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“Never,” I tell her. “I’m guessing, though.”

Her eyes linger on mine for a second before she turns back to the shelf. “No. Not my thing. Not that I’d even know what my thing is…”

“You know,” I say. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Downplay what you want.” I step closer, my words only meant for her. “You have fantasies. You’ve touched yourself for years. You know what turns you on.”

Her breath catches. “Yes.”

“You know there are things you like and things you don’t. And you know what you’d like to try.” I lean against the edge of one of the shelves. The blood is rushing south, but I won’t let it distract me. “Don’t downplay that. Not with me, not with any guy.”

She wets her lower lip, and the entire world narrows to that single movement. “Tell me where I should begin in here.”

I raise an eyebrow. “We could ask the attend?—”

“No,” she says quickly. “You.”

Me.

I take a step closer and hold out my hand. She doesn’t hesitate before she slips hers into mine. Warmth and triumph, one and the same, zing through me at the touch. “Come.”

We walk down an aisle of cheap polyester costumes. Nurses and devils and maids and angels. I turn to the right, and we walk by a row of crops, paddles and handcuffs. “Oh my god,” Nora breathes. “Look at that.”

I pause, her hand still in mine. “Yeah. For people who like the pain.”

“I’ve read about it. The whole BDSM thing. Doms… and subs,” she says.

“Yes,” I mutter. There’s one of them among my own friends, and discovering that about him had been more intimate than I ever thought we’d get. “There’s one thing it gets right, though.”

“Um, BDSM?”

“Yes.” We walk down the aisle and turn past a number of plugs and toys until we get to the vibrators. “It’s about trust. And sex shouldalwaysbe about trust.”

“I don’t think everyone feels like that.”

“Then they’re doing it wrong.” My voice comes out harsher than I intend. The idea of Nora people-pleasing in bed makes something inside me turn hard with fury. Not at her. Neverather. At the men who might not have listened.

It makes me hate my own gender. The idea of men on a date, seeing her beauty, seeing her kindness and her smiles, and thinking only of their own gratification.

“West,” she says. She’s looking at me with furrowed brows. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Is that how you do it, then? Sex?” Her cheeks flush. “It’s all trust-based?”

“Yes.”It would be with you,I think.Earning your trust and getting to touch you would be a fucking privilege.

Instead, I reach out and grab one of the small pocket vibrators in a purple box. “You love pleasing others. But good sex is about pleasing yourself, too.”

“That one is small.”

“That’s the point.”

She turns it over and looks at the description. “Oh. It has vibrations.”

“Mhm.” I look over at the selection. “There are better ones, I think.”