Page 145 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

Apparently phrasing it like that did the trick. Suddenly George was eager to be honest. Which I definitely preferred over having sex with a yes-man. He was a pleaser. It was obvious that George would bend over backward to make his lover happy—to his own detriment.

Which…was adorable.

And sad.

And not what I wanted from him.

I wanted to make him feel good the wayhepreferred.

I wanted his focus to be completely, entirely on me like it’d been last night. Only better. Because this time I was prepared.

I wanted to eclipse every other relationship he’d ever had.

I wanted to become the only thing that existed in his world and his mind.

I wanted to be the standard he set for himself.

I wanted to matter to him. To matter more than anyone or anything he’d experienced. There would be no skeletons in our closets. There would be no exes to taint what burned molten bright between us. There would be no “not enoughs” or “too muches.”

Just George and me, and the trust and camaraderie we’d built, brick by brick.

“What about you?” I asked, voice soft enough I hardly recognized it. “What areyourhard limits?”

It took George a second to respond. He was distracted, which was fair—hell, the heat that was simmering between us was difficult for me to ignore too. If I’d been more of a brute—or we’d been further along in our “practice relationship” I would’ve already been balls-deep inside him, grunting away. But I wasn’t, and we weren’t. And I was genuinely excited to learn more about him, as odd as that sounded.

“I…I need…”

“Yes?” I waited patiently.

“I need to know you won’t hurt me—at least…not too badly.” George trembled, like getting the words out was physically painful. “Bruises are welcome. Um…rope burns? That’s fine too. Spanking is…is definitely…yes. But nothing too hard or lasting. And if I say red, you s-stop.”

Anger, blinding and bright licked at my fingertips. I had no doubt this particular limit was because of Brendon.

“I can do that. Anything else?” I made sure to keep my voice kind, even though a solid ninety percent of me wanted to hunt Brendon down and show him what real hurt meant.

“After we’re done…can you hold me?” The request was barely a whisper at all, vulnerable and quaking. “I don’t need a lot,” George was quick to tack on, probably out of fear that he was coming across as high-maintenance. “But a little would be nice.”

Again, I wanted to beat Brendon into the ground.

“Of course.” My heart squeezed—and just like that, my fury fled, replaced instead with affection for this sweet, needy man, and how brave he was to plead for comfort. “I’ll take such good care of you after, sweet pea, I swear. Like last night. You liked last night?”

George nodded. “Yes.”

“What are your safe words?” I asked, pulse thrumming as fast as George’s was. This was it. The final question before my firstrealscene as George’s temporary Dom. God, even justthinkingthat felt surreal. Like I’d steppedinto the pages of one of the books I’d read. I had never, ever anticipated that I would be into something like this.

But I definitely fucking was.

So fucking into it.

And hard enough to pound nails.

Harder than I’d ever been before.

It felt as though a part of me that had been dormant had woken up.

The idea that George would trust me with his body, his mind, hispleasure, was exhilarating.

The world was prettier this way, yet narrowed, because nothing mattered but Georgie. Not the beams of wood above us, or below. Not the lap of water at the scaffolding. Only the way his breath made his chest rise and fall. Only the way his Adam’s apple bobbed beneath my palm when he swallowed. Only the skip of his heart beat, dancing away, as eager as he was.

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