Page 28

I took back any positive thing I ever said about D-types.

SIX

tony

Keeping a straight face was admittedly hard—just as hard as it was not to use more direct methods to get Jaime talking. The pup started scowling the second I told him to talk. If he was actually mine and gave me that silent treatment? He’d be bending over my lap, at the exact angle so that he’d feel my hand on his ass until next week.

Unfortunately—was it unfortunate?—Jaime was not mine to discipline. He was just the puppy I was intrigued by, who had somehow made it to my playroom and was throwing a temper tantrum in his head because he couldn’t come on his own. And because of whatever fumbling thoughts he had around submission. I had to say, I hadn’t expected that last part, even after all the times I’d watched him. Even before he slid out of that pupspace of his enough to beg, it was clear he was holding back. Every time I’d touched him, it had helped, pulled him that tiny bit deeper, but it hadn’t been enough.

The problem was, now that he wasn’t touching me, and he wasn’t talking, and I didn’t have an excuse to slide into a role, I had to take account of my own bodily response. I had to sit with the fact that I was on a bed with a trans masc person. I had to research—or ask—what words he preferred, but it could wait.I moved a hand to my chest. I was surprised my watch wasn’t alerting me to irregular palpitations. It certainly felt like my heart had been beating much faster since Jaime had broken in.

It didn’t worry me. If anything, it was something I wanted to push past—something I needed to push past. The knowledge, however, didn’t make things any more comfortable. It didn’t boost me with that confidence I got when I was just a Dom in the middle of a scene. It was a miracle the pup hadn’t realized yet I was mostly fronting.

Then again, that might be another factor why he wasn’t letting go the way he should—the way I knew he could. There might be little about him that was conventional when he played, but I’d watched enough to say subspace was something he reached often. It was in the way his focus shifted and zeroed in on whatever he was doing, but mostly, it was in the way he looked after a scene was over. After the high was done, he sought out comfort, a solid body, warmth. He was desperate for it at times.

“I might have downplayed my obsession with you earlier.”

“Obsession?” I squinted as I watched him.

I hadn’t expected him to confess anything. I certainly hadn’t expected anything about an obsession. He’d spoken about following my career, but it hadn’t fully registered. I’d been busy with plenty of other things.

Jaime shook his head almost instantly. He squirmed under my watch.

I didn’t have any blanket that was easy to reach, and I wasn’t sure telling him to put his pants back on was what either of us needed.

“Ignore that.” He licked his lips again. It was the most anxious I’d seen him since he’d walked in full of bravado and demands. “But I’m… I’m not the perfect, pretty, obedient sub.”

“I know.” I wasn’t going to ignore anything as he’d asked, either, but I wasn’t going to let him derail the conversation. We’d go back to it sometime. It wasn’t as if I’d stop seeing him after today. There were very few days when I’d been at Plumas and Jaime hadn’t been present. “You’re a brat, and an obnoxious pup.”

“I’m not obnoxious.” He frowned. “I’m a delight.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “Why did you have to state the obvious, Jaime?”

There was no way he could think I didn’t know that basic tidbit of information about him. Even if he wasn’t aware of the way I watched him more times than I was willing to admit—we could argue I was the one with the obsession—the fact that he wasn’t aperfect, pretty, obedient subwas common knowledge. Hell, it was all over his profile, too. Not something sworn to secrecy.

“Because?” Jaime cocked his head to the side. He shifted around until he sat in a more natural position for him. That was, one leg was perched up while the other was bent at a ninety-degree angle. I’d never once seen him sitting down properly. Everyone in his group at the club joked about his bisexual sitting. “I feel off-kilter around you.”

I probably stopped breathing then, all musings about his sitting shoved to the side. “Good or bad off-kilter?”

Had I misread everything because I was the one feeling off-kilter, overwhelmed by having this menace of a pup in my space? Had I lost control that badly I hadn’t seen something so basic?

The thought had my stomach cramping the same way it had when I was a newbie in the scene. Or when I had to defend my thesis. Or when I’d talked in front of the European Parliament for the first time.

It had been years since I’d had to experience those kinds of nerves.

I didn’t appreciate them choosing this particular time to resurface.

“Good. I think.” Jaime bit his lip. “But weird.”

I nodded. “It’s weird for me, too.”

And that was the wildest admission I’d ever given a submissive in my presence.

Jaime just watched me. He had a way of doing it, too. It was intense, but not too overpowering; just enough to know there was something he was working out in his mind.

It was a nice quality, one I respected, but it wasn’t one I’d expected to find in him. It wasn’t one I knew how to respond to while I was doing my best not to overthink.

“But youhavehooked up with men before.”