Ian’s chest lifted when he saw the overnight bag thrown over Kate’s shoulder. He still hadn’t quite recovered from the episode earlier, but seeing the bag gave him some measure of hope. He kissed her cheek as she crossed the threshold and offered to take it up to the bedroom.
“I’m not promising that I’m staying.”
“Of course.” He set the tote at the foot of the stairs. If she’d taken the trouble to pack a bag, she was planning to stay, or knew she wouldn’t have the will to leave. “You can always stay in the guest room if you’d prefer.” He would absolutely hate that, but if she needed the distance, he would give it to her.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Can we do dinner before we start talking about sleeping arrangements?”
She followed him into the kitchen where he had several pots going on the stove and the counter was littered with little plastic containers. Cooking like this had its conveniences. The meals were meant for two servings, so he never had a fridge full of leftovers he’d get sick of eating before they went bad, and it forced him to try new things. The amount of mess and packaging created for one single meal disturbed his sense of order, but the neatness of having exactly the correct amount of each ingredient was satisfying. He’d never enjoy cooking, but at least he was better at it now. He could make dinner for Kate.
“What’s for dinner?” She’d parked herself on her stool at the counter. She always took the one to the left.
“Glazed salmon, roasted vegetables, and a grain I’m not entirely sure how to pronounce.”
“Smells good.” She smiled reassuringly across the counter at him.
He was nervous and she knew it. “Don’t speak too soon.”
She popped off the stool and circled the counter, coming to rest behind him with her arms wrapped around his waist. “These things are supposed to be essentially foolproof, right? And you’ve been using them for a while. I’m sure it will be delicious. And I appreciate your making me dinner.”
God help him if he had to let her go again. As much as he wanted to bask in having her arms wrapped around him and her head resting between his shoulder blades, he needed not to burn their dinner to a crisp. He shrugged her off and swatted her hip. “Did I tell you to get up?”
She grinned. “Nope.”
“Cheeky. I hope you’re willing to pay for that later.”
“Oh? I think that depends on what you have in mind.”
He couldn’t play this careful game, masked behind easy banter, while he was trying to focus on the stove and the oven. His feelings were too close to the surface from earlier and playing at levity he didn’t quite feel was beyond him. “I thought we’d do the thing properly and discuss it over dinner. Think about what you’d like me to do to you while I finish this up.”
He returned his attention to the task at hand, hoping she would weave some elaborate fantasy for herself in the meantime, and tell him about it later.
“What do you want to do to me, Sir?”
He shivered with pleasure at having her call him Sir, even in jest. There were some things he hoped wouldn’t have to change. “What wouldn’t I do to you, kitten? But we will discuss it at dinner.”
“Is everything okay?”
He placed both hands on the counter and gripped the edges. “Kate. I cannot have this conversation and finish making dinner at the same time.” His words came out jagged, too sharp, the hurts and anxieties poking at his skin. He was decidedly not okay, but none of that was her problem.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly to the counter.
He took a deep breath. “No. I am. I’m… There’s a lot going on.”
“I know.”
“We don’t have to do this.” He wanted her, needed her here to put his head back in order and calm the tightness in his chest that hadn’t fully left him. But it was up to her.
“But I want to. If you still do.”
His want was never in doubt. “I do. Would you set the table? Everything’s where it always was.”
He needed her out of the way for a moment to compose himself. He was not going to lose it like he had earlier. They would talk, they would fuck, she would hopefully stay the night. It was too soon for anything else.
When he brought the serving dishes over, she’d set their two places, exactly as she always had, with him at the head of the table and her to the right. The other end of the table had usually been piled with books and her laptop, but she always cleared space for dinner.
She unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap. She looked at him, fork in hand, and he realized she was waiting for her cue to begin eating, falling into old habits, old rules of etiquette and protocol she’d lived by, as automatic as breathing. He nodded just as automatically and she began to take a bite, then set her fork down when it was halfway to her mouth.
“What is it, kitten?” He had a pretty good guess, but he wanted her to say it.
“I scared myself. I waited for you to give me permission. I don’t live here anymore, I don’t follow those rules, and I waited for it without a second thought. And you responded, just like that.”
“I know. I should have said something instead of giving you the signal. But you’re right, it’s like autopilot for both of us.”
“What if we can’t break out of it?”
“What if all we can do is notice it when it happens and point it out? And maybe that’s how you decide what things you find comforting and what things you find confining.”
“You know what’s slightly ridiculous?”
Ian sat back in his chair and toyed with his fork. “What is, kitten?”
“I make a point of throwing my clothes on the floor as I get undressed. It literally creates more work because at some point I have to pick them up and put them in the basket, but it still feels like this little piece of defiance and I can’t stop doing it.” She blushed slightly, like she was confessing to something infinitely naughtier than leaving her clothes on the floor.
“So break the rules. Find what feels good. You initiated most of them, as you’ll recall.”
“The clothes thing was all you.”
“Because it’s inefficient. But if it makes you feel good, it’s your laundry.” His skin itched thinking about it, but if it made her happy to feel a little rebellious in her own damn apartment, so be it.
Kate laughed. “You should see your face right now. You hate that idea.”
“Fine, yes, I do.” He took a deep breath. He’d be fine with doing away with most of the rules they’d made, and he didn’t care much about enforcing protocol, not if it meant they had this, this gentle teasing and laughing over dinner, this closeness they had lost. “But maybe we need to rebel.”
“Maybe we do. Let’s be rebels.” She grinned at him, and he couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face in return. Let’s. We. They were doing this. They could do this.
“Last night you said you weren’t ready to be together again. Is that still true?”
She picked up her fork and took a bite. “This is delicious.”
“Kate, answer the question.”
“I’m not ready for everyone to know. But I want to try to be with you. For real.”
“What changed?”
She made a face, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “I talked to Jolene.”
“You didn’t want anyone to know.”
“I know. But she guessed. I didn’t confirm or deny, but…who else would I be having conflicting feelings about?”
“I’m glad you talked to her if it helped.”
She sighed. “It did. I needed someone who’s been in sort of the same position to tell me I wasn’t making a huge mistake.”
Ian picked up her free hand and kissed her palm. “Is that what you’re most afraid of?”
“Of course. But she said the only thing that will keep us from falling into the same rut is to never shut up about it. And you seem on board with that idea, so…”
“We both know that’s easier said than done.”
“She also suggested doing it naked and after sex.”
Ian laughed. “That does make it easier to accept criticism, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s the first new rule, serious relationship conversations take place naked and post-coital.”
She held up her fork. “If we’re not spaced out from a scene.”
“An important caveat, yes. Neither of us should be held to decisions made or opinions given immediately after a scene.”
“Definitely not. New old rule, you’re not allowed to take anything I say when sex-drunk seriously.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, kitten.” He squeezed her hand again. This wasn’t so hard. This could even be fun. Starting over, learning each other again. And if he could figure out who to be for her, he could figure out who to be all the time. He could do this.
She grinned at him. “So, what are we doing tonight?”
“How far back to the beginning do you want to go? Do we start at square one and fill out checklists?” Everyone’s boundaries could shift and change over time, and he would respect her decision to rescind—temporarily or entirely—some of the things that used to be on her yes list. Getting a completely new checklist could mean hours of discussion of gradations between enthusiastic yes, cautious maybe, and absolutely not.
“Are your limits still the same?”
“Yes.” He had his own lines in the sand, things that if she wanted to experience them, he would happily find her someone competent to experiment with, but wouldn’t do himself.
“So are mine, as far as I can tell.” She bit her lip.
“But?”
“No surprises. I want to be able to say yes or no to everything right now.”
“That’s fair. No surprises.”
“So what did you have in mind before I came over?”
“That all depended on if you were prepared to stay or not. I can’t in good conscience send you home if you’re still out somewhere in subspace. But if I can keep you until morning, that’s a whole other proposition.” He knew exactly what he would ask of her in either case, but he hoped she would spend the night, not only for what it would allow him to do to her, but for the comfort of having her there next to him.
“Well, I did bring a bag, just in case. Make your pitch, Sir.”
Ian calmly took another bite of his dinner, chewed slowly, and rested his fork on his plate before responding. “If I have the option of keeping you tied to the bed all night, don’t you think I’d use it?”
Kate almost whimpered, her belly clenching reflexively. Yes, yes he would exercise that option given the chance, and she would squirm at being held open and vulnerable, but he’d reward her handsomely for it. This was exactly what she needed after the day she’d had. Clean, simple, to the point. She could answer these questions. She swallowed. “I don’t see why you would do anything else, given the opportunity.”
“I’m glad you understand, kitten.”
“Then what would you do?”
“If I had you spread open in four-point restraints?” He chewed and swallowed another bite of food.
She did whimper. She’d missed this back and forth, the ratcheting up of the tension between them, her impatience butting heads with his calm demeanor. But she’d bet anything he was plenty ruffled behind the zipper of his jeans.
“What would you want, kitten? Would you want it to hurt? Would you want me to be gentle? Would you want me to make you come again and again, every time convinced you didn’t have another one in you? Would you want me to put clamps all over your body? To hold your cunt open to me while I fucked you with my hands or my mouth or my cock, all glistening and pink because you secretly fucking love being exposed like that? Would I loosen the restraints on your ankles so I could press your knees to your chest and fuck your ass? Beat your thighs pink with a flogger? Leave a nice row of stripes with a cane? What do you want, kitten?” He rattled off the list of possibilities with absolute calm, like he was listing restaurants they could go to for dinner.
Kate squirmed in her chair, feeling the ghost of each possibility in her skin, in her belly, against the backs of her thighs. She wanted it all. Wanted it to hurt. “Can I say everything?”
He laughed, diffusing some of the tension in the room. “You can, greedy girl. But you’ll still have to choose.”
She’d never given scene planning enough credit as foreplay. She’d never wanted to make the boring decisions about who did what to whom. She’d wanted to be surprised, be a vessel for whatever he desired. She hadn’t considered the possibilities inherent in talking dirty over dinner.
“Okay. I can narrow this down. Am I cuffed and helpless on my back or my stomach?”
“Hmm. I’m imagining you on your back. I’ll want to be able to get at your tits.”
She shifted in her chair again. “Right. In that case, clamps, definitely.”
“And where will I put these clamps, kitten? ‘Wherever you want’ is not an acceptable answer.”
He took the words out of her mouth. “Fine.” She rubbed her thighs together under the table, which did nothing to relieve the ache between her legs. “Boobs. And not just my nipples either.”
“Of course not. It would be a waste not to make use of the rest of that canvas. Anywhere else?”
She bit her lip. How could he be so calm and keep eating through this discussion? She was practically sitting on her hands to keep from running her fingers over the crotch of her pants. But then, this was one of the things she’d always liked about him, wasn’t it? “I always liked them around my hips. And there is something to be said for the idea of my pussy being held open for you.”
He closed his eyes and hummed, something finally getting past that impassive air. “Isn’t there? This is a lovely image you’re painting for me. What’s next?”
With a shaky breath, she ran her hands through her hair, ruffling it back and forth over her skull. “Right. I’m on my back, clamped and clothespinned within an inch of my life.”
“Yes. What happens then?”
“And you’re free to tease me or fuck me.”
“Frankly, I think at that point I’m going to very much want to fuck you.”
“Good, me too. You should use your mouth first.”
He raised an eyebrow? “Should I?”
“Definitely.” If she closed her eyes, she could feel it. The rasp of his stubble against her thighs, the way he’d flick the tip of his tongue over her hopelessly exposed clit before sliding it inside her. “You can keep your fingers busy by twisting the clamps on my tits.”
“What about playing with your ass?”
She could practically feel that too. His tongue on her pussy while slippery fingers teased her tight, sensitive pucker. “Yes.”
“Am I going to fuck your ass, kitten? Plug it? Or only tease it?”
Her breath hitched. “You’ll work me open and fuck me.”
He hummed low in his throat, and she noticed the white-knuckled grip he had on his fork, though he was as straight-faced as ever. “You know I’ll take care of you, kitten. And you can always change your mind if it’s too much.”
“I know.”
“So I’ll slowly work you open with my fingers, then my cock. What happens then?”
Kate slumped in her chair, damp and throbbing from talking about it, thinking about all the ways he could take her, tease her, possess her. “I can’t think past that.” She rubbed her thighs together again. “I’ll probably come. You’ll get your cock inside me, then we’ll both have orgasms and sleep for a week. The end.”
He laughed and stood up from the table, his hard cock a visible ridge in his pants. “Your ending could use some work. Come on, up you get, the faster you help me clean up, the sooner you’ll be cuffed, clamped, and fucked, the end.”
“Yes, Sir.”