Page 16 of T is for…

A companionable silence fell.

Then Nathan’s thumb swiped over the skin at the top of her thigh. She’d been ignoring that he was touching her bare leg, the hem of the robe having ridden up to mid-thigh.

Awareness slithered through her, making her skin sensitive and her nipples tight.

“So, we both found the other attractive, but never said anything.” She tried to make the summary sound businesslike.

“Yes,” he agreed. “And I think… I think that was a good thing. I was a shit at twenty. And you were only eighteen.”

She’d graduated high school a year early, starting college at seventeen, while he’d taken a gap year between high school and college.

“You thought I was too young for you?”

“Yea, a bit. I already knew at that point that I had some deviant sexual preferences.” He looked uncomfortable.

“I know.”

His gaze snapped up. “You know? Or you knew?”

Oops. “I mean, I understand your concern. And that’s sweet that you didn’t want to corrupt me.”

It was getting harder and harder to ignore the waves of pleasure caused by the slow arc of his thumb. His touch distracted her to the point she wasn’t as careful with her expression as she should have been.

“Answer me, please. You know, as in you now realize, or you knew, even when we were in college, that I was kinky?”

Tara blew out a breath, annoyed that he’d caught that.

“Tara.” The warning rumble that sneaked into his voice reached right into her, gripped the core of her submission, and demanded obedience.

“I knew,” she whispered. “I saw you, your senior year. I went to your apartment to give you the copy of my notes you’d asked for, and I saw you with a redhead. She was in rope bondage and you put her on her knees and,” Tara paused, trying to be as matter-of-fact as possible. “And you face-fucked her.”

“Shit, I remember that night. How did you get in?”

“You gave me your door code, and your bedroom door was open, just a bit. I didn’t see much, and I left as quick as I could.” She cleared her throat. “I was shocked, so I stood there for several seconds.”

“Shit,” he said again, squeezing her. “I’m sorry you saw that. I didn’t know.” He grimaced. “Had you…were you interested in anything like that?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it. I’d had sex before, of course,” she said. “But as far as BDSM, I knew as much as anyone knows from pop culture.”

She sensed he wanted to keep asking about this, and shifted unhappily on his lap. Nathan took a breath, let it out, and then leaned back, posture much more relaxed now than it had been half a minute ago.

“We both found one another attractive, but for our own reasons never said or did anything about it,” he summarized, echoing her words.

“And that brings us to now. To…this.”

“To this,” he echoed, but he was no longer looking at her face. He stared at her legs as his hand retreated back to her knee. She sighed in disappointment, but wasn’t wholly surprised that their reminiscing had killed the mood for him.

Oddly, it hadn’t for her. There was no awkwardness in sitting on his lap, growing slowly more aroused as he stroked her, while they talked about their past. Objectively, there should have been some level of disconnect, yet the combination of physical action and conversation proved not to be antithetical.

The silence, however, was awkward. And though she normally had no problem sitting in the hush of a long silence, his touch had her feeling just off base enough that she couldn’t.

“To be clear,” she said, trying to sound businesslike, “I’m only proposing that we play the game together.”

“Only. You’re only proposing that we engage in a power exchange and kinky sex.”

“Sex is involved in our letter?”

“Oh yeah.” A muscle in his jaw twitched.

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