34. Chapter 27
Dashiell
The Day After I Didn’t Cum
I’m disappointed, not surprised, when I wake up alone. I think there was a part of me that had hoped Lorenzo would sneak back into my room in the middle of the night and join me in my bed, but evidently he did not. The other side of my bed is as cold as it was when I fell asleep.
According to the clock on my nightstand, I slept late. It’s almost eleven in the morning. And damn, Lorenzo was right about me needing a tall glass of water this morning. My thirst eventually drives me out of my bed. I slept naked, and I go to my dresser to find a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
Outside my bedroom door, someone has left my suit from yesterday, freshly dry-cleaned, along with my phone, fully charged. I smile as I pocket the phone. Evidently, Lorenzo thought about the fact that I left these at the club when he took me home.
Honestly, kind of sweet.
I find him in the kitchen, which surprises me. All other mornings that I’ve been here, he’s been gone by the time I wake up, no matter how early I rise.
He looks like he’s working. His suit jacket is on, a coffee mug sits next to him, and his laptop is open in front of him. A thin packet of papers sits untouched beside the coffee.
“Morning,” he says without looking up. “There’s fresh coffee in the pot if you want some. And filtered water in the fridge.”
I go straight for the water, fetching myself a large glass and drinking the whole thing down.
“What are you working on?”
He shrugs, still not looking up from his computer. “Just some stuff for Family business.”
“So, crime?”
That gets his attention. He sighs, shutting his laptop halfway. “What I do with the Family is rarely legal, strictly speaking. But it’s not always crime, per se. And I avoid things that will physically hurt other people.”
I place my glass in the sink, get a mug from the cabinet, and fill it with coffee. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”
“Thanks for your approval,” he says wryly.
“Don’t you normally work…I don’t know, somewhere else?”
“From Giovanni’s house, normally, yes. I didn’t want to go there today. Not until…”
“Until you know if he killed your father and is hunting me?”
“Well, that. But there’s also something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Oh, shit. He’s going to say that last night was a mistake, that we should’ve never done it. I should’ve seen this coming. I should’ve known that he’d have morning-after guilt. Me? No guilt here. I had a great time, and I definitely want to do it again.
And next time, I’d like to cum.
“Okay,” I say cautiously. “What about?”
He nods to the stool beside him at the kitchen island. “Why don’t you sit.”
Fuck. This really is going to be a bad conversation.
As soon as I sit, I launch into a half-formed argument.
“Look, I know you might regret last night, but I don’t.
I think it was great. I felt super safe with you, and didn’t feel like you were taking advantage of my submissiveness or anything like that. I want to keep—”
“Dash.”
“—to keep doing things, because I really think we work together. And—”
“Dash.”
“—And if you really, really don’t want to, and it’s not just because you’re unsure of my consent, then I understand, but I—”
In a swift motion, Lorenzo reaches out and clamps a hand over my mouth. “Dashiell Novak,” he says in a low voice. “Have I given you any indication that I don’t want to keep doing what we did last night?”
Oh.
I grunt against his hand, and he removes it, giving me a chance to answer. “No, I guess you didn’t.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He takes the packet of papers beside his coffee and slides it toward me. “This is what I wanted to talk about.”
I glance down and almost choke on my coffee. “Oh, shit.” It’s a BDSM checklist, and from the looks of the first page, it’s very thorough.
Lorenzo cracks a small smile. “Not what you were expecting, huh?”
“Not really. But consider me pleasantly surprised.”
“Good. Look at me.”
Instinctively, I do. Staring into his face, I can see, then, the interest there. He wants this. Maybe he’s guarded in a way that I’m not, but he wants this.
“Last night convinced me I’m not taking advantage of your consent. I admit I do still have some hesitations around our age gap—I’m fifteen years older than you, after all. But I trust you to articulate your needs and boundaries.”
“No scat, no blood.”
He chuckles. “Good to know, not that I had anything like that planned. I’ve already filled one of these out, and I want you to, as well. Then we can look at each other’s. That way we’ll know exactly what the other person wants and doesn’t want.”
The intensity in his voice deepens. “If we’re going to do this, if we’re going to have a consistent sexual relationship, I need to know exactly where your lines are.”
Briefly, he glances away and in that moment I get a glimpse of a vulnerability in him that I haven’t seen before. “I need to know your lines because—fuck—because the things I want to do to you, Dash, will need your explicit and enthusiastic consent.”
I take the BDSM checklist and flip through it. It is detailed and extensive, which will be good. “Thanks, Lorenzo. I appreciate that.”
“Good.” He closes his laptop all the way. “I know that today’s another one of your days off, so consider this your homework while I’m gone.”
“Where are you going?”
He begins loading his laptop into a briefcase. He looks oddly like a normal (if scorchingly hot) businessman, with his suit and briefcase and coffee. “I’m going to go check out this theory that my brother might be a murderer.”