It sounds so awful of me.”
“You have every right not to want to sign up for the ready-made-family thing. From what you’ve said about helping to raise your siblings, you’re probably super careful about contraception. Saddling you with a baby you didn’t decide to have isn’t fair.”
“It isn’t fair to you either.”
“Choosing to raise her would be my decision. I’m not asking for a commitment at this point. I have too much going on to worry about taking care of a submissive or slave full-time.”
“So tonight is tonight, and after that we can think about it.”
“Yes.”
She breathed an internal sigh of relief. Okay. One step at a time.
“I also don’t want you to . . . like . . .” She squirmed in discomfort.
His
chuckle was warm, and she felt it in the shoulder leaning against him as it rolled through his chest.
“Is this about anal?”
She nodded sheepishly.
“If you want to try anal at some point, I won’t just shove it in and tell you to deal with it.”
Her neck and cheeks heated. She was both grateful and mortified that he knew exactly what she’d been concerned about.
“I’m a jerk, Juliet, but I’m not cruel. Not the first few times, anyway.”
Between the statement and his leer she wasn’t sure how she felt, other than that it had brought her arousal back to an eleven out of ten. Even as he hugged her to his chest with one arm, his other hand was on her knee. Every twitch of his fingers made her burn for him to make a move.
“Deflowered a lot of bottoms, have you?” she said, hoping that making crude jokes about it would make her look less prissy. He didn’t seem to like prissy.
“Enough to make you secretly love when I played with your ass even if you want to keep pretending you didn’t.”
She shuddered.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.” He traced a small circle on the inside of her knee. The growing wet spot she was leaving on his thigh had to be noticeable to him by now. “So, sunshine, are you staying here and letting me give you what you want, or are you leaving?”
Had she actually thought she could leave? She hadn’t even managed to fool herself, but it was nice of him to pretend there was a chance she’d meant it.
“I’ll stay.”
“Mmm. Good girl.” He patted her ass and urged her up, only to walk to a dresser and start pulling things out. Rope. Leather cuffs. Leather straps with clips attached to the ends. A vibrator. A flogger. Lube. A few condoms. The small pile it made on the bed made her shiver.
She stood next to the bed hugging herself, wishing she weren’t so naked compared to him. Hell, he’d done so many things to her at the club and she still hadn’t seen him naked. He’d gone down on her longer than any guy she’d ever dated, and she still hadn’t even seen his dick.