fix up this house. Fuck, Elle.” He pushed me a step back and stood. “I can’t give you anything. But I can give you this.”
I looked at him, horrified. “I don’t want you to do anything because of—”
“It’s not just that.” He rested his hands on his hips and stared at the floor. “It’s also because it turns me the fuck on to see you in your sexual element. It makes me feel this raw need to hold you down and fuck a dozen orgasms out of you. And thinking about watching another man have you—it shouldn’t turn me on but it does. Fuck, it does. I hate it but now it’s in my head and I don’t know what to do with it.”
I wanted to believe what he was saying. I wanted to embrace my feelings with the belief that we were turned on by the same things, but everything he just said terrified me.
Was this what he wanted? Or was he just trying to—in one aspect of our lives—give me what he felt I deserved?
I reached for him and slid my hands up the pinstripes on his dress shirt, then gripped it at his collar. “I don’t know that you’d feel that way if it actually happened. I don’t know if I would feel the same way. It’s too risky. We can’t undo something like that. You won’t be able to erase the image of me with another man. You told me that you’d kill another man who touched me. That the thought made you crazy, even though it turned you on. What’s changed since then?”
It was a vomit of every fear I had. I spewed it all out, and then desperately wanted to take it back.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It still makes my blood boil, but it’s like that anger, that masculine fury—like it makes the thought even hotter. The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“What if you’re wrong and it taints everything?”
His eyebrows knitted in thought. “So it’s not the act that you’re afraid of. It’s the consequences?”
I paused, considering the question. “I guess. Though—that club—that wasn’t about consequences. The idea of that freaked me out. I…” I swallowed, trying to find the right words for the emotions that had churned on our car ride home. “I didn’t feel like I would be in control in there. And I don’t mean that I want to be dominant—I just need to know that we only do things that I feel comfortable with. I want to feel safe. Cherished. Worshipped.” I blushed at the bare confession. “And there, I wouldn’t feel any of that. I don’t care what was inside that door. It freaked me out.”
I saw the moment he got it, his face falling with understanding and regret. He waited for me to finish, then cradled me into his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re right. Completely. I feel like a fucking idiot.”
“Don’t, I—”
He shushed me. “Elle. I was an idiot. But I also needed to know everything you just told me. I can’t read your mind.”
I nodded against his chest. “Okay.” I gave him a squeeze, then stepped back and turned. “Get my zipper?”
He gathered my hair to one side and carefully tugged on the zipper. “What if we start with something small?”
I waited as he dragged it down.
“Someone watching, but with just you and I together. And during it—if you want more, then you can instigate that.” His knuckles brushed against my shoulder blades as he unclipped my bra. “But it will be the Elle show. Everything focused on your pleasure, and somewhere you feel safe.” His hands slid around to the front and cupped my breasts under the loose bra.
I smiled and rotated to face him, peeling off the shirt. “If you want to cop a feel, you can just ask.”
“I’m asking.” There was still a wariness in his eyes and I grabbed his hands and placed them on my breasts in an attempt to chase the hesitancy away.
Raising on my toes, I put my mouth at his ear. “I think I like that idea.”
“Yeah?” His hands tightened, his thumbs brushing tenderly over my nipples. “Because that turns me the fuck on.” He leaned down and kissed my neck. “You need these panties anymore?”
I reached down before he had the chance to rip them off and skimmed them off. “Better?”
“Better. Touch me.”
I undid his belt and his jeans and let