Page 16 of Burden of Proof

He smiled at me, and heat rushed through my veins like molten lava, melting me down into a pile of nothing.

“We can try it again,” he murmured, reaching for me, crooking his fingers until I stepped close enough for him to touch.

I walked into his arms, groaning at how warm his body was, how sturdy, how tall. Ethan was gorgeous by anyone’s standards, at least six foot tall, somewhere around two hundred pounds if you counted the muscle. He had brown hair that fell in soft waves around his face, almost reaching his shoulders but not quite, and penetrating eyes that looked like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to be rum or whiskey.

He smoothed his hands down the outsides of my arms. His fingers were so fucking soft and delicate, long bones and slender digits, and fuck this man was gorgeous. If I looked as good as him, I’d ask to get paid too.

“I want to know your limits, Jay. Your wants…but first, can we get the logistics out of the way?”

His breath was hot against the shell of my ear, and I lost myself for a second until embarrassment flooded my cheeks.

“Right.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out four hundred-dollar bills. He didn’t check them and he didn’t count, he simply smiled at me and slid them into the pocket of his obscenely low slung sweatpants.

“Let’s go into the bedroom and talk, Jay. How does that sound?”

It sounded perfect, even as I tried to ignore the way it was another man giving me a command. My body responded with all the interest I hoped it wouldn’t, but I nodded my approval and trailed after him down a short hallway and into a sprawling bedroom. The whole apartment was amazingly decorated, witha black leather couch, dark jewel tone pillows, and a noticeable amount of plants on shelves and hooks around the living room.

The bedroom was far more plain, and I knew without asking it had to be a guest room or a secondary. The bed was low to the floor with a minimal headboard but dark and comfortable-looking bedding. Throw pillows against the wall matched the ones in the living room, and to either side of the bed were matching nightstands with matching lamps. They were both on, the amber glow from the bulbs the only light in the room besides the sparkling brightness of the city that reflected in through the windows.

“I get the impression you’d prefer it dark,” he murmured, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He patted the space beside him, and I sat down with anoomph.

“Dark is good.”

He nodded. “Tell me your hard and fast limits, Jay.”

My lashes fluttered, and I licked my lips, pulling them between my teeth and biting down hard enough that it hurt. I needed the spark of pain to ground me in the moment, in the quest of what I was after.

I realized, in hindsight maybe, that submission wasn’t about pain. It was something I’d known all along, but when I ran through the checklist in my head of limits, I found I wasn’t entirely sure if the impact parts of play were what I was truly after. I was certain I wouldn’t hate it, and I didn’t want to waste my money on something as simple as kneeling, but…

No.

It wasn’t simple at all, was it?

“You with me?” Ethan asked, gently setting his hand on my thigh. “Is this okay? Did you want to change your mind?”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “This is fine. The question was loaded. That’s all.”

“Loaded how?” he asked.

“Respectfully, I’m not trying to use my hour as a therapy session.”

He huffed out a laugh, then drummed his fingers against the top of my leg. “Limits, then.”

“Just spanking. I don’t want any other impact play,” I told him and he nodded along. “No blindfolds or gags, no real bondage?—”

“What’s real?”

“Not intense,” I corrected.

“That’s subjective,” he said.

“Let’s just go with no bondage,” I said, and he nodded again, not looking miffed in the slightest that I was wishy-washy as a sponge covered in dish soap.

“That’s fine and doable,” Ethan said, giving my leg a squeeze before standing up. He turned to face me and, on instinct, I leaned back to stare up at him. With me on my ass, he towered over me, looking as casually dominant as ever.

I wondered briefly if this was how Silas felt with Marshall.

“That’s not what you really want, though, is it?” He cocked his head to the side, and his hair finally brushed across his bare shoulder. “You really just want to submit, don’t you?”