Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
Caine
“I need to ask you something.” Margot’s voice is muffled by the green alien head she’s wearing. The huge eyes peering at me make it hard not to laugh.
“As long as you come in peace.”
Already on her knees, she straightens with a giggle, squaring her shoulders toward me. Her body language suggests I’m in for a very serious conversation, but the alien mask makes me think she’s fucking with me. Either way, I’m down.
“Last night, in the truck, you said that if I’d hooked up with Shane it wouldn’t have been your kink.” Picking up a disembodied forearm, she toys with it. The prop is silicone and designed to look as if it’s been brutally removed from its body. “Which made me wonder, are you into kink?”
Not the conversation I expected her to start while wearing an alien head, but I’m here for it. “I’ve dabbled. Wouldn’t say I’m a professional, though. Are you?”
She clears her throat; mine’s tight too, anticipation choking me.
“There are things I’d like to try, but I’ve never been in a relationship that was the right place to explore them.” A nervous edge is on her words, almost defensive.
Easing up, I crawl across the floor to her, stopping so we’re sitting knees to knees. Not touching, but almost. Margot tugs the mask off. “What are you doing?”
“Talking to you.”
“We could talk without being this close.”
“Not as much fun. I want a front-row seat to watch you get all awkward and weird about this.” Gently taking the green alien head from her, I return it to the box so she can’t retreat back inside it.
“Oh, fuck off.” She huffs, focusing all her attention on the arm. When she finally steals a look at me, I’m ready, and greet her with a wink. Studiously ignoring me, she begins to detangle a long purple wig. The wig is far beyond salvaging, but I’m merciful, and don’t call her out on it.
“Talk to me.” More softly, I add, “Please.”
She doesn’t look up from the snarled synthetic strands.
“I’ve been interested in kink for a long time, but every time I brought an idea up to Nicholas, he made me feel embarrassed for even mentioning it.
His judgment really messed with my head.
Then after we divorced, I thought I was ready for primal play, but you know how that went.
The relationship with Jeremy wasn’t the right spot to explore either.
” Her eyes finally meet mine. “The most adventurous thing I’ve done sexually is fuck a stranger in the back room of a haunted house. ”
“How’d that work for you?”
Shrugging, she returns her focus to the wig.
When she speaks, there’s a forced lightness to her voice that tugs my heartstrings.
“It made me realize how nice it is just to be able to ask for what I want—and that there’s a lot I want to ask for.
You know it’s not too late for you to run away.
” She wrinkles her nose; all I want to do is lean in and kiss it.
“Well, since you own this place now, I guess that means you’d stay, and I’d run—”
How quickly I can go from wanting to cover her face with kisses to wanting to pin her against the wall needs to be studied. “If you run, I will chase you.” I gulp a mouthful of saliva. “And I will either drag you back here or run with you. Whatever you’ve got in mind, I’m game.”
Her sharp intake of breath makes my cock thicken.
“You’d be up to try some”—she drops her voice the tiniest bit, making me grin like a fool—“kinks?”
“Hell yes.” The words leap off my tongue. “Immediately yes. A thousand times yes.”
“You haven’t heard what I want to try yet.”
“I am rock-hard and you were wearing an alien head and pointing a severed arm at me earlier. Let your freak flag fly, gorgeous.”
That makes her shake her head; she’s trying not to laugh. I clear my throat. Rein it in. Margot should explore her sexual interests, and I’d bury any other candidate deep in the woods before I’d let someone else join her on this adventure.
“Let’s talk logistics, then.”
That’s my girl.
I nod. “Right. We’ll need to play Rock, Paper, Scissors for who gets to be on top first.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of STI testing and birth control. I have an IUD and was tested recently. I’ll show you the panel when we get back to the house.”
Shoving my hand into my pocket, I pull out my phone.
Passing it over, I’m grateful that I said, “Give me the works,” at my annual physical.
I knew what the results would be; Margot was my last sexual encounter involving another person, but I figured I might as well err on the side of caution.
She passes the phone back and gives me a serious nod. “Okay, that’s as far as I had planned.”
Works for me. I’m more than happy to take it from here. I tell her that, and she gives me a curious look. “What’s next?”
I smile. “The only thing you like more than organizing: making a list.”
Margot
I do love a good list-making moment. After unearthing a beanbag in the haunt office, Caine instructs me to “hunker down and work on the sex list” while he continues to inventory.
This is a very good idea—I feel it bone deep.
Where I would usually question myself, there’s only excitement.
Caine’s good-natured enthusiasm counterbalances all my what-ifs perfectly.
I’d never admit it and risk inflating his already generously sized ego, but this is exactly why I want him as my exploration partner.
Another aspect of the dynamic that I doubt I could clearly articulate is that beyond trusting him to listen to my boundaries, I trust myself to set them with him.
Trying to fight my attraction to Caine over the past few years often manifested as being downright ornery with him.
The people-pleasing tendencies I’ve been working on eliminating are much less likely to reemerge with Caine.
Displeasing him is as natural as breathing, and if an opportunity to be a little bit of a pain in the ass pops up, I’m all in.
Perhaps most importantly, he has a proven track record of listening and accepting boundaries like a reasonable adult.
Granted, that is quite a low bar, but still, it’s important.
After my ill-fated attempt at primal play and witnessing Shane navigate a sex contract with Claire, I grew even more curious about kink, and my own sexuality.
More than a few kink quizzes lurk in my Internet history, so making the list is straightforward.
At the top: fear play and mask play. Underlining them seems like overkill, but I consider it.
I want to try primal play again—my gut instinct is that it will be very different with Caine.
I also add consensual non-consent, both submissive and dominant roles, knife play, praise, edging, degradation, bondage, and impact play.
Along with each interest, I also list any hard nos or concerns I have pertaining to that particular activity, along with specific scenarios that sound the most appealing.
Obviously, I don’t expect Caine to fulfill all—or any—of these, but it was fun to write out fantasies I’d be willing to try in real life, just in case.
By the time he returns, I’ve put together an alphabetized, multipage list. Caine walks in the door, and I flip my notebook around to face him. “Pick your poison.”
He lets out a low whistle. “That’s a long list.”
Heat creeps up my throat; he can only see the first page. That sinking sensation that I’ve miscalculated overwhelms me. Fuck. Why can’t I ever be chill?
“Sorry, it’s too much—”
Caine’s face breaks into a smile. “Hey, hey, no sorries. That’s a good thing.
” He holds out his hand. I pass the notebook over, feeling as if I’ve just handed him my heart on a tray.
I’m emotionally naked and vulnerable, and that prickly, stubborn feeling fills me.
The urge to snatch the book back from him and say, Just kidding!
is overwhelming. I ride it out, fidgeting with the hem of my T-shirt.
He reads it, his grip on the notebook tightening until his knuckles lighten.
His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip as he turns the page.
I study his boots, the scuffs on the toes and where the aged black leather has been speckled with paint.
A throat clear pulls my gaze to him. Starving is the only word for his expression.
He’s intent on me the way a wolf watches a rabbit.
The same way I know stepping into a sunbeam will warm my skin, I know that if I flinch, his prey drive will kick in.
That if I ran, he would chase me. I want him to. My heart beats harder.
When Caine speaks, my thighs clench involuntarily. “This is an excellent list. Thank you for adding the notes.” The praise warms me, though I scoff like it doesn’t.
The rough edge to his voice from last night is back. “We are going to have so much fun together. Don’t worry about a thing. You’re in very good hands.”
Anticipation swirls through me, tinged with just enough fear to make me eager.
There aren’t many things in life I believe without reservation, but right now, I believe Caine Underwood wholeheartedly.
Call it instinct, or maybe intuition, but a surge of calm fills me.
In his hands seems like an excellent place to be.