Page 120 of Two for Roughing

The sixth course arrived—a rich, decadent chocolate mousse with a raspberry sorbet and a tiny, perfect pineapple upside-down cake surrounded by mint leaves and chocolate sauce. Kilian smiled up at the waitress and thanked her, reaching for the second-to-last fork to the left of his plate.

“You would never do that to me,” Kilian said once she’d left.

“I might not, but someone else could.”

“I don’t want to do this with anyone else.”

Damir paused, mouth open and ready for his first bite of sorbet. “I—” he said. “You—” He cleared his throat. “Oh.”

“I mean, I tried being with other guys, and it didn’t do anywhere near as much for me as you do over the phone. I’m not promising we’ll be together forever or anything because then you might think I’m crazy. But as far as I know, I don’t want anyone else for regular sex, let alone for the kind where you call me your good girl and make me hurt.”

The sorbet dripped off of Damir’s spoon, making a tiny red dot on his immaculate plate. He took the bite. “I’m glad,” he rasped. “I’m…look, I will tell you how crazy I am about you in a moment, but before we do, I need to finish this properly.”

“Okay.” How could Kilian be so confident and calm when Damir was coming out of his skin at the thought of someone else touching Kilian and of no one else ever having the opportunity again?

Damir cleared his throat and tried to focus. “I’ve assumed I knew what you wanted a few times, and I was always wrong.”

Kilian made a questioning sound around his spoon.

“I thought you didn’t want a relationship, and I thought I ought to keep my struggles with what to do about my future to myself. If I’d spoken to you sooner…”

“Oh.” Kilian set his silverware down and considered. “I see your point about that, yeah. But that’s not sex. That’s feelings.”

“Keeping my feelings out of our sex life has been a resounding failure thus far,” Damir pointed out. “And I’d prefer if I didn’t have to.”

Kilian nodded slowly. “I guess that’s fair. And it’s not like I don’t want to have a say. If I’m in the mood for blowing you, or getting fucked, I want to be able to, like, initiate it. The kink stuff doesn’t have to be all the time. Last night was—” His eyes darted up to meet Damir’s for a second. “Last night was good.”

“It was. I think what you want is for me to take the reins, so to speak, and surprise you with what we’re doing.”

“Yeah.”

“Going through a checklist doesn’t mean it won’t be a surprise. It means I’ll have a rough idea of what I can experiment with, but whatever precise thing I choose to do to you will be my prerogative to decide. And a safeword…that’s a failsafe. In an ideal world, neither of us will ever have to use it. But I need to know you can, if I ever go too far. And I need to know I can.”

Kilian’s brow furrowed. His fork scraped over the caramelized top of the pineapple. “Have you wanted to?”

“When I spanked you,” Damir admitted. “It got…intense, and I was flying blind. In the moment, I had no idea if I made things better or worse for you. It was very erotic but also terrifying not to know if I hurt you in a way you didn’t want with what I said or did.”

“It’s a lot of responsibility for you,” Kilian said shrewdly. “You need a rulebook.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, I think I can be down for that.”

The spell of the moment broke as the intensity of what they were asking of each other boiled down to the dumbest possible phrase.

“Be down for that?” Damir repeated incredulously. “Really?”

Kilian laughed good-naturedly, eyes sparkling in the dim lighting. “I couldn’t think of another word. Sorry.”

They finished their desserts in comfortable silence, the mood light and full of hope for the future. When their plates were cleared once more, Damir reached into his pocket. He pulled out the little box and handed it over.

“I told you I was also crazy about you.” As he handed it over, Damir realized what the box might imply with its pretentious designer label and small size.

When Kilian opened it with a small sigh of relief, Damir was only a little insulted.

“You’ve mentioned wanting to dress less…conservatively,” Damir said, thinking of the lace top. “I thought maybe…”

“You thought right. Help me put it on?”