Page 38 of The Dom

I snapped back to the present. “No, I was just thinking about how everyone seems to know you wherever we go.”

He tilted his head, his gaze searching, as if he was trying to figure me out. Considering how different I was from the women he’d been with in the past, that probably wasn’t too far off the mark.

“Is that a bad thing?”

I shook my head. “Just different from my experience is all.”

I perused the menu as Nate ordered wine – without seeing a wine list – and an appetizer. By the time he was done, I’d already decided what I wanted. We both ordered and handed over our menus.

I wondered if I’d ever get used to places so fancy that they didn’t list their prices in their menus. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with how much Nate was probably spending on me, but if I wanted him to trust me to tell him when something was bothering me, I had to trust him to do the same.

Besides, it was clear he’d been here before, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have an idea of what things cost. Also, it wasn’t as if he’d been raised with a lot of money. I was sure he’d had his own learning curve when it came to things like this.

“You have that look again,” he said. “What are you thinking about now?”

“Just wondering how long it took you to get used to eating at places like this.” I smiled at him.

He leaned forward slightly, a playful smile on his lips. “Honestly, it’s still strange to me. Sometimes, I ask places like this to do something for me just to see if they will.”

Like a little kid with an adult who spoils them, I thought. It made sense, actually. He had a poor relationship with his family and didn’t really have a lot of people he could trust in his personal life. Finley, and now me, seemed to be it.

Of course, he’d be a little child-like when it came to certain things. People who came across as confident – or arrogant – and larger than life often had insecurities they hid from the world.

I suspected Nate wasn’t any different.

He leaned back as the wine was brought to the table, along with our appetizer. After our glasses had been poured and we’d both enjoyed a couple minutes of food and drink, he leaned forward again and caught my fingers. He gave them a quick squeeze before releasing them, but it was the heated expression on his face that made me realize that we were about to start playing the game he’d mentioned earlier.

“You’ve heard of the game Never Have I Ever?”

I nodded and hoped we weren’t about to play it. He and I came from such different worlds that we’d go through a lot more than a single bottle of wine.

“We’re going to play a version of that,” he said. “One without alcohol.”

My relief must’ve shown on my face because he chuckled.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” he continued. “I’m going to say something sexual I’ve done, and if it’s something you’d be interested in trying, you say next, and I move on to the next one. If it’s something you aren’t interested in trying, you say ask, and you have to answer any question I ask you.”

“If I say I’m interested in something, does that mean I can’t change my mind about it in the future?” I was fairly certain of his answer, but I needed to hear it from him to make sure we were on the same page.

“Not at all,” he said. “I’ll remember the things you’re interested in and will most likely bring them up at some point, but we’ll always talk about them, and you can always use your safe word.”

“And what if you think I’m lying now just so I don’t have to answer questions?”

His smile widened. “You won’t.”

I could’ve taken it as him being all alpha male, but that’s not what I saw on his face. It was trust. He was trusting me to be honest and play by the rules. Even if I hadn’t been intrigued by the game itself, wanting to be worthy of the trust he was placing in me would have made my answer the same.

“All right. Let’s play.”

“Excellent.” He took a long drink of his wine. “I’ll start off easy.”

I was nearly positive that his version of easy and mine wasn’t the same thing, but I didn’t protest.

“Gotten a woman off in a near-public setting where we could be easily caught.”

I flushed, the memory of how he’d made me come on his fingers the first time we’d ever gone out. We hadn’t been literally out in public, but we hadn’t been shut away in a hotel room or at one of our places.

The grin on his face told me he was remembering too.

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