Page 76 of Spin Control

“And here you are now.”

“Sort of,” she says. “Figuring out what works best for me has been a journey.”

“How so?”

She gives me a long look. “I typically use an app to find partners, and I have a lot of rules. We only communicate via the app. If we decide we’re compatible, we mutually agree on the scene we want, then we meet at a hotel room and split the cost. They get there first and we don’t talk. I basically walk into the room, we do what we agreed to do, and then I leave. And I don’t repeat partners.”

Well that sheds a lot of light on what happened that night in D.C. But it’s also so different from how things have been between us.

“But…what about…”

“You?” she asks, laughing a little. “Yeah. What about you.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I say, giving her an out, but she shakes her head.

“No, we should. That night in D.C. was not normal for me. I desperately needed to feel in control. It was this all-consuming need. But there wasn’t time to vet someone on the app, and…I knew where you were.”

“But why me?” I ask. “I mean, other than being fine as hell and completely irresistible.”

Elizabeth arches a brow, then smiles. “Based on some context clues, I had this sense that you would be into it.”

“Context clues?” I ask. “Like what?”

“You literally got hard when I refused to let you tease me into submission and called you a good boy,” she says, and I burst out laughing. I didn’t realize it was that obvious. “And then there was that whole speech you trotted out in Monaco.”

Heat floods my face at the memory. “I was such an asshole that night.”

“You were,” she agrees. “But you were crashing out and knew you needed something. Even though you got me very wrong, you also knew you could say it to me. You trusted that I could handle your anger and stress and frustration. Whether you realized it or not, what you really wanted was for me to take it and control it for you.”

I think back to the raging emotions of that night. At the time, I thought that what I wanted was for her to yell at me, to get in my face, to completely eviscerate me. But she’s right. I wanted her to get me out of my own head. I wanted her to take control so I didn’t have to deal with it anymore.

“What did you end up doing that night?” she asks.

I huff out a breath. “I don’t think I should tell you.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

If she really wants to know, I’ll tell her. “I went home, took a long shower, and got myself off thinking about fucking your mouth.”

Elizabeth laughs so abruptly she starts coughing.

“Told you.”

She shakes her head. “No, I…it’s good to know.”

“Is it?” I ask, curious what she means by that. Considering she just told me she doesn’t enjoy sex at all unless she’s in control, I can’t imagine she’d be into someone fucking her in any way.

She shifts so her body is angled toward mine. “I’ve already given you more leeway than I usually give partners.”

“Because I very literally begged to eat you out?”

Elizabeth’s cheeks flush, but she shakes her head. “Before that. In D.C. I let you get away with so much—”

“What do you mean ‘so much’?” I ask, shocked. “You literally bit my nipple when you thought I enjoyed something too much.”

She laughs lightly. “Yeah, but I usually control everything a partner does. And you—at the end, when you—”

“You let me fuck you a little.” Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have thought of it like that. To me, it was two people having sex. But knowing what I do now about her usual preferences, I see it. I acted of my own accord, did something she didn’t explicitly ask for or approve of while we were together. To her, that was akin to giving up control.