Him? Was she kidding?
“Nobody has a bad word to say about you. I didn’t think guys like you existed. You’re a gentleman, you help people without expecting anything in return, you actually care about people.”
“You’ve been asking around about me?”
“Everybody says the same thing. You’re a genuinely nice guy. Although Cady thinks you spend too much time on other people and forget to look after yourself. She thinks you need someone who’ll take care of you.”
He snorted. Cady talked too much. And he didn’t need anyone to take care of him.
She yawned then stared up at him in consternation. “Oh, God, sorry.”
He had to smile. Damn, she was cute. It wasn’t something he would have said about her before now. She always looked elegant, together, poised. Now she was ruffled, her eyes heavy-lidded, her cheeks slightly flushed. He much preferred her looking this way.
“I’m not perfect, honey. I have my faults, just like everyone else.” She was tensing up. Losing that soft, dreamy look. Worry entered her gaze. He wasn’t quite ready to let her go yet. Pulling her up, he took her mouth with his. Tasting her, drinking from her. He dominated the kiss, taking complete charge.
She melted.
His pleasure soared, knowing he could bring this carefully composed woman to such a place of surrender.
He leaned back and ran his finger over her plump lip. “I’m not as patient as I should be. I take too much on. And my family takes up so much of my time I tend to spend too much energy catering to their needs.”
“Your family?”
“I have two sisters, both younger. Rory and Julia. Julia is very much like our mother. She’s married to a gynaecologist. He’s an okay guy so long as you don’t have to spend too much time with him. My youngest sister, Rory is almost the complete opposite. She’s a bit of a wild-child, and she drives our mother insane. Especially when she doesn’t answer her phone. My mother is a worrier. She likes to be able to keep in touch with all her children.”
“It’s nice she cares.”
Was that a note of wistfulness in her voice?
“She was never like that when we were growing up, but after my father died she started to stress about something happening to one of us. Julia and I always answer her calls and Julia visits her often, but Rory seems to enjoy riling her up. Usually, it falls to me to track her down and get her to call Mother.”
“That must get tiresome.”
“My ex certainly thought so.” That probably wasn’t the conversation to get into right then. He shifted her weight slightly, hoping she couldn’t feel his erection pressing against her. Seeing her in subspace, touching her body as he’d weaved patterns of rope around her had been an incredible turn-on and holding her tightly on his lap wasn’t helping matters.
“Am I getting too heavy?” she asked, trying to move away from him.
He held her tighter. “Not at all. I like holding you.”
Lacey watched him carefully. She couldn’t believe she was sitting on Gray’s lap, dressed just in her underwear and wrapped in a blanket. How she was going to face him on Monday morning, she had no idea.
She knew she’d judged him unfairly when she’d first met him. She’d seen him work with clients. The compassionate way he treated everyone. She had never seen him grow angry or impatient. He seemed totally genuine, but she knew she couldn’t fully trust him.
She felt more relaxed and at peace than she had in years. She had loved being bound. It had been freeing. But being in a room full of people was completely different than being alone and vulnerable with someone. Sex was a whole other level of trust. And the more time she spent with him, the more likely he was to see the truth about her. That beneath the calm, confident exterior she was a mess. Not nearly good enough for a man like him.
“I need to go home.”
Gray tightened his hold briefly then relaxed. “I guess this has been a lot to take in for tonight.”
“I don’t think it’s really for me.”
His face grew thoughtful. “No?”
“No. I can’t give up that much control. Being tied up was okay tonight because there were lots of people here, and I know you. But with someone else or in a different setting or another scene, I don’t think I’d feel the same way. It takes a level of trust I’m just not willing to give.”
“Trust can be a difficult thing to achieve. But it also goes both ways. A sub has to trust her Dom to look after her, to respect her safe word and her limits. But at the same time, a Dom has to trust the sub. Trust that she’ll know her limits. That she’ll communicate with him. The last thing a Dom wants is to hurt their sub unintentionally or bring up bad memories. So, you see, it goes both ways. And ultimately the sub has all the control.”
“Provided the Dom listens. If he were stronger than her, if he had her bound, then he could do what he liked, right? He could hurt her, and if no one was around, then nobody could stop him from causing her pain.”