Page 38 of Praised
“If you want to go, I won’t stop you. But you asked about me and I’m trying to give you an answer. The Sir thing is more than telling someone what to do in the bedroom. There’s caretaking; there’s attention. It’s a job.”
Cody’s vitriol from the week before rang like a gunshot in my ears.
“I don’t want to be work for anyone,” I whispered.
“You’re not work at all, Rose. You’re pleasure.” He pulled me toward him and I stumbled close, cheek landing against his sun-kissed chest, and I didn’t even have a chance to stop the embarrassing sigh that fell out of my mouth. “You’re an absolute pleasure.”
CHAPTER13
FLYNN
Rose wasa thousand pounds of chaos and conflict in a hundred-and-ten pound body. Wrapping my one arm around him, he melted against me without another word of protest or disagreement.
“We’ve been dancing around each other for the past week.” I kissed his cloud of hair and inhaled deeply. He smelled like his shampoo and my laundry detergent, and the combination was heady.
“Is that what this is?” His words were muffled against my sternum, and he gently touched one of his hands against my hip.
“Come inside and let me make you breakfast. I’ll lay my cards on the table and then you can decide what you want to do.”
Gently, I led him back toward the house. Once I got him into the kitchen, I hoisted him up onto the counter and used the side of my finger to lift his chin. His expression met the textbook definition of wary, from his finely-knit brows to the tight line of his lips. But even with that, he looked like a dream.
“No strings with the meal,” I promised him. “Just food and honesty, okay? Transparency.”
He nodded and I leaned in to brush a soft and chaste kiss against his sleepy mouth. The tiniest moan left his lips and I licked it into mine before he could swallow it back.
“I don’t like bell peppers,” he said, giving my chest a gentle push.
I gave him a mock salute and went to the fridge, pulling out eggs and cheese and some bacon that I’d cooked earlier in the week to garnish a Bloody Mary for Archie. On the counter, Rose turned and watched me while I cracked and whisked eggs.
“I’m a dominant,” I said, aware of how nervous the term and its counterpart made him. “But not like in the movies.”
There was a beat of silence while I chopped some of the bacon strips and tossed them into the bowl.
“I don’t know what kind of movies you’re watching, Flynn.” Rose finally chuckled and I flung a dish towel across the island at him. He caught it and swatted it away, the tentative laugh turning more honest the longer it went on. The sound echoed off the walls like a melody, and I closed my eyes to fully savor it in my ears.
“I love a man on his knees for me, don’t get me wrong there. But it’s not about cuffs and protocol. It’s about respect and praise…and sometimes humiliation.”
Rose made a sound in the back of his throat, and I poured the omelet mixture into the pan.
“Don’t scoff about it.” The eggs sizzled in the pan and I pointed at him with the spatula. “I haven’t forgotten what you said to me last night and I know you haven’t either.”
The whole good little slut conversation was going to give me enough wank material for the foreseeable future, even if I never got another chance to hear the words leave Rose’s glossy and sweet lips.
“It was a compliment,” I continued, hoping I’d be able to find a way to explain the intricacies of how humiliation and praise worked together. It was something I’d wondered about for years because what had always started with yes, and good, and just like that had over time turned into something different.
Something better.
But much like spanking and bondage and kneeling, it wasn’t for everyone.
And I wasn’t like some people I knew who only wanted to fuck within the limits of a carefully negotiated contract and between the walls of a playroom. No, I wanted to explore and grow and find things that worked and even some that didn’t. There was something to be said for trial and error, and the trust that kind of adventure required.
I’d never had it for myself.
But that was by design, I had come to believe. I wasn’t one to let people get close, but that were my own fears and insecurities at work. My inability to bare my heart and trust someone enough with those parts of me. Which was ironic because I asked that of my partners by default, even if it was only for a moment, for a night…sometimes a weekend.
“Not that I disagree, but tell me why.”
At Rose’s question, I flipped the omelet over on itself and gave him my attention while the eggs began to sizzle again in the pan.
