“I can see how that would be hard for you.” He studied her. “Taking a disciplinarian role wouldn’t come naturally to you. Being in charge is what I need. While we’re together, keeping you safe and healthy is my job. I take that very seriously.”
While they were together?
She felt ill at the thought that he didn’t think this would last.
How would she ever lose him again? She was already falling fast and hard. Hell, she’d never really fallen out of love with him. Sylvie thought she was crazy. That her feelings for him couldn’t be real. That she’d made him into something in her head that wasn’t real. In part, she was right. In her head, he’d been someone else. But he was also so much more than she’d imagined.
There were no promises. All she could do was hope. Hope that he might find that love for her that he’d once had. Although part of her worried he never would. Not when he didn’t know everything.
But maybe he was right and it was for the best the past stayed there.
He ran his thumb along her lower lip. “Hey, look at me. If you can’t do this, we can think of other consequences. It’s important that you don’t fear me. I would never do anything to hurt you or scare you, you believe that right?”
“I know you wouldn’t.” If anything, he was too protective, her dragon.
“You followed my lead in the past. Maybe not to this extent and I know we’re both different. I’m more dominant, more take-charge.” He tilted his head, studying her. “And I almost think you’re more in need of guidance than you were before.”
He wasn’t wrong. She felt lost. Adrift. She had since Sylvie and Brad left.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He glanced down at her plate. “While I feed you this, you think about whether or not you want to accept my consequences.”
Wow. Generous of him to give her a minute or two to think. But was there much to think about? He was the only person she’d ever truly trusted, but she’d been taught over and over that people were assholes.
Not Jed.
Still, she wasn’t sure about all this. She didn’t know this Jed well.
“Baby, in order to eat you need to open your mouth.”
She opened her mouth slowly and he slipped the piece inside.
“And now you chew.”
She chewed obediently.
“It was too soon, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she breathed out, glad he understood.
The skin around his eyes crinkled and she felt the tension in her drain away. “Yeah. I get that. You don’t know me well and I’m comin’ on strong.”
That was it exactly.
She nodded her head.
“So, we’ll defer punishment.”
What did that mean? As she opened her mouth to ask, he fed her another forkful of steak.
“You misbehave, earn yourself punishment, then I’ll keep a tally. When you’re ready to submit to my discipline then we’ll deal with it. Might be one hell of a spanking, though. Unless you got a real problem with being spanked.”
She thought that over for a moment. Her over his lap, her butt bare, feeling his hand crack down on the spare skin. She’d edited a few books with spanking scenes and they never failed to turn her on. Her heart raced with nerves and excited and shockingly she felt her clit throb. She pressed her thighs together. That just made it ache even more.
He grinned. “You ain’t got a problem with being spanked.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Part of my job is being observant.” He tapped her nose. “You might want to remember that next time you try to lie to me.”