Page 39 of Praised
“I suppose when you think about the word, you think about a person who enjoys sex more than society thinks they should. Maybe someone who has it more than most?” I posed the last part as a question to make sure we were on the same page. I’d never thought about what it would take to explain myself in the way Rose was asking of me, but it wasn’t a bad train of thought. I liked that he was inquisitive, that he wanted to know. It made me believe he was interested, that he wasn’t going to eat the eggs and run.
“That’s fair,” he murmured, sipping at his coffee.
“What’s better than being able to bring those feelings, that action, out in your partner? Or if not bring it out, giving them a safe place to share it.”
“Is that what you are, Flynn? A safe space?”
“It’s what I try to be.”
I scooped the omelet onto a plate and slid it across the counter toward him. He inhaled the smell of it, and I got him a fork and knife from the silverware drawer, then refilled both of our coffees.
“Are you eating?” he asked, using the side of his fork to cut the corner of the omelet off.
“I ate before you got up.”
I wasn’t a big breakfast eater in the first place, but it wasn’t a lie. By the time Rose had fallen asleep, it was almost four in the morning and my alarm went off at five. After prying myself out of his arms and forcing myself into the gym, I’d showered and ate a bowl of yogurt while I talked through a contract closing on an apartment building just outside Hollywood with Rob. Rose had woken up during my second meeting of the morning and promptly derailed what was meant to be my third, but they could wait.
I had more pressing matters to attend to.
“And that’s how you think it’s praise? Finding the good in something that’s generally an insult?” Rose’s expression tried to look like he had gotten one over on me, but the smug expression was quick to fall away after he forked the first bite of breakfast into his mouth and groaned. He was quick to get a second bite—and a third—before turning his attention back to me looking somewhat more mollified than before.
“When I said it, did it hurt your feelings?” I asked.
“No,” he grumbled.
“Then that’s how it works.”
Rose huffed and finished eating his omelet in silence. I was content to watch him, and when he’d put the last bit into his mouth, he was ready with another stream of questions.
“What about the Sir thing?”
“What about it?”
“You said it has to be earned, but you said you’re not like other Doms, so how does someone earn it?”
“Did you want to earn it?” I asked, even though he already had. Just by showing up, by asking the questions, by being willing to play these silly little sex games with me when everything we wanted—and had been given—from life was in opposition with each other.
“I’m not interested in giving up any kind of control,” Rose said, lips pursed.
“I’m not asking you to. The less dominant partner is the one who has the control anyway.”
There was no point in calling Rose a submissive because he never would be, and the longer I was around him, the less I wanted him to be. He was sharp and feisty and unafraid to ask for the things he wanted. It was confident and sexy as hell, and the fact he did all of that while still taking the smallest amounts of instruction and guidance was unbelievably hot.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“You can stop anything we do, Rose.” I shrugged, watching the way he nervously tapped the tines of the fork against the plate. “You say stop and it stops.”
“Well, good, because if not, that would be rape.”
Sucking my lips between my teeth, I bit down and took the empty plate from him.
“I think you know what I meant,” I said, if not under my breath a little, wounded from the dig.
“You’re right. I do, but I don’t trust it.” He cleared his throat and dropped his fork. “I can wash up if you want.”
I waved him off just like I’d done earlier. He wasn’t going to lift a finger in my house unless it was to grab a cock in his hand.
“You can, but you won’t,” I told him.
