Cowboy Casanova (Rough Riders #12)(184)

as a Dom. So for him to walk away for good? I know he’s even more committed to making

this work with you.”


That brought tears to her eyes again. “Damn him. I didn’t want this.”


“Didn’t want what?”


Didn’t want to fall for him.


“Ainsley, do you love him?”


Yes. “What if my feelings are from the sex that rocks my world? What if I’ve latched

onto the convenience of being with Ben because he lives here? What if I’ve confused

submission with love?”


“What if it is love and you’re making all these lame excuses because you don’t

believe you can fall in love in a month?” Layla countered.


“That’s not it.”


“Then are you worried Bennett will expect you to become a lifestyle sub like me if you

’re outside the club?”


She remembered exchanging harsh words about that very thing the last night they’d seen

each other. “No. I know that’s not what he wants. But hearing that he’s leaving the

club—”makes me hopeful that maybe we have a chance, “—makes me wonder if he feels

pressured to do it.”


“Bennett is a force all his own. He doesn’t do a damn thing he doesn’t want to. He

is willingly walking away from the club because he wants you, A, for the long haul. He

found something more meaningful than he was getting with random hookups at the club. He

found it with you.” She shook her finger at Ainsley. “But don’t for a second think

he’ll become some pussified girly man because he’s no longer wielding a whip at the

Rawhide. Bennett is a Dom through and through. That part of him won’t change. Ever. He

’ll still want a sexual Dom/sub relationship with you, and not temporarily this time.

”


“I don’t want that part of him to change.”


“Good.” A long sigh echoed. “I know you, Ainsley. Don’t talk yourself out of what

could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you because you’re scared.”


“I am scared. Aren’t you the one who warned me not to fall for Bennett because he

wasn’t a long-term guy? You told me I’d be an idiot for taking up with the first Dom

I met.”


Layla leveled her with an uncompromising stare. “I was wrong. I can admit it. Can you?

” She stood. “Don’t be an idiot. Accept him as he is. Accept yourself for what you

are to him. Accept what you two can have together.”


Ainsley watched Layla flounce out of her office. Her friend’s words swirling around in

her head.


Accept him as he is.


Accept yourself for what you are to him.


Bennett made no apologies about who he was. He’d given her all of himself while

helping her get in tune with a side of herself she hadn’t acknowledged. He’d

respected her boundaries, even while pushing them at every opportunity.


And now she wanted to bring those boundaries back in because she was scared? She wanted

to use what he was—unapologetically sexually dominant—against him because she was

freaked out about what she’d discovered about herself?


Why couldn’t she just accept that she admired the sexual woman she’d become because