Page 319 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

“Of course,” the waiter said, smoothly whisking her plate away. “I'm so sorry. You asked for medium, didn't you? I will bring it right back for you.”

“You see?” he said, when the waiter had gone. “That wasn't so painful, was it?”

She was still looking a little resentful.

“Be sweet and I'll forget that you rolled your eyes at me,” he said, casually turning back to his own food. He was satisfied when he smelled the familiar mixture of fear and arousal coming off her.

Okay, so sending her food back hadn't been that bad. But she hated that Dom had pushed her into it. Now her belly was filled with butterflies wondering if he was going to spank her over rolling her eyes. Peeking at his handsome face as she ate her dinner (the steak was now cooked to perfection), she found him devastatingly sexy. His dominance made her knees go weak and her belly do flip flops. He knew just exactly what to say and how to say it.

For whatever reason, the vulnerability of the moment made her willing to take a risk. “Dom?”

“Yes, cara?”

The waiter came then and asked if they wanted dessert or coffee. She looked at Dom to see if he felt like staying, but he looked the question back to her. Since dessert was her favorite thing, she nodded happily and ordered a decaf. Dom ordered a cappuccino and smiled indulgently at her.

“What were you going to ask me?”

“Oh. Um, well… I'm wondering what changed for you between getting a room at Hotel Congress and my car accident?”

“Oh.” He looked like she'd asked yet another question he didn't like answering. He did his ear-pulling thing, which she was beginning to recognize as what he did when she put him on the spot. “Well, the truth is that I still think I'm bad news for you.” He was looking at her seriously.

“Why?”

“A whole myriad of reasons, dulcezza. The main one being that I'm a vampire.”

She rolled her eyes and then froze halfway through the gesture. Of course, he hadn't missed it. He very slightly raised one eyebrow but he didn't say anything about it. Instead, he just shrugged. “I guess I think you deserve more than just great sex.”

She felt angry at that. “I guess I'm tired of you deciding what I do and don't deserve,” she snapped. He raised his eyebrows. She leaned forward to take him further to task, but the waiter showed up with dessert menus. She sat quietly and looked at the menu. There was one dessert that sounded like pure heaven. It was called molten chocolate lava cake, and it served two. But it also said it took 30 minutes to prepare.

“I'm thinking the molten chocolate lava cake is a worth it, despite the wheat,” she said with a note of challenge in her voice, testing his new rule.

He nodded. “All right,” he said mildly.

She dropped back into her normal submissive state then. “But it says it takes thirty minutes.” She looked at him pleadingly.

He smiled. “I'm in no hurry, cara.”

“Great!” she said, as giddy as a little girl and he chuckled.

The waiter came and he gave him the order. Then he said. “You were saying?”

She looked at her fingernails. “Well, I've never had great sex before. So why is it for you to decide that that's not enough for me?”

He blinked at her for a moment and then his face broke into a slow grin. “Far be it for me to prevent you from having great sex.” She smiled back.

After a moment, he said, “It's just that at some point it won't be enough. And it might hurt both of us more to end things then than it would now. That's all I was thinking at Congress.” He shrugged. “And then even after making that decision, I couldn't keep my hands off you. The sex is pretty good for me, too,” he said in a conspiratorial tone that made her giggle.

“Well, let's just enjoy what we've got, okay?” she said.

He nodded, but she caught that wistful look on his face again.

She pressed on just a little further. “Do you consider this…whatever it is, to be exclusive?”

He raised one eyebrow at her and answered sternly. “It had better be. You don't want to screw around on a vampire. Believe me.”

She laughed, fairly certain that he knew darn well that she would never screw around and had just answered her that way to flatter her. She peeked another look at him and he gave her a knowing smile. The rush of love she felt for him at that moment was overpowering. She wondered if he could feel it.

Back in the car after dinner, Dom said, “Your place or mine?”

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