While he held her gaze, he slowly released the three closed buttons of his shirt and then he tugged the cotton off his broad, muscled shoulders. He tossed it to the coffee table and turned to her again.
“Why me, Kenna? Why now, after all this time? After you left?” he asked, his arms crossed. The position emphasized the bulk of his biceps and the hard pads of his pectorals. He was cut without being overbuilt. He was freaking gorgeous.
But the question poked at her anger again.
“Why do you say that like I left you?” she managed. How could he possibly think that?
There was that eyebrow again. “You didn’t?”
Her jaw dropped. “No, I didn’t leave you. You made it clear you didn’t want a committed relationship, and I had to do what was best for me in light of that. Period.”
He sighed, the sound like he was reining himself in. “Okay, so then I have to ask again. Why me? Why now?”
She just managed to keep the tremble out of her voice. “Because you can give me what I need. And I’ve just realized that I need it again. Okay? But if you don’t want to scene with me, just say.” It took everything she had to remain there in front of him, especially with adrenaline like a wild animal charging through her.
He shook his head. “I’m just asking questions, Kenna. Which is what a good Dom does to determine what his submissive needs.” She ducked her head, but his fingers caught her chin and forced her to look at him again. “Tell me what it is you need, specifically.”
Kenna took a deep breath and licked her lips. “I...I need to be tied up. I need you to take my control away. I need you to get me out of my head the way...the way you used to. I need to feel good ag—” She swallowed the word again. It revealed too much.
But of course he caught it, and he frowned. “Finish that thought.”
She shook her head. “Nothing, Sir. That’s it.”
For a moment he just looked at her. “Besides the bondage, what are you open to doing?”
Kenna was surprised and relieved that he let it go. “Anything. Everything. Like before,” she managed.
“Cuff,” he said, holding out his palm.
She gave him her left hand, where a white cuff with colored ribbons circled her wrist. The movement made butterflies whip through her belly—because any second now she was going to have to show him her right hand, too.
His grip cradled her flesh, and his fingers ran over the ribbons that outlined the things she would and wouldn’t do. “I see here what you want, of course, but I want to hear it. Oral?”
“Yes,” she said, the question and the images it evoked making her heart beat faster. Because all of Master Griffin was gorgeous and impressive. And delicious.
“Yes?”
“Yes, Sir,” she rushed out.
He nodded. “Vaginal intercourse?” he asked, his thumb swiping across the thin black PVC covering her forearm. The light touch made her crave more.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Anal?” he asked, his fingertips tickling her palm.
She shivered. “Y-yes, Sir.” Her body was so restless and needy that he could’ve told her to strip right there and she would’ve done it.
“What did you cut yourself off from saying before?”
Her breath caught, and she withdrew her hand. But he caught her wrist and held her firm.
Damn him. She should’ve known he wouldn’t let it go. “Please—”
“Kenna, if you can’t tell me this, then I can’t—”
“Again. Okay? I was going to say ‘again’.” The words spilled out of her, a response to the certainty she suddenly felt that he was about to close the door on the possibility of this. And she couldn’t have that. She needed to try this—with him—at least once.
Just once. Please.
He frowned. “You need to feel good again? That’s what you were going to say?”
“Yes, Sir,” she whispered.
The sternness drained from his expression, replaced with that incredible, soft compassion of which he was so devastatingly capable. It was one of the things that had first made her fall for him. “Does that mean you don’t feel good now, little one?”