Free The Professor's Pet (A BDSM Romance Novel) by Tara Crescent

there a price to be paid for my stubbornness? Will I end up regretting this?
    You may rely on it, was the prompt reply. And yet, instead of backing away, I handed over the notepad. “This is my hard-limit list.”
    ***
    A knock on the door interrupted us before he could reply. Room service. Jake swung off the bed to go get the food; I could hear voices in the other room, a closing door, and then he came back into the room. “Breakfast in bed?” he asked.
    “If that’s okay with you,” I replied. Breakfast in bed was a rare treat.
    He grinned, placed the tray on my lap. “Here,” he said. He walked away to get his own tray; sat back on the bed, took a sip of coffee.
    I swallowed. The tension had ratcheted up dangerously between us. Part of it was sexual; I was very much aware that Jake was naked under his towel, and I was struggling not to ogle at his naked chest. But the bigger part was the things that we left unsaid.
    “Okay,” he turned to me finally. “Let’s assume you are aware of all the risks involved.”
    I nodded.
    “ I’m trying hard not to be an asshole here,” he said. “But if you want this, then, well, let’s do this.”
    I nodded again, but I didn’t meet his eyes. He made it sound like a chore; something as pleasurable as laundry or paying bills.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked me, tipping my head up.
    I gulped. He had said that this was all about communication, but what I was going to say revealed more of my emotions than I wanted. But I said it anyway.
    “Is this such a chore for you? Is there no pleasure to be had?”
    “Emily,” he groaned. He turned away, moved his tray to the side table. “Give me your hand,” he said. I did; he drew it onto his cock. He was rock hard. “ I’m concerned about your emotional well-being,” he ground out, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I find you very desirable. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be here; we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. Never forget that. I’m here because I want to be.”
    He let go of my hand; I kept it in place over his hard, pulsing cock for a second, before pulling away. He covered himself back up; pulled the tray back on his lap.
    “So, a discussion about limits?” he asked.
    “Limits,” I agreed. It seemed like the safest conversation at the moment.
    ***
    He eyed my list as he ate. “One, two and three are fine,” he said, swallowing his eggs with a sip of coffee, spreading marmalade on his toast. “Talk to me about four.”
    “No exhibitionism, no public sex?” I asked.
    He nodded. “When you sucked me off in my backyard, would that have been public sex or exhibitionism?”
    “No,” I shook my head. “No one was watching us.”
    “The risk of being heard – that’s not a hard limit for you?” he probed.
    “That was exciting,” I confessed.
    “Okay,” he grinned. “So, you don’t want someone watching you have sex, but anything that skirts the line, that’s fine?”
    “Depends,” I said. “I don’t want to do anything that’ll threaten my career.”
    He nodded wryly. “I can understand that,” he muttered. “What’s exhibitionism to you?”
    “I can’t be displayed, naked, to someone else. You can’t ask me to flash someone, or to show someone my pussy.”
    “Okay. What about putting you in situations that might embarrass you, if you are fully clothed?”
    “Like what? You can’t introduce me as your slut, or submissive, or something like that.”
    He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Tell you what, let’s try this one out; let’s play a game. What are you doing this afternoon?”
    “I was going to Napa Valley,” I said.
    “In this weather?” he asked. He gestured to the window; it was pouring rain outside.
    I made a face. “I guess not.” I tried to feel regret for my lost day of carefree wandering and exploration, but at the same time, my nerve endings were on edge; seated so close to him, and I couldn’t imagine what he was going to make