Page 10 of Ctrl Me
We got to the part of the drive where he needed two hands again, but I felt the tremor in his arm before he pulled away. “You’ve had a Dom before, right, I mean . . .?”
And now there was fear inhisvoice. Understandable. He’d made the basic assumption, which given our flirting and IM conversation, made complete sense.
“I’m notthatgreen. I had a master for about a year. Broke it off several months before I came here.” And ran away from that mess.
He let out a breath. “Good.” A heartbeat later, he asked, “What happened?”
We were close to my apartment. “Wanna pause this and come up? I could make dinner.” Maybe we could have a real conversation about this rather than a broken one in the car.
“That’s probably smart.” He found a spot on the street near the building and parked. We got out and he locked the car.
I took two steps, then halted. I couldn’t stop thinking about the coil in the glove box, the spool in the trunk, and what I’d said I’d do. “Gabe?” My voice sounded strange in my ears, kind of floaty and lost.
He placed his hand on my shoulder and turned me toward him. “Yeah?” Concern in his eyes. Curiosity too.
“Do you want to bring some rope up?”
Man, that smile. I would never get enough of that. He caressed my cheek. “Wait here.”
I didn’t move.
He popped the trunk and took out a small duffle bag. After locking the car, he was back at my side. “Let’s go.”
“Not the spool?”
He laughed. “Needs to be measured and cut to the proper length, then coiled.” He hefted the bag onto his shoulder. “And that’s going to take you hours to do.”
Oh. He nudged me in the direction of my apartment building. Odd to lead Gabe after that, but what else could I do? I let him in the small brick building, and we walked up the three flights to the top apartment.
He sat his bag down in the living room and looked around. “This is nice.”
It was. A kind of loft deal. Big open living room and kitchen with lots of windows and light. A reasonably sized bedroom with a master bath in the back. “Yeah. I was really lucky to find it.” And the rent? Holy shit. No wonder people were moving from San Francisco to here. Dirt fucking cheap. In a year or two, I’d have enough saved up to buy a house.
Gabe walked around the living room as if drinking everything in and inspecting the furniture. The table. The chair legs. It took me a moment, then my mouth went dry. Gabe was looking for anchor points, studying the height, and gauging the strength of the pieces. He paused by the dining set, which had a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it. Simple lines. Solid and sturdy. Chairs with narrow, straight slatted backs and elegant arms.
I sucked in a breath and put down my keys. “I’ll get dinner started.”
He nodded. “May I?” He pointed back toward the bedroom.
“Sure.” It came out as a whisper. I had no secrets. I didn’t want to keep secrets from Gabe.
Rather than head to the bedroom, he came straight to me, slid his fingers into my hair, and kissed me. My ass hit the edge of the kitchen counter, and I groaned when the bulge in his jeans pressed against mine. He freed my hair from its elastic, then broke the kiss. “Hair down from now on.”
That was most definitely an order. But— “While cooking?”
Except for a few locks around my face, all of my hair fell about one-third down my back. He ran his fingers through the length of it and brushed it behind my shoulders. I shivered when his fingers skimmed against my neck.
“Well, you can put it back up, if you’d like.”
I shivered again, because the tone of his words said,You could disobey me, if you’d like.
He chuckled.
“We haven’t—” My voice broke. Everything had been grand up until this minute. But negotiating a Dom/sub relationship? Done that before. Didn’t work out well the last time. Agreements on limits, I discovered, hadn’t meant much to Dominik. I didn’t want Gabe to be the same.
I tried again. “We haven’t discussed punishment.”
The amusement vanished in an instant, and he nodded. “You’re right, and we should.” He stepped back and handed the elastic to me. “I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s just that—” His voice held the trace of a quaver. “I really want this, Tom.”
