17. Henley
HENLEY
Did he know how distracting he was or was it an accident?
How could washing his pits be sexy?
“I prefer to think of it as being focused.” The smirk on his face said he was thoroughly enjoying himself, but since I liked that better than how overwhelmed he’d been, I sighed to make him do it again. “And lately I’ve been very focused on getting to know my mate.”
Yeah, by being a pain in the ass.
“You can’t turn me inside out like you did the trailer.” Everything. We’d spent an entire day going through every object in the trailer so he could see it, scent it, and growl until I explained what it did. “That’s not how relationships work.”
Wait.
“This is a relationship, right?” I was hoping I’d read the situation correctly. “Mates are supposed to be magic relationships, but I met one couple who were both asexual and they were confusing.”
Was my thankfully anatomically correct Ken doll regular sexual?
What was the word for that?
Cis-sexual?
No, that didn’t sound right.
Whatever the opposite of asexual was…that was what I was hoping he’d be.
He’d already said the gay part, so I wasn’t worried about that.
“I’m not sure what that word means.” Cocking his head, he turned and gave me a full frontal shot as he slowly dragged the bar of soap down his chest. “You haven’t used it before.”
Oh.
“Um, I’m probably going to mangle the definition because I haven’t run into it very often in person, but I think it’s not feeling sexual desire…or at least not feeling it the same way other people do.” Had I gotten that wrong? “We need to look that up later so I know if that was offensive or not.”
Blaine nodded as the soap moved lower and lower.
“I’m confused about this, not trying to upset you, so keep that in mind.
But. You seem very worried about how you explain things.
I know part of it is related to the current culture as that podcast woman called it, but it feels like there’s more to it than that. ”
Yep.
Anatomically correct and fully functional.
Wait.
What had he asked?
“Um…oh yeah…not offending people.” How big would he get?
It wasn’t rude to watch him now because he’d given me permission with verbal words and he was in a human body.
Human-looking at the very least. “My family is…well, they’re kind of rude, so growing up I didn’t always know what was polite and what was offensive. ”
It still gave me a stomachache to think about.
“I figured some of it out eventually but I’m kind of a work in progress still.
Stuff pops up and I don’t realize how it sounds.
” Some people got angry but that was okay because I apologized and most of the time no one got hurt.
Them or me. “I’m doing my best but people don’t always understand that. ”
Humans.
Humans didn’t always understand that.
“Your people are usually pretty nice about it and they’re the only ones who’ll answer questions without yelling at me or threatening me.
” A date just lost all its fun when I had to play my gun is bigger than your knife because I’d accidentally offended someone.
“So we’ll have to do some research once in a while. ”
“That’s understandable.” He also seemed to understand how to clean his cock as slow as possible, gently washing around the pronounced head and running his thumb over his slit. “You mentioned growing up fairly isolated so that makes things more difficult sometimes.”
“I’m smart.” My family was just nuts. “I like research too.”
I really liked hands-on research.
Was that as big as he would get?
Could a dick be half-shower and half-grower?
When could I ask my mate if he knew what kind of position he’d like?
Would I have to explain what being vers meant?
Blaine nodded as he reached between his legs and soaped his balls, ones that were a nice handful and looked like they didn’t have too much hair around them. “You did a good job figuring out places to look online about my situation.”
Had he manscaped before or was this how he usually looked?
When he frowned, I thought something was wrong and told myself not to overreact. “I used that word correctly, right?”
Oh.
“Online?” When he nodded and seemed to give his balls a tug, I had to swallow hard to keep myself from drooling or moaning. “Yes. You used it correctly. I’m glad all my talking over the past couple of days was actually helpful.”
He grinned as he let out a pleased sigh. “There were times that you thought you were crazy.”
He was going to be a pain in the butt.
“You only know that because I told you.” I’d told him a lot, and I was betting some of that was going to come back and bite me in the ass. “It was only polite to keep talking since you couldn’t always respond.”
Remembering to ask simple yes or no questions had been hard.
My logic seemed reasonable to me but the way he raised one eyebrow as he thoroughly cleaned the shaft of his cock again made me question it. “There were things you didn’t like talking to me about.”
Brat.
I’d somehow gotten a brat for a mate.
Was this my punishment for the fireworks incident? The knife thing?
Those hadn’t been my fault.
“You…you weren’t human-looking enough for some of the stuff you were curious about.” I could talk about anything, but I wasn’t going to explain to the large cat-like thing pinning me to the bed why my body was confused.
Mate or not.
“I’m human-looking now.” His hand tightened around the base to make sure I could see that. “But we’re going to have our date and get to know each other in new ways first.”
How could he be playing with himself and make that sound so polite?
Did he realize he was playing with himself?
He was playing with himself, right?
“I…” What had I been going to say? “Yes. We’re going to have our first date.”
Wasn’t that what we’d said?
Blaine smiled and finally released his cock. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Oh.
I.
He.
That.
Taking the soap, he bent over and used it to scrub his legs, offering up his ass to the spray. “We’re just going to take it one step at a time like you said this morning. A date. Talking together instead of mostly at me. Cuddling later.”
One step at a time.
Yes.
Oh.
He jerked.
Had the spray hit him some place…interesting?
Did that mean he was a bottom or just easily startled?
Sensitive?
None of those were first date kinds of questions, were they?
Did being mates change the kind of stuff I could ask about?
“I’m going to have to start making a list of questions for you like the one you have in your phone.” He let out a low moan as he stretched his back and slowly straightened.
Was the water that good?
Was he stiff?
Okay, yeah, he was stiff but how did his back feel?
“But you’re going to have to let me know when it’ll be okay to ask some of them.” Slowly rotating around in the spray, he took his time rinsing the soap off his incredible body. “Like those limits you’ve mentioned.”
As he turned to face me again, he ran his hands down his back and butt to help rinse off the soap but the way his fingers were facing made me wonder what else they’d been doing.
Was he playing with his ass while he was talking to me?
“I’m going to have questions about the context you’ve used that word in, but I think it’s in that side of things you aren’t ready to talk about yet.” It took until he’d raised one eyebrow and cocked his head before I realized he wanted me to confirm it.
“Um, probably?” How long did I usually run my hands over myself to get the soap off? “I’m really kind of confused about that. I don’t want to rush things between us but I don’t want to hide things from you.”
Everyone I’d seen online talking about mates had said that honesty was the best way to go because lying about what I wanted or needed would fuck things up. Mates were people who were meant to be together and that meant they were supposed to be sexually compatible too.
Hopefully that’d been right.
When had BDSM become mainstream?
Would he even know what I was talking about?
Would he think I was a deviant of some sort?
“Your emotions are having some wild swings, my mate.” Blaine’s almost neutral tone had me trying to remember to take a deep breath and relax. “Should I start washing again? You smelled good then.”
Brat.
“You knew what you were doing to me.” Glaring at him, I sat straighter and tried to keep how frustrated I should be at the front of my mind. “You were jerking off while I watched.”
He leaned back against the wall of the shower, posing for me, hard cock jutting out and sexy smirk on his face. “I was. I’ve been waiting a long time to see that look on my mate.”
Aww.
No. I was supposed to be frustrated with him.
“You said I could watch you, so I was just being polite to my mate.” Sexual desire between mates was perfectly reasonable. “You…you wanted to be appreciated. So I appreciated.”
I wanted to appreciate with my tongue too, but it didn’t seem like the time to mention that.
“No. I said I wanted to be ogled by my mate and you’ve done a wonderful job with that.” Reaching out, he turned off the water and pushed the curtain open. “Will you help me with my towel, my mate?”
Huh?
Towel.
Yes.
Standing up, I grabbed the towel they’d left on the counter and stepped closer to the tub to hand it to him. Blaine just smiled politely and opened his arms.
He was going to be a handful.
“Those all-American looks you’re using to fuck with me are going to get you in trouble eventually.” My Ken doll had a wicked streak. “It’s just…”
I lost my train of thought as I slowly dragged the towel down his chest and over his arms. “My dating history has been an absolute disaster and I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Even I knew this hadn’t been the most traditional start to finding a mate.
Placing his hands over mine, Blaine stopped me until I looked back up at his face. “You will not fuck this up as long as you simply be yourself. That is the person the gods found for me. I don’t need anyone else but the man who saved me and chattered his way to bringing me back to life.”
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I tried to ignore how dry my mouth felt all of a sudden. “I like talking.”
His smile did crazy things to me. “And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed listening to you, but I’m excited to be able to ask questions to help steer the conversation.”
That…that sounded nice.
“This is going to be weird for a while.” His shrug said we might not be on the same page with that. “I never thought I’d get a mate.”
The universe should’ve been smarter and not given someone with my background something as nice as a mate.
Slowly raising his hand, Blaine stroked it over my head, smiling to himself as I shivered.
“That was one of the first things I could latch onto. Everything else in my head had just been foggy and filled with pain. I don’t have another way to describe it but it was like a thick, aching fog hiding everything else. Everything but you. My mate.”
I was really glad he hadn’t eaten me first and then realized I was his mate a few seconds too late.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Winging it had worked so far but I wasn’t sure we could continue that way. “I don’t know what being a mate means to you or how to do it right or what to do now.”
Leaning in, he kissed my forehead. “There is no right or wrong. No one way to do this. We’re going to take it one step at a time and figure out what makes us both happy.”
Maybe someone online had a map or relationship org chart I could follow?
I liked maps even if I sometimes went off the beaten path.
Exploring could be fun but it was nice to know where I was supposed to go to begin with.
Yes…I just needed to find a map and then I could pretend to take things one step at a time.