She nodded. “I might be like that, too.”

“Like what?”

“Incapable of loving people the way they deserve.”

“Really? What about Florence? Don’t you love her?”

She glanced away. “I thought I did. I know I do, but maybe not enough, if I’m betraying her by being here with you.” She took a long, calming breath, then looked at him again.

“What about romantic love?” Eli’s heart pounded, and he wasn’t sure why. “You think you could manage that?” he asked her.

Asked them.

“Maybe. Or maybe some people are too broken. Maybe . . . maybe things have happened in their lives, in their past, that have damaged them so bad, they’re never going to get happy endings with the loves of their lives.” She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Maybe some people are meant to be tragedies.”

A knife in his fucking stomach, that’s what Rue was. And a mirror he couldn’t bear to look into. “So, is this my chance for a Q and A?” he asked, wanting to change the subject.

“What would you like to ask?”

He considered gently introducing the topic, but Rue was a fan of plain speaking. “Why don’t you want penetrative sex?”

“Because I don’t like it very much.”

“Any reason in particular?”

“No. No traumatic story or medical issues, at least.” She shrugged. “It’s not that I actively dislike it. I just can’t really come like that.”

“Ah.”

“I wouldn’t mind it if that’s all there was—there are other things that won’t make me come and I’m happy to do. Obviously.” She held his eyes, unflinching, and every single delicious thing she’d done for him was suddenly there, in the forefront of his mind. “But in my experience, penetrative sex usually leads to two outcomes, and neither is good.”

“What outcomes?”

“A lot of men see penis-in-vagina sex as the end goal and forget everything else. Skip foreplay, move straight to the fucking, get their own, completely forget about their partner—which is not what I’m looking for. And that’s the best scenario.”

“The best?”

She sighed. “It’s better than them deciding that they absolutely need to get me off during the sex, which almost always ends up with them dragging it out to the point of pain. I can’t come from that, which means that we’re at a very unpleasant impasse that forces me to fake an orgasm just to get it over with.” She looked so genuinely offended, he couldn’t hold in his laughter. He liked this about her: the way she went after her own pleasure, demanded her due. He liked her, period, even more now that the pieces were starting to form a defined picture in his eyes.

Ask me for anything, he thought, anything at all, and watch me give it to you. Whoever came before me, they had no idea. I’m up for the challenge.

“Why?” she said. “Would you like to do it?”

“Are you asking me if I want to actually fuck you?”

She nodded.

He held back a smile. “You can answer that on your own.”

“Fair enough.” She forked another neat piece of her French toast, balanced it with a perfect amount of berries and cream, chewed it for longer than it took Eli to scarf down a sandwich on his lunch break. Then asked, without hiding her amusement, “Are you anticipating curing me with your magic cock?”

That was exactly what he’d been hoping, of course. The idea of her coming with his dick inside her was intoxicating all on its own, but the idea of being the first to make her come like that was stuff he would get off to well into his old age. A permanent place in her sexual history. Something that would make her remember him. It was a fantasy, an inappropriate one at that, but Eli tried to avoid punishing himself too much for thoughts that remained contained in his own head. Self-loathing, he’d found, only got him so far.

“There’s nothing you need to be cured of,” he said, fully believing it. “But you might like it. With me.”

“Right. Because of the aforementioned magic cock.” She was teasing him, like she had that first night, before she’d known that she was supposed to hate him. He loved every minute of this.

“Because earlier you told me that you’ve never been with someone more than once. I have, and I can tell you that knowing your partner for more than two hours goes a long way when it comes to having great sex.” He didn’t mention that he wasn’t so sure anymore. That she had redefined the concept of sexual compatibility for him. “I’d like to try, if you’re up for it. If you come, good. If not, I’ll still enjoy myself, and I can get you off half a dozen different ways before. And afterward.”

She bit into her lower lip, mulling. “You won’t get offended if I don’t like it?”

“You like it when I put my fingers in you, don’t you?” So discordant, the clinical way they were discussing the science of fucking and how transportive it felt when they were actually doing it. At least, how he felt. She was never going to allow him to get close to her in any nonphysical way.

“It’s different,” she reflected. “Your cock is much larger. And you know how to use your hands.”

He should have recorded the sound bite. “I know how to use other things, too.” He tried to say it as matter-of-factly as possible. Didn’t succeed.

“I’m sure you think so.” Her mouth twitched in a small smile. So did his. “What if I say no?”

“We continue on as we started. With no complaints from me.” And a whole lot of gratitude.

She nodded. “I’m open to trying. But if I find it boring and yawn in the middle of it, don’t take it personally.”

“Noted.”

“And I will not fake an orgasm for you.”

He bit the inside of this cheek. “Likewise.”

They stared at each other from across the table, condensation rolling down the half-full orange juice glasses, amusement vibrating between them. They were both aware of the improbability of the conversation they’d just had, over breakfast no less. They were both having fun. “I also have a question.”

He nodded at her to go ahead.

“The kink stuff.”

He leaned back in his chair and studied her closely. “What’s your question?”

“I think you can answer that on your own,” she parroted back at him, and he shook his head, giving up on not grinning.

“Do you want to know what I’m into?”

She nodded.

“Are you going to get scared if I tell you?”

“No. People can have all sorts of desires and avoid imposing them on others without their consent. I trust you.”

That was dizzying. And definitely pornographic. Rue Siebert, trusting him. He could do a lot with that knowledge. Play around with the possibility. Maybe, if the stars aligned, act on it. “I enjoy . . . calling the shots.”

She was silent for a beat. “I think I already knew that.” He wasn’t surprised, not after their conversation in one of Kline’s labs. “You’re good at stopping yourself, but sometimes I can tell that you’d rather be . . .”

He waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, he said, “In charge?”

She nodded again, and he smiled at her reassuringly.

“Is it something you need? To enjoy sex?”

“No. Some of the best sex I’ve had incorporated no elements of that.” With you, he didn’t add.

“Was your fiancée into it?”

“She was. We were very well matched in that sense.”

“Do you have a . . . sex dungeon?”

“I live in Texas, Rue. I don’t even have a basement.”

She hid her smile in her knees, then asked, “Did you hurt her? During sex?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t something either of us was interested in. It’s more about control.”

“You taking control?”

“It would be more appropriate to say that she surrendered hers, within the context of sex. These kinds of relationships require trust. Boundaries. Lots of false starts and abrupt stops as we figured it out. Some trial and error.”