But this was natural.
This was usual.
This feeling-out of each other, Dom and sub.
Not details of what to expect, that’d take the fun out of it.
But a sharing of practices, what was in, what was out, what was to be avoided, what could be explored, and cementing an understanding of hard limits was essential before anything more involved came about.
That said, I was finding it hard to follow along when he was talking about taking advantage of hotspots and collaring me.
“What do you consider the deep end of the scene?” I asked.
He came out of a cupboard with plates, set them down, and started opening and closing drawers.
“Role play. Cos play. There’s gonna be bondage and there’s gonna be spanking, you earn it. But no whips or shit like that. I’m not into inflicting pain. Toys’ll be mutually agreed, until you get what I like, I get what you like, and then there might be some surprises.”
He set silverware on the plates and looked directly at me.
“Mostly, Kathryn, I tell you what to do, and you do it, or I tie you up and play with you until I’m ready to let you come. If you need deeper than that, I like you. I want you. I still wanna see where this could go. But I can tell you now, that’s not gonna get me off. So you’re gonna have to think hard on that, sweetheart.”
“I…” I swallowed, “don’t need deeper than that.”
He leaned into his hands on my counter and said gently, “You know not to hold that shit back, yeah?”
I nodded.
“I just need to let go, Boone. It isn’t for me to say what you do, as you know, but I don’t like pain or humiliation, and I’ve only ever been whipped once, by Bad Dom, and I’d shared that was a hard limit.”
“Kovack,” he grunted, no longer appearing matter-of-fact in order to sort through stuff that for people not like us, they’d probably think it was crazy, and smutty.
But for people like us, it was crucial.
“I’ve told a lot of friends I know in the life about him. I don’t know if he’s finding play partners, but he has a reputation and you know we look out for our own.”
“That doesn’t cut it because he’s finding play partners, and they might not be in the life, so he might be finding some vanilla chick who has no idea what’s about to hit her, and that means he really needs a lesson in precisely why that’s not okay. And it was seriously not fuckin’ okay when he did it to you.”
I couldn’t argue that, so I didn’t.
Boone noted I wasn’t going to, therefore he asked, “We gonna eat?”
I nodded.
His expression changed again, becoming searching and…
God.
Sweet.
“We gonna do this?” he asked gently.
“We don’t seem to get along very well,” I remarked nervously.
“We haven’t tried very hard,” he pointed out.
When I said nothing, Boone asked a question.
“You scared?”
Terrified.
“When you’re not being bossy, invasive and sticking your nose into things that aren’t your business, you seem pretty awesome.”
He smiled a small smile I felt in my clit and corrected me.
“Things that weren’t yet my business but were gonna be.”
“Mm,” I mumbled.
“Ryn, let me in,” he urged.
I looked down at the happy birthday cookie in its plastic container.
It had big globs of bright frosting balloons and a thick piping of border, that same thick piping spelling out the words, and all the frosting was festooned with candy confetti.
“Ryn, eyes to me.”
I lifted my gaze to him.
“I am not your dad and I am not your brother. And I’m not those guys who treated you like shit. I’m definitely not that Dom who betrayed your trust. But I’m also not perfect and I got my ghosts. I can’t tell the future, but I can promise you right here, a sacred pact over a big cookie, that I will do everything in my power not to hurt you. It won’t come unintentional. It won’t come neglectful. We will communicate and we will keep on each other’s pulse. I don’t think it’s smart to talk about the end before we’ve even begun, but I’m sensing you need this. So I’ll give it to you. If we fail, baby, it’ll just be the way it’s supposed to be even if there’s pain. It’ll just be I’m not for you, or you’re not for me. But that won’t come as a surprise either. Are you feeling me?”
“A sacred pact over a big cookie is a big deal, Boone,” I joked, but it lost some of its chutzpah with the way the words shook.
But Boone wasn’t feeling like making fun.
I knew this when he said firmly, “Yeah, Ryn, it is.”
Okay, he was serious about this.
And okay, I was seriously attracted to him and even not knowing him well, I knew I seriously liked him.