Cherished (Masters and Mercenaries #7.5)(20)

She did actually. She wanted to cuddle against him. “I don’t know. You don’t seem like the type who likes to snuggle.”

He thought about that for a moment. “I need affection as much as the next person. And honestly I could say the same of you. You have a hard wall around you. You don’t seem like the type of woman who gives affection at all. I suppose I wanted to see if I was wrong.”

“I’m affectionate.” She was with her friends. She wasn’t the type of woman who randomly hugged a stranger. That was more Serena and her friend Avery’s specialty. They would find a strange woman crying in the bathroom and suddenly they were her besties while Bridget felt uncomfortable and kind of wanted to leave. When she was upset, she wanted privacy and it seemed best to give others the same.

“You shook hands with Mitch after he flogged you,” Will pointed out.

Yes, that had been the slightest bit awkward. “I guess I didn’t know protocol for thanking a Dom.”

“It depends on the Dom. I would want more than a handshake. I would want you to kiss me. Now I want you to sit on my lap.”

Damn it. She was going to do it even if she felt like an idiot. She’d pretty much told this man she would have sex with him. Not pretty much. Had. How was she going to sleep with the man if she didn’t touch him? “I’m a little heavy.”

His voice was suddenly hard as granite. “Don’t even start that shit with me. I don’t want to hear what you don’t like about yourself. Either get in my lap or we can call it a night and start over again tomorrow.”

“Your way or the highway, huh?” That rankled a bit.

“No. If you aren’t ready for affection, then I need to say goodnight and go take a cold shower. I’m uncomfortable. If you were uncomfortable in a physical fashion, I would want to take care of you or make it so you could take care of yourself.” He stood up and she saw his problem. He had a very large bulge in his jeans.

Really large.

Like epic.

“Wow.”

He shrugged. “Yes, it’s getting to be obnoxious. I’ll see you tomorrow. Perhaps we could have coffee? I have to attend a seminar all afternoon, but my morning is free.”

What was she doing? She scrambled to get to her feet as well, feeling weird and awkward but suddenly pretty damn certain she would be making a mistake if she let him show her the door.

He was giving her an out, but she didn’t want to take it. She wanted…damn it, she wanted him and she wanted to know what it felt like to really want a man for the first time in her life.

“I had sex because I thought it would get me love. I did it because it was expected in a relationship. I did it because I thought it made me normal and then I turned right around and wrote about the things I wanted in books.”

“Did you tell your partners what you wanted?” Will asked.

She laughed at the thought. “Do you know how hard that is? It’s one thing to write about it. Hell, I haven’t written much D/s anyway. I wrote ménage and I wrote about men who seemed to almost magically get what their partners wanted because that was my fantasy.”

“I can’t read your mind. No man can. I know it seems like we’re idiots, but we don’t communicate the same way. We don’t react the same way. Even the best meaning man can seem like an insensitive clod if he doesn’t understand what you want.”

She’d known her share of clods. “It’s hard to talk about it.”

“It’s easier when you’re comfortable with the man. When you’re comfortable with me, you’ll talk.”

She shook her head. “But I won’t let myself get comfortable with you. Not unless I take the plunge. Can I sit on that thing or will it hurt you?”

“That thing is my penis. It doesn’t like being called ‘that thing.’” He was awfully cute when offended.

“Does he have a name he does like?” She could come up with a few. Big Boy. Will’s Willy. Wonder Willy. Really, she was showing restraint by just grinning inanely.

He sank back into his chair and gave her a shake of his head. “No. I was never one to name my body parts, and go easy on me, but yes, I would love for you to sit here with me.”

She’d never sat in a man’s lap. She’d had sex, but never simply sat and talked, and suddenly that seemed like a bad thing. Benjy hadn’t been big on talking. He’d been big on hopping on top of her, getting off, and then rolling over to go to sleep. When she’d complained, he’d told her she was reading too much of her own work and she shouldn’t have such high expectations of a man.

She eased herself onto Will’s lap, allowing him to draw her down. Her whole body reacted to the fact that there was a hard cock right under her butt. It was right there and she couldn’t help but wiggle to get comfortable.

Will tensed. “Don’t.”

She stilled in his arms. “I’m sorry. Did that hurt?”

His lips curled up. “It felt far too good, sweetheart, and I really don’t want to come in my jeans. Now that I have you here, I have the slightest hope that I might get you into bed, so I’m saving it up.”

She wasn’t sure why, but that practically made her glow. “You’re sure of yourself.”

“Nope. That’s why I said slightest,” Will admitted. “I’m hopeful. Now tell me what you want out of sex. What didn’t work with your previous lovers? You said you’ve never been in a D/s relationship. Did you try at all? Being submissive I mean?”