Unexpected

Chapter 15

Which made the entire thing even funnier to me, although Alex still looked a bit stunned.

Which REALLY made me lose it.

“I warned you, you knew that was coming!” I cackled when I could finally catch my breath. “I guess it’s good to know how quick your guards are, that was impressive. Although I suppose if we were going to engage in any sort of kinky sex, we might want to let them know beforehand if we don’t want to be interrupted.”

“Sadly you’re right, but the thought of that conversation would be reason enough for me never to want to do it.”

My curiosity was piqued. “So have you ever done anything like that, like spanking or handcuffs or anything?”

“Did you seriously just ask me about spanking when I still have a red hand print on my bum from you?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Oh God, I didn’t even think about that. Ok, let me amend that -- besides our long history of S&M, have you ever done anything like that in a relationship?”

“No, it’s honestly never particularly appealed to me. Which is just as well, because I can’t imagine truly trusting anyone well enough to not disclose it after we broke up. That would be quite the headline, as you can imagine.”

“How long has it been since you’ve been in a relationship?”

Alex grabbed me and kissed me soundly, making me forget what I’d even asked.

“What was that for?” I asked. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“That was just such a normal thing for you to be curious about but I have honestly never had anyone ask me that question before. Everyone has already just known. To answer your question, I dated someone about a year and a half ago, if I remember the timing correctly. I ended things because I just didn’t see it going anywhere -- she was perfectly nice but not all that deep, not to be cruel.”

“Is…” I hesitated, not sure I wanted to know the answer to the question I was about to ask. “Do you think that’s a large part of your attraction to me, that you managed to find the one woman on earth that doesn’t know everything about you? If I HAD known who you were from the moment we met, would you even have been interested?”

Alex paused, clearly considering what I’d asked him, which I appreciated. It would have been easy for him to just give me some quick glib reply to make me feel better, but I’d much rather have honesty. “That’s a completely fair question but it’s hard to answer. I know that if I had managed to get to know you like I have now, I would have been interested, without question. I also know that I was interested, or more precisely, I know I wanted you, not to put too fine of a point on it, from the first moment I laid eyes on you. But if you’d looked at me with recognition in your eyes when I first spoke to you on the beach, maybe...you know what, scratch that. I think I’d only have lost interest in you had you squealed or gushed over me that first day, and I don’t think you’d have ever done that. At least not to me. Maybe if John Mayer had sat down next to you…”

“Well, that’s just true. I would have lost my damn mind if Mayer sat next to me on the beach that day. I think he’s the only person I’d totally fangirl all over though. Not some measly prince.”

“Measly prince? Measly prince? I’ll show you ‘measly,’” he said, grabbing me and pulling me on top of him. We kissed for a bit, then he asked me. “What about you, when was your last relationship?”

Ugh, I’d been hoping we’d never have to have this conversation. “At the risk of making myself seem even more like an oddity than a 24 year old virgin, I’ve never been in a real relationship. I didn’t date in high school, mostly because I grew up in a very small town with not a lot of guys to date, but also because I was just so tremendously awkward around boys. I mean, I had a lot of guy friends, but whenever I got the slightest crush on any of them, I went full on weird on them -- like, I couldn’t even remember how to talk to them even though I’d known them for most of my life. As you can imagine, this type of behavior didn’t really land me a lot of dates.” I glanced over at Alex. “Am I boring you? I’m sorry this is so long!”