Page 58 of Edging Coach
Devon asked me about that—with hiseyes, for God’s sake—and the words had come pouring out. Not the whole story, not every detail, but the fear at the heart of it. I’d told him without hesitation and without shame.
“I won’t push your limits,” Sanjay repeated gently. “But sometimes a limit in one area can indicate things I should watch out for in another.”
That was fair. It made perfect sense. And I wasn’t ashamed of what had happened. It wasn’t even all that embarrassing. Just…
Intimate.
That was what it was—intimate.
I’d had sex with Devon before I’d told him. Sanjay and I had only had a few conversations and a handshake.
That’s not the whole story and you know it.
I cleared my throat, then sipped my coffee just to wet my suddenly dry mouth. Good coffee—this place knew how to make a latte. As I set the cup down, it gave an incriminatingrattle against the saucer, announcing to everyone within earshot that my hands weren’t steady.
“I had a bad experience,” I told Sanjay.
“The Dom you had recently?”
I shook my head. “No. This was years ago. With my ex-husband.” I looked at him through my lashes. From his furrowed brow, he was trying to figure out the timeline. “He and I—we tried some things that I now know are…” I glanced around us. “What I’m looking for now. Dominance. Pain. That sort of thing. I just didn’t know what it was. Why I wanted it.”
Sanjay was nodding as I spoke. “I understand. A lot of people do stumble into their kinks.”
I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, you could say that. Anyway, we tried some of it—bondage—and it just… it didn’t go well.”
“How so?”
Irritation flared in my chest, but I tamped it down. I knew why he was digging. He wasn’t looking for gossip or something to criticize. He wanted clarification about my limits and boundaries. It was agoodthing, damn it, especially here in a coffee shop instead of behind closed doors with our pants off.
“Claustrophobia.” I said it like something to be ashamed of. Something I’d done wrong.
“Ah, you couldn’t move or get free.”Hesaidthatlike it was perfectly normal and reasonable. “I can see why you’re averse to it now.”
I studied him. “It’s not weird?”
Sanjay shrugged. “Nothing is weird. I had a sub who loved bondage but hated my green ropes.”
“Green ropes?” I cocked my head. “What was his issue with those?”
Another shrug. “She thought they looked like a snake. It creeped her out. Didn’t really matter why—she said no, so that was the end of it.”
“Oh.” I drummed my fingers beside my coffee cup. “Except my limit is no ropes at all. Not just the green ones.”
His smile should’ve made my heart flutter. It kind of did, but not enough. Not as much as it should have. “I can work with no ropes. No cuffs.” His expression turned more serious. “No Dom worth the title wants to do things his submissive doesn’t want. If it’s a hard limit for you, or even a soft limit you don’t feel like pushing, then where’s the fun for me?” He made a face. “I’m a sadist as well as a Dom, but I only dish out the suffering my masochistic subwants.”
Why didn’t that sound enticing? My newly discovered masochistic sub side craved everything someone like him could give me. I was hungry to explore this new dimension of sex and sensation and myself.
Nerves? Was that it?
I took another sip of coffee, barely tasting it. “That… That makes sense. Only wanting what the other person wants.”
Sanjay nodded. He watched me curiously for a moment, then asked, “Your recent experience—how did that happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you go looking for a kinky experience? Or did one find you?”
I almost laughed outright at the question. Oh, yeah, one definitely found me. “Uh. I met someone on a hookup app. Just for something…”
