Oh, good Lord, something did happen. Something way beyond jet lag. I tighten my arms around his neck. “Please, let’s go back to the hotel.”
“Okay. I’m sorry about this, little girl,” he says as he steps back from the door and lowers me to my feet.
I stretch up and kiss his jaw before letting him go. “I’m not.”
Outside, we find the taxi stand and as he’s loading my luggage into the trunk, I tell him I’ve read that Uber plans to have flying taxis in Los Angeles within the next few years, which is the only amusing thing I can think of at the moment. His eyes lighten a little and when we get in, after he buckles my seat belt and gives the driver our destination, he puts his arm around me and lets me hug him. I don’t say anything more. If he wants to talk, he will. In the meanwhile, I give him the quiet comfort of my body. He stares out the window at the passing palm trees for a few minutes, occasionally turning his head and kissing my hair. I can feel the tension in him slowly releasing.
Finally, he murmurs into my hair, “I’m really glad you’re here, Emmy.”
“I’m glad to be here,” I respond softly, twisting a little so I can look up at him.
“I interviewed Bill Black’s widow this morning.”
I knew that already. I give him a moment to see what else he’ll say, and when he doesn’t continue, I ask, “Did it go badly?”
“No, she was forthcoming. Too forthcoming.” He shifts and I can tell he’s uncomfortable with what he’s about to say. “Interviewing widows bites. It’s the worst part of my job. Their loss makes every word a punch in the gut. I feel like I’ve gone twelve rounds with a heavyweight.”
I rub his chest, warm and firm under his black T-shirt. “I can understand that.”
“I have no idea why I should care. They’re strangers. I don’t even know the person they’ve lost. But it gets me, every time. Fuck, I don’t know if I should even say this.”
I tuck my face into his neck so he doesn’t have to look in my eyes while he admits something painful. “You can tell me anything.”
“I know I can. I’m not afraid of you judging. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
Why would his sensitivity to a stranger’s loss hurt me? “I promise I won’t take it the wrong way.”
“It makes me hot,” he whispers against my temple. “It makes me insane to discipline them. I want to beat all that grief out of them. Fuck them until they smile through their tears. I know how wrong that is, but that’s what I want. Wanting it, and not being able to do it, guts me. It’s like I’ve got a giant fishhook right here.” He slaps his hand over his flat belly. “And it keeps twisting.”
I stroke his chest, his abdomen, smoothing my hand over and over the planes of his body, so he can feel my acceptance. “Please take it out on me, Sir.”
He cups my head and presses his lips hard to my forehead. “Thank you, baby doll.”
* * *
He doesn’t take it out on me. Not at first.
Once we put my luggage in the bedroom and he shows me around, he draws me to the swanky suite’s big, semi-circular couch. He cuddles me in his lap, then lies down with me, sinks into me, pets me and kisses me, while he tells me what Mrs. Black said to him. How she kept using kink as a weapon to make him share her pain. And he had to just sit there and take it in order to do his job, while every Dom instinct screamed at him to punish her and let the physical pain relieve her emotional agony.
I know so well how crazymaking it is to have those internal voices screaming at you. I almost tell Logan about my internal voice, but this isn’t the time. I don’t want to make this about me. Instead, I return his kisses and caresses, rub his back and try to say the right things.
I feel it when his mood shifts. When he’s no longer just kissing me but claiming my mouth. When he’s no longer just caressing me but working his hands under my clothes to rub and squeeze and pinch. My body shifts with him, muscles softening, nipples hardening. Ribbons of heat and need run from breasts to belly to clit. The sex during our first date was so, so, so good. I’ve barely thought of anything else for three days and I can’t wait for more.
But something about this feels off.
He works my shirt over my breasts, under my arms, but he doesn’t take it off. He pulls my shorts and panties down, but he doesn’t touch where I want him the most, that furiously burning place between my thighs. When I try to unbutton his jeans, he pushes my hands away. What does he want? I’m not sure, and he’s not giving me any direction. Not at all like our first date, when he commanded me so precisely, controlled my every breath. I loved that and I want more, but he doesn’t seem to want to give it to me.
Uncertain, I watch him anxiously.
“Close your eyes. Don’t look at me,” he rasps.
Finally given an order, I obey. But I don’t like it. I don’t like that rasp, which is one tone away from his disappointed tone, even though I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. The wrongness is inside him, and I don’t know him well enough to know what
