scenes, but this, right here, is submission.
Laying yourself bare and trusting the other person won’t break you.
And I will not break Ruby.
There’s so much tangled up in what she’s saying I have to think through what to address first. I take her simplest and last question first. “Ruby, we are just starting to know and learn each other, so I understand you don’t trust this about me yet. But I don’t do things I don’t want to do. Don’t say things I don’t mean. And I do want you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I have a lot going on right now—I’m learning a new job at work, I’ve got more buildings under renovation than ever before. My partner is getting married, so things he normally deals with are left to me. The truth is, a simple, uncomplicated girl is exactly what makes sense right now.”
Ruby tenses under my palm and I know this notion doesn’t sit well with her. But I continue, because being honest with her, not feeding her some bullshit line, is the only way she’ll believe what I say.
I cup her jaw and force her attention to me. “You are not easy. I’m not going to pretend you are. Yes, you’re right, there are girls I could call that would come over without question, do whatever I want, and have orgasms without me even breaking a sweat.”
She tenses again, steeling herself with her invisible armor against her perceived failings, but I don’t even break stride. “You don’t make sense. You take time and patience and understanding. You’re right; I have lots of options to choose from. And I choose you. It’s that simple. In the sea of options you’re the one I want. You’re the one that keeps me up at night, the one that preoccupies me at work, and makes me so fucking hard I think I might go crazy. I want you more than I’ve wanted anyone in a long time, and you’re worth the effort to me.”
Under my fingers her throat works and her chin trembles as she struggles not to cry. She turns toward me; pulls from my grasp. I let her go, only to wrap her back up again as she buries her head in my neck to hide. I wonder if she understands how sweet it is, that even in her emotional distress, she turns to me instead of away.
I kiss her temple. “Your value and worth to me is not if you come or if you make me come. It does not define you, and orgasms are not the only checkmark of a positive sexual experience. Until you realize that, I’ll have to wait to have your lips around my cock. Do we understand each other?”
She shivers in my arms and nods before mumbling against my neck, “But I’d feel better.”
I lean back and tilt her chin until she looks at me. Then I brush my mouth over her full lips. “Ruby, I want the same thing you do, and that’s what you don’t understand.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice is shaky and full of emotions she’s probably been repressing since she was old enough to know what sex was.
“I want you to suck my cock because you want to, not because you want me to get off to relieve your guilt. Because you think it buys you time.”
Her eyes grow wide and huge with understanding, before she shakes her head. “No—”
I cut her off with a ruthless kiss. “When you beg for it, I’ll consider it, but not a second before.”
She shudders, her expression turning confused, and lust filled, before flashing with shame.
She sees these desires of hers—to please and obey and give up control—as a weakness. But she’ll learn soon enough that they’ll lead to her power, and when that day comes it will be a sight to behold.
I’m going to be the man that witnesses the transformation.
I lean down to the shell of her ear. “Ruby?”
“Yes.” Her breath is hot against my skin.
“I want you to spend the night.”
She melts into me. “Okay.”
Ruby
“Ruby. Ruby!” A voice rips me from my wandering thoughts and I jerk in my office chair to look at my friend and coworker, Ryan Kemp. He flashes me a
C. J. Cherryh
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