Page 57 of Blade

Luckily for us, the houses were still just as beautiful as they’d been when I’d walked past them before. It might’ve seemed like it was just yesterday but the way everything had changed made it obvious how much time had passed.

“Some people have relationships built on a power exchange. A dominant partner who controls the situation and a submissive partner who gives up control.” My mate’s careful tone said more than he probably wanted it to. “It’s consensual and makes both parties happy, but to make sure everyone is on the same page, they have limits.”

We really hadn’t been using that word in the same context.

And some of the little comments I’d heard in the podcasts made more sense now.

“The limits are very important.” His serious tone made that clear but he was getting more relaxed about the topic too. “They’re listed out carefully and are either firm limits where we treat them as strong fences or slightly more flexible where we can talk about shifting them depending on the situation.”

The sexual situation?

No.

Not just sexual situations.

Robert and Sara had a relationship with rules and firm boundaries. If they’d used a specific label for it I’d never heard one, but that was because we hadn’t talked about those kinds of things. I‘d only noticed because I’d spent so much time with them after I’d moved out of the main house.

“So when you were talking about limits before, you were trying to explain how unhappy you were with how I was handling what I was feeling.” It wasn’t really a question but I was glad when he nodded. “If I’m following this correctly, your issuewith it was that I was…I was pushing against what you would see as my own limits.”

His rough exhale said he was very glad he didn’t have to explain it again. “Yes.”

I saw them as my own failing but I was smart enough not to point that out.

“I think I’m starting to understand.” This was going to lead to a lot more questions, though. “This is connected to the thing we’re going to talk about later, right?”

He was adorably dramatic when he groaned but nothing about what he was giving off or doing said I was pushing too much. “Yes.”

“Alright.” If he wanted to wait, I could do that. “We’ll table this discussion for now, then.”

There were a lot of other things we could talk about that didn’t involve him having to explain why being trapped turned him on.

“I—” Pausing, Henley peeked over at me. “I know questions are important right now.”

“And I know my mate’s happiness is more important.” He didn’t seem to grasp that fact, though. “So right now that means I’m going to take him out on a date and then we’re going to head home and watch something relaxing.”

His sigh that time was definitely about his conflicting feelings. “I’m not going to hide things from you.”

Sexual things.

Sexual things related to being restrained and either being dominant or submissive.

Submissive.

Submissive in sexual situations because he could clearly take charge when problems occurred.

I’d seen men and women who would fall apart and wait for someone else to make decisions because they couldn’t. Mymate was not like that. My mate had the ability to make curious decisions and charge into dangerous situations without worrying about it at all.

This was definitely related to sex.

Having a mate was proving to be much more interesting than I’d ever expected.

But I was pretty sure I was going to have to figure out on my own why he liked being tied up and what I was supposed to do with that knowledge.

Would I be able to find that online?

If they had articles for everyone to read about relationships and social rules, there had to be ones about sex, right?

CHAPTER 19