Page 35 of Fearless
So… she had been thinking clearly after all.
And there it was again, springing right up into the back of his throat again, that ill-thought out urge to say: Well, let’s get married then.
Noah choked it back. What he heard himself say instead was, “Give me one month.”
Having found the last button, Kitty raised her head and looked at him at last. “Why?”
“Because I like you.” A man couldn’t be more honest than that. “Maybe it won’t be enough. Or maybe it’ll be the start of something more, I don’t know. But I do know I want the chance to find out. One month, love, thirty days.” It was surprisingly hard for him, but he made himself add, “We’ll treat it like a scene at Black Light, and you can say red at any time. I promise, I’ll stop and drive you straight to the airport.”
And he always kept his promises. No matter how much it hurt, he would keep this one, too.
Chapter 12
“No, really,” Noah said, laughing as he cut his breakfast eggs apart. “It’s Zechariah. Noah Zechariah Carver. Real New Testament stuff. My parents were big believers. Deliberately drove my grandfather bonkers when they joined a different church from him.”
The morning sun was up. Coffee was hot on the table and she’d made breakfast—eggs and toast, with disgusting green stuff for him and plain butter for her with strawberry preserves on the side to tempt her appetite. It had worked, some. So far, she’d managed to put away two eggs, half a sausage patty, and most of a piece of toast, thanks to the jam.
“That was too easy a question.” Noah knocked on the table. “Come on, now, love. Let’s really get to know one another. Ask me something else.”
“Something else,” Kitty said, with a smile and a sigh, even though she hated games like this. She wasn’t any good at coming up with questions. It felt subversive, somehow, and when questions led to other questions, it only made her more uncomfortable. But how else were two people supposed to learn about the other if not by asking questions, as Noah had quite sensibly argued at the start of this game. She cast about the table, as if she might find a random question lying among the breakfast dishes. “Okay,” she finally said, glancing into the living room. “I’ve got one. You told me you don’t like spanking, so what made you choose the whip?”
Caught between a smile and surprise, Noah blinked twice. “What makes you think I don’t like spanking?”
“Because you said so.”
He arched both eyebrows. “Oh no, no, love. I love all forms of impact, including spanking. You lay yourself down across my knee, young lady. I’ll show you a man what loves his work. What I told you was I don’t spank for punishment.”
“Fine.” Ignoring the way her belly quivered at the thought of being taken across his knee and held, tucked right up close to his body, she said, “I’ll change my question: Why don’t you spank for punishment?”
“Because it’s not effective.”
“It’s not about effective.”
Noah arched both eyebrows. “Oh no? What’s it about then, love? You tell me.”
A touch of warmth flushed her face. She wished she had a way to avoid the question, but that would have violated the newest rule, Rule Number Ten: Quid Pro Quo. Put on the spot, Kitty picked at her toast and shrugged. “I don’t know…”
Noah refused to accept that. “Nah, you don’t, me girl. You’re not getting off that easy. Question ball’s in my court now. Why spank if it’s not effective? And I don’t care how small you shred your toast. I’ll bring you a spoon if I have to and add a good-sized dollop of Vegemite to hold it all together, but you will eat it.”
Glancing at him from out beneath her lashes, she gauged him entirely too believable for her mouth and stomach to want to risk. She dropped her toast so she wouldn’t be tempted to keep picking at it.
“You aren’t answering the question,” he sang, which made it easier for her to laugh even as rattled as she was.
“Because it’s how you know someone really likes you,” she finally blurted, then covered her face with both hands, moaning. “Please don’t read me the riot act about how abused people come to expect abuse, blah blah blah. I already regret saying it.”
“Why?” he asked, still smiling but not in a way that made her feel mocked. She didn’t know how he did that, but she appreciated not feeling laughed at.
“It’s hard enough to explain our lifestyle to someone not in it without them looking at you like you’re crazy. But then try being me, explaining to someone who is in the lifestyle, how it’s not what a dom says or does that means anything in a relationship. It’s how he hits that matters.”
Noah studied her, unmoving, his smile seeming more fixed in place than genuine. “Is that how you knew Ethen loved you?”
“It’s how I knew he didn’t,” Kitty confessed. “Because spanking is gentle and intimate, and it takes time and effort on the dom’s part. If he doesn’t care, he won’t bother; he’ll do other things. But if he loves you, he’ll take the time to do it every time.”
Noah nodded. “I don’t spank for punishment because too many submissives enjoy it. When you reward bad behavior, pretty soon bad behavior is all you get. But—” He held up a staying finger, the corner of his mouth curling. “—how about this: I will never spank for punishment, but I will always spank for closure. Do you think those actions might reassure a subbie how much she’s still loved?”
Her bottom was tingling; her face felt hot. Afraid he’d read her too closely, Kitty tried to look away, but her guilty gaze kept creeping back, stealing greedy glimpses of him—his hands, his arms, his face. She could hardly control her breathing and she dared not speak at all, for fear her voice might crack. Hiding behind a shaky smile, she nodded.
Holding up his coffee cup as if it were wine, Noah said, “To always feeling loved and never sitting comfortably again.”
