Page 56 of Dominate Me

I took a healthy drink from my wine, tasting nothing. “No. Why do you want more? And what does that mean?”

His head tilted. “Are you questioning why I would find you attractive? Why I would enjoy your company and want more of it? You don’t seem to need the confidence boost.”

He wasn’t trying to be hurtful. His eyes were honest and open.

It didn’t stop the sting from the question making me think of Timothy. I spent so much time in my previous marriage, bailing water by handfuls from a slowly sinking ship, that it had made me question so many things about myself.

For the last year, I’d worked hard to be the kind of woman I envisioned myself to be. Independent, dependable, strong, and yes...confident.

“You’re not exactly answering my question,” I responded, keenly aware I was also avoiding his.

“When you met with Dylan at his club, did he tell you much about me, or my history as a Dom?”

“No.” I laughed, but it was nervous and held no hint of amusement. “Should he have?”

Jensen shook his head but his gaze darted to the windows at my right. Something flickered in his gaze and the air went heavy. He stared out the windows, fingertips mindlessly tapping on the tabletop. Every second he stayed silent, every second he pressed his lips together, and every second he took to think increased my already speeding heart.

“Dylan trained me. He was my mentor and I’ve been a member of Luminous since the very beginning. But I wasn’t always as serious, or as hesitant. Did you know that he called me specifically to be your Dom?”

I hadn’t known. I reached for my wine, questions beginning to spiral inside my mind. Before I could ask any of them, he continued.

“I hadn’t been inside Luminous in two years, not since things with my last sub went... well, they ended.”

There was a finality to his statement, one that chilled my veins. I pushed away my half-eaten dinner, uninterested in finishing.

“Ended?” I took a gulp of wine.

“She’s not dead,” Jensen said, his voice gone cold and listless. “But she almost died, and it was my fault.”

My pulse pounded and the chill inside me grew colder. I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “How so?”

“I had grown to care about Courtney. But I missed signs that she wasn’t always, let’s say, the most stable of people. She wanted things I didn’t want to give her, but did anyway because somehow in our years together, I’d convinced myself I loved her. But at some point, it stopped being about our pleasure...it stopped having anything to do with me, as if the whippings and the floggings and the caning became an addiction.”

I tried following what he was saying, but I was lost. Jensen’s gaze had clouded and he was no longer talking to me, more to himself.

“I left the lifestyle two years ago when she tried to kill herself, Haley.”

My name on his lips made me focus. “What?”

He shook his head. I didn’t need him to repeat it. Based on the tightness of his jaw and firm press of his lips, he was unwilling to anyway. “After that, I didn’t think I could handle it or trust myself to know what a sub needed anymore. For two years, I’ve dated and I’ve had women, but I haven’t unleashed the Dom in me. After you met with Dylan, he called me and told me he wanted me to train you.”

“Why?” I had never distrusted Dylan. I had always thought he was open and honest with me. But he’d set me up with a Dom who had such large questions about himself and his own abilities. Had I too easily trusted in someone again?

“Are you saying you don’t want to be my Dom?” My throat had turned scratchy and dry and I took another swig of wine. Had he given me all of this earlier, given me everything I’d so desperately wanted only to rip it away? Tears burned my eyes and fell before I could hide them.

“Shit.” Jensen moved while I wiped away the tears. He hands cupped my cheeks and he pulled me to him, pressed his lips against mine. “No. What I’m saying is, when I was with Courtney, I was solely her Dom, at least in her eyes. Somehow, I’d missed the fact she never had an emotional connection to me. For her it was all about the pain, it wasn’t even about submitting. I hadn’t realized that until the first night you and I spent together at your place. You submit, willingly. Courtney played a role in order to get the pain she needed.”

He pulled back from me, his expression so intense I lost my breath. “I don’t understand.”

“I know, and I’m cocking this up.” He moved back, taking the seat next to mine, and dropped his hands from my cheeks to cover my hand on the table.

“What I’m saying is that when I was just a Dom, I wanted more. I wanted a relationship. And when I was only in a vanilla relationship, there was a large part of me missing. I held myself back, couldn’t be who I truly was...but with you...I have both.”

My head jerked back. “Both?”

He rolled his eyes, a nervous smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. I stared at that smile as it trembled and grew. “I want both with you Haley. That’s what I’m saying. I want what you said last night you didn’t think I could give you, what I had previously told you I wouldn’t give. I want to be your Dom. I want to spank you and plug you and gag you and I want you to obey when I tell you to, but I want the dates and the beers in bars. No training sessions...just you and me.”

“You want me to be your slave?”

“No.” He shook his head, his laugh unable to be contained. “I want you. Only you. I want you in all the ways I need you, and all the ways you want me. We don’t need to define it, do we? You submit when I tell you to, and the other times, we’re like any normal couple.”

It sounded perfect. It sounded like what I had wanted. Yet, it lacked the boundaries that had been part of the pull to researching and seeking out this lifestyle.

Part of that was because of Timothy. I had taken the “to have and to hold” and “to be faithful and to respect” parts of our marriage vows seriously. However, he had never considered the “to protect and cherish” part of his. Our marriage had been one big twisted ball of expectations and hopes and dreams on my part that he could never...or would never...measure up to.

Jensen was sitting across from me, a nervous look growing on his face with every passing moment.

I wanted what he offered. I just didn’t know if I could handle it.

“I don’t know,” I finally said, pulling my hand out from beneath his.

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