Page 96 of Shark’s Edge

She stared, eyes burning with need.

“Be honest.”

“Will you stay?” she whispered, husky and low.

“If I stay, then what? What do you want from me if I stay?”

“I want to . . . I want you . . . to . . . ”

“Baby, if you can’t even say it, how are you going to follow through with doing it? We don’t have to rush into this.”

Rays from the setting sun filtered into the condo through slanted wood shutters. Shadows danced across her face while she spoke.

“No. I want to. I want you to make love to me.” She rushed the words out.

I shook my head slowly. “We’ve been over this before. I don’t—”

“I know. I know.”

I pressed my forehead to hers and rolled one side to the other. “You don’t know. I don’t want to hurt you. I will never forgive myself if I hurt you. But I don’t know how to be gentle. The way you need to be treated your first time. It’s not in me to be gentle, Abbigail. You don’t understand what you’re asking me to do.”

“Is this why you pay women to have sex? So you can hurt them?” she whispered, still with our foreheads pressed together.

“No. No. Not at all.” I straightened up and let my hands fall from her body. She thought I was a monster. What was I supposed to say to that? How did I explain rough sex to a virgin, for Christ’s sake? How did this woman reach her fucking twenties and not know the difference between consensually being dominated versus being abused?

“Fuck me.” I scrubbed my hand down my face. “Can we sit down?”

“Yes, of course.” We moved to her open-concept kitchen-dining-living space. Two slightly opened pocket doors were visible, showing where space could be divided if you were looking to section the area off. A sofa was against one of the crisply painted walls, and Abbi motioned for us to sit.

Jesus Christ, this place was small.

“I’m just going to get right to it. I don’t know how to tiptoe around all of this, but we’re going to have to talk about what experience you have and don’t have.”

She just nodded. One quick nod.

I took her hands in mine and rubbed my thumbs over the tops of her fingers. “For starters, I don’t pay women so I can physically hurt them. Ever. I have issues with being in control, I guess you could say. I typically find . . . partners . . . who like being controlled. Does that make sense?”

“Do you mean dominated?” She sat up a bit taller, like an eager student who knew the right answer to a question asked in class.

I grinned at her enthusiasm, still rubbing her fingers with mine. “Yes, that’s another way of saying it. That doesn’t always mean with toys and tools and all that ‘Fifty Shades’ bullshit. What it does mean, however, is I say when. I say how. It’s that simple. I have to work and bargain and negotiate all day long. In bed, I don’t want to. I want things to happen a certain way.”

“Your way,” she added, not in question but in confirmation.

“Yes, my way.”

“All right, I understand that.”

“Good. This is not negotiable for me. I’ve always been this way. I don’t foresee it changing. My concern is that for a first time—your first time—my patience will wear thin and I will become too demanding and frighten you.”

“That doesn’t make sense, though.”

“Abbigail.” Her name came out in a huff. Already the frustration of the situation was leaking from the cracks forming in my control.

“No, Sebastian, you just said you don’t like hurting women. So why would you scare me?”

“I said that’s not the reason I pay women to have sex—so I can hurt them. The two things are not related.”

Her face screwed up in the most adorably confused way, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.