Treasured (Masters and Mercenaries #22.5) - Lexi Blake Page 0,37
fall apart because it often didn’t matter that a couple liked the same things. It was in how they lived, what they valued underneath the basics. Two very good people could simply not make it work because their core needs didn’t mesh. He could meet all her sexual needs, but if he couldn’t fulfill her core emotional ones, then it wouldn’t work.
But he rather thought he could if she let him try.
“Well, I stand ready to help you if you need some stress relief.”
An exasperated huff came from her lips. “I thought you would be weirder about this.”
“You thought you could either shock me and then I would prove I’m the uptight academic you think I am, or I would jump on you without another thought and then the sex would be bad. Either way, you could safely forget about me. How about we go into this with open minds? You tell me how you want to play it going onto the island and we’ll take it from there. If you want to keep your options open, I’ll still promise to sleep on the couch if you want to stay in my room. If you want your own, then I’ll make sure to leave my door unlocked.”
Her eyes narrowed in pure challenge. “Don’t bother. If I want to get in, I’ll get in.”
He liked the sound of that, but he had to hope she wouldn’t shrink away again. “I’ll make it easy on you.”
“I don’t think any of this is going to be easy on me,” she replied.
“It’s only as hard as you want it to be. You get to make the choices. You’re in control.”
“Until I give it to you.” There was anticipation in the words.
“Even then.” He needed to make it plain to her that he knew the rules of D/s and he followed them. “It’s an illusion that you’re giving up control. What you’re giving yourself is really permission. Permission to enjoy your body, to let go for a while because you trust your partner.”
“Can I trust my partner?”
“Yes. You can trust me to take care of you in bed.”
“And you can trust me to take care of you out of it.” She turned and looked out over the sea. “All right, Professor. I’ll think about it. I don’t know about this whole go-with-the-flow thing, but I still think we’ll both be more focused if we get this out of the way.”
She was making excuses, rationalizing something that wasn’t rational. But she needed that wall between them.
For now. “I’ll wait for you tonight. I’ll wait for you all the nights we’re here. But I’ll make it clear to Eddie that you’re working.”
“I should have called you,” she said quietly.
He wanted to touch her, but she wasn’t ready. “I wish you had.”
She looked back at him, her lips quirking up. “We could have already thrown down, and this wouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
He sighed and leaned on the railing, the smell of the sea surrounding them. “You’re a brat.”
She leaned against him. “Yeah, probably.”
When he put an arm around her, she didn’t protest, and he was perfectly satisfied to stay that way the rest of the trip.
Chapter Five
Tessa didn’t mind the heat of the day as she walked alongside David. It was way easier to deal with a little sweat than the heat that had flashed through her the minute she’d realized David Hawthorne was kind of a freak.
What if it’s not just sex, baby? What if it’s something more?
Her whole body had gone gooey when he’d leaned in and whispered those words in her ear.
She was not the girl who went gooey, damn it. She wasn’t a girl at all. She was a grown-ass woman who didn’t melt at the thought of having a man’s hands on her.
She wasn’t the woman who sighed and rested against him and let the waves rock them as they approached the ridiculously romantic island she hadn’t expected to visit today. Nor had she thought she would be walking down a dirt road toward a magnificent house in the middle of the jungle. She stopped as she got her first glance at the big house they would be staying at. “Wow.”
David stopped beside her, and she could practically feel his satisfaction at her awe. “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Montez designed it himself. He wanted it to seem like the whole place had risen from the jungle. Like a wave coming off it.”
It was a glorious structure made of wood and glass intertwined