He leaned forward, picking up her hand and raising it to his mouth so he could kiss the soft inside of her palm. “And as good as we were then, we’re even better now.”
“If I was having this conversation with anyone else but you, I’d think I’d lost my mind. The idea of even contemplating these things with a man I’ve only been with for a few days is just …Well, it’s crazy.”
He smiled because he understood her befuddlement. “But we haven’t only been together a few days and I’m not just any man.”
She nodded. “Exactly. Still, it just seems so …fast. And maybe too good to be true.”
He chuckled lightly. “Still the straightforward Ren I’ve always known.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how to be anyone else. Maybe I’ve tried in the past, but that never seems to work out, you know? I’ve already decided that if I have to be someone else with a man, then I don’t need to be there.”
“And I’ve always maintained you were an extremely intelligent woman. But darling, it’s not too good to be true. It’s good, yes. But it’s real.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“So tell me how you came to be in Houston,” he said as he sat back in his chair. He had a much better view of her now and he liked looking at her. Liked knowing that at least for now she was his. His woman. His possession.
“Lucas,” she said by way of explanation. “We met in Vegas. He has a club here and maintains a residence here.”
Okay maybe that wasn’t the best question but now he’d opened that particular can of worms and hell, the man was a large part of her life and the reason that Ren was sitting in front of Cole now. He couldn’t be ignored even if it was what Cole most wanted.
“Then how’d you end up in Vegas?”
She made a face. “My last relationship. I sound like such a disaster, don’t I? Like I can’t make any decisions on my own and drift from man to man, following wherever they lead.”
The disgust in her voice was heavy and she shook her head even as she spoke.
“I didn’t live in Vegas. I was there with Grant for a pleasure trip.”
“Grant being the asshole you were involved with prior to Lucas,” Cole confirmed.
She nodded. “I met Grant in Los Angeles. I hadn’t been involved seriously with another man in two years. I dated but nothing heavy and definitely nothing that would lead to a full-time dominant submissive relationship.”
Cole sat forward a bit. “Okay, let me ask because now I’m curious. When you say full time. What do you mean exactly?”
She sighed. “I don’t trust easily, which probably sounds like bullshit to you. I probably come across as this naïve moron who trusts any man who seems authoritative in the least.”
“That’s not what I think at all.”
“I’ve had five relationships that I would call full-time, serious relationships where I readily gave up control to a man. Two of the five were you and Lucas. That leaves three in …hmmm …the last nine years since I’ve been with Lucas for the last year. Of the five, I’d say I only fully, unequivocally trusted you and Lucas. I’m not saying the two other than Grant were awful. They weren’t.”
Cole watched her closely, the consternation in her eyes and how fidgety she’d suddenly become. It was apparent she wasn’t comfortable discussing her past, but it was important to him to know what had happened in the ten years after he’d left her.
“But in between those steady relationships, I visited clubs, let off some steam, did a few scenes but I always hated it afterward because it felt so fake and put on.”
He stiffened as he imagined her in some dark ass dungeon club with a bunch of wannabe dudes in way too much leather and wielding whips and chains. Christ. Over his dead body would she ever venture into another one. The mere idea of what could have happened to her set his teeth on edge and made him weak in the knees.
She waved a hand airily. “Anyway, back to Vegas and how I got there. I was living in Los Angeles when I met Grant. I’d had a falling out with my parents after my last relationship because they dropped in unexpectedly to visit me. I lived in Nashville at the time. Let’s just say they saw more than a girl ever wants her parents to see. They were horrified. They called the cops and it was a huge mess to sort out and I was embarrassed as hell. Mom and Dad were mortified. I was mortified. The guy I was with was pissed because he spent the night at the police station while I explained to the cops that I was in a consensual relationship and I wasn’t being abused.”
“Jesus,” Cole muttered. He could well imagine how that had gone down with her parents.
“I needed a clean break and some distance. Mom and Dad, after their initial horror, were pissed and disapproving and that’s the mild word for it. I was basically told I was unwelcome in their home as long as I chose to live a life of sin and that if I didn’t change my ways, I was going straight to hell.”
“Nice,” Cole bit out.
