Was it excitement he was trying to disguise? His voice was hurried. “Which are?”
“Unimportant.” I took a sip of my martini and set it down, keeping my gaze locked on his. “I want to talk about Joseph. Was this your idea or his?”
For a moment, it seemed like Kyle wasn’t going to let it go, but he appeared to relax. “It was his. He’s offered to help me.”
“With what?”
I’d swear the temperature in the room climbed a thousand degrees. He was so handsome in the golden light of the room. “He’s offered to train me to become like him. A Dom.”
“Holy shit.” Beneath the table, I crossed my legs. It wasn’t that much of a stretch, was it? Kyle already took command in the bedroom, but from what I understood, there was more to it than just that.
“Is that what you want?” I asked. “Would you like being responsible for someone else?”
“The right person?” His voice was like gravel, and I felt it all the way down to my toes. “Yes.”
I couldn’t breathe. His gaze drilled into me and a noise sounded in my head. It could have been an airhorn celebrating, or the warning sound a submarine makes when it dives. Either worked. I felt elated and anxious at the same instance.
His expression was unreadable. “Does that scare you?”
“No, I . . .” I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. If I was honest with myself, I liked when he told me what to do. He’d always had a dominant personality, starting years ago with him demanding my phone number at the university bookstore. Even tonight, he’d taken command, and there’d been a freedom in that. “I’m interested in why it appeals to you.”
He considered his answer but seemed to go with something simple. “I like being in charge.” He knocked back his drink and set it on the table. “Pushing you to new limits is exciting.”
My mouth went dry. “So, I’d be your submissive?”
He went wooden, not realizing his mistake until it was pointed out. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
I didn’t want to watch him suffer needlessly, and tried to be brave. “I’m not sure I’d say no to the idea.”
Okay, he definitely wasn’t breathing now. His eyes were as big as the appetizer plates the server set down before us. Kyle waited until the guy was gone before blinking, and then gradually return to life. “Say that again?”
“Why? You heard me the first time.”
Putting it out there was shockingly liberating. I’d spent a lot of nights wondering what it’d be like to be a submissive. To have another person focused on me, and push me to explore new things. To improve. And the thought of Kyle being my Dom? It was so hot, my skin felt like it was sunburned.
“Ruby.” His voice was heavy, yet filled with hope. “Tell me you’re serious.”
It was madness, but it was certainly one way to move past our current arrangement. “I am.”
The air shifted around us and everything in the restaurant faded away. It was just us. Could he hear the heart pounding in my chest?
Kyle reached across the table and trapped my hand beneath his large one, his fingers curling around my palm. It was a simple touch, but felt more sexual than anything else. Like his hand was wrapped completely around my naked body. Touching me everywhere. Owning me.
It made me weak with desire.
My voice stumbled through the thick fog of lust. “W-W-We need to talk—”
His hand tightened and surprise painted his expression.
I’d had a stutter growing up. Always the first consonant, worst on the W, but sometimes it would also present on a long S. I’d worked hard to correct it, and by the time I hit college, it was virtually gone. Only stressful situations brought it out.
Public speaking was one, which was an enormous hurdle to overcome. Being a full-time trial lawyer was never in the cards for me, but I still had to get over my fear so the stutter wouldn’t be an issue if I had a case that went before a jury.
Kyle knew all about my stutter, because he’d helped me get through it.
There’d been times where we’d be eating lunch in the union hall between our classes, and he’d force me to go up to a table of strangers. I could talk about anything, even how I thought it was stupid what he was making me do. He didn’t care, as long as I spoke.
It turned into a game after the initial rocky attempts, and then the game became fun. Sometimes I made up elaborate stories about Kyle just to embarrass him. The first time I’d talked to a table of strangers for five minutes without a single stumble, he’d grinned so wide I thought his face was going to explode. No, fuck that. I’d worried I was going to explode. It may have been the moment I realized I was in love with him.