Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
He winced. “That would be a bit too close for me.”
I had to agree with him and my nod made him chuckle. “It is. Especially with being little and needing to decompress from work. There’s always someone around and I’ve nearly been walked in on playing a dozen times just in the past month.”
“Why?” Pierce’s thoughtful expression came back. “Do they visit that often?”
“Not usually but me talking about leaving made every relative nuts. People I only see a handful of times a year stopped by and everyone kept thinking they could just walk in.” I laughed as his eyes went wide. “My grandparents and my parents have always had an open-door policy. I think because they were all that boring, but everyone just assumes they can walk into any house now.”
Pierce’s expression said he appreciated locks and privacy. “Um, do we need to add that to a list of things we need to talk about?”
He was adorable.
“No. I believe in locked doors and knocking.” His relieved expression made me fight to keep a straight face. “But every time I tried to have playtime or just color and watch a cartoon, someone showed up.”
“And didn’t appreciate a locked door, I imagine.” My sigh had one side of his mouth lifting up in a smirk. “Yes. That would not make relaxing easy. It’s no wonder you were so ready to let go.”
Oh yes.
“Did you mind?” Before he could do more than frown at me, I shook my head. “You didn’t give that impression, but it just occurred to me that I threw myself into my little side without actually talking to you about it first.”
I should’ve realized that sooner, but in my defense, it’d been the most relaxing couple of hours I’d experienced in months.
Longer possibly.
Looking less frustrated, he shook his head. “No. I was glad you already understood the lifestyle and our first meeting wasn’t going to be me explaining why I liked making so many decisions.”
I tried not to laugh but some escaped. It got me a glare and a slightly rueful smile from him. “I take it you’ve had dates go badly because of that?”
I didn’t expect him to have been a monk and I was going to do my best not to be weird about his past. He gave me a curious expression, though, which made me wonder what he was thinking. “I’ve dated casually but not as much as you might be thinking. I’ve also played at a few clubs to figure out what I was looking for in BDSM. But I’ve never had a long-term partner of my own because I knew my mate was out there somewhere.”
My romantic Daddy.
“I’ve met people waiting for their mates who ended up really unhappy people when it took longer than they expected, so I tried not to let myself get worried about what my mate might be doing.” Dragons especially—some I’d met had ended up miserable creatures in every sense of the word. “I’ve focused my thoughts on hoping you were happy and that you’d know how to be a good kisser when we met.”
Barely holding back a laugh, he lifted one eyebrow. “Got slobbered on in high school?”
“Yes.” Scrunching up my face got a laugh from him. “It was…uncomfortable.”
Almost giggling, he stretched his legs out under the table and gave me a pleased as fuck expression. “I take it I passed muster?”
So much confidence in one body.
“Yes.” If I’d known him for longer, I might’ve teased him, but we’d technically known each other for only a few hours and most of that he’d been playing cars with me and reading me a story. So I played nice. “I was very glad about that too.”
Oh yes, he liked that answer.
“I’m glad I passed.” His wicked grin was back. “We’ll have to see what other topics you want to test out…at your pace, of course.”
I was getting the impression he didn’t need any kind of pace except fast.
“We need to take yours into consideration as well.” I’d let him talk me into quite a lot if that was what he wanted. “But yes, I can think of a few more places that might need kisses…just to test you, of course.”
He couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to laugh or reach across the table and do something wicked to me. I approved but I also tried to be patient as he worked his way through his thoughts…and got control of his barely restrained snickers. “That’s a very reasonable course of action.”
He was thoroughly enjoying teasing me.
I decided I probably didn’t need to ask his opinion on edging.
But I could think of one question I wanted to ask. “My place or yours?”
Chapter 7
Pierce
“What do you say if you change your mind about something or if you need to stop because you’ve decided you want to go back to your place?” Clarifying questions were important, but when he crossed his arms and huffed as we stood outside my motel room, I decided I might’ve pushed him too far.