The Mormon and the Dom (11 page)

“I felt you weren’t ready.” Ronan leaned over and kissed the side of Noah’s head. “I didn’t want you to use the safeword your first time.”

“What if I’m never ready?”

Ronan cupped Noah’s chin, lifting his face. “Noah, you’ve asked me that twice. I need you to be honest with me. In this type of relationship, you can’t be coy and demure, hoping that I’ll pick up what you’re putting down. What are you trying to tell me?”

“What if I’m never ready to have sex with you?” The very idea of having Ronan’s cock go inside him scared Noah so much he could barely speak the words. He thought Ronan would be upset and feel Noah had somehow led him on, but Ronan’s reaction was as mild as his attitude toward everything else.

“This isn’t about sex.” Ronan released Noah’s chin. “What we do in there isn’t the same was what we would do in my bedroom.”

On the way to the shower earlier, Noah had gotten a peek into Ronan’s bedroom. It was dark because the shades were drawn, but he’d still been able to make out the masculine color scheme of burgundy, hunter green, and black. It was a man’s room, with a big, sturdy bed and little else. Noah had a feeling the idea of being on that bed with Ronan peering down at him was going to occupy a huge amount of his ongoing fantasy life. However, the thought of actually taking Ronan’s cock into his body was still stone-cold terrifying. Not only was he huge, but there were consequences. A dozen questions crowded in his brain to get out, but he didn’t have the courage yet to ask them. Maybe someday.

“So you don’t want to take me to your bedroom?” Noah wanted to take the question back as soon as he asked it. He wasn’t ready to go there. Why even bring it up? Was some part of him trying to taunt Ronan so he would act and take the choice away from him?

“Noah, look.” Ronan put a little distance between them, sharpening Noah’s attention. “I was honest with you earlier about what I wanted. It seems what I said scared you so much you almost called this off. I’m going to go back on my promise to myself to keep things casual, because I don’t think it’s fair to either one of us.”

“Okay.” Noah had no idea what was coming, so he had no clue how to brace himself.

“I like you. You’re handsome. You’re sweet. I can teach so much to you about not only BDSM but also sex in general. I’m extremely well versed in both. But I’m not some sex-crazed freak who’s going to toss you down and ravish you.” Ronan considered. “Not unless you wanted to play out a ravishment fantasy.”

“People do that?”

“Again, it’s a safe outlet for the desire. No one wants to be raped in real life. My point is I’m only the boss of you when you give me permission. Okay? In the playroom, I love being in charge. It’s the only way I’ll play. But outside the playroom, it’s got to be mutual.”

“You’ve never been the one to be tied up?”

“No.”

Noah’s brain went into overdrive, wondering what he would do with Ronan if he had him bound.

“I can see you like the idea of being the first. Maybe someday I’ll let you do that to me in the playroom. But my point is that when I take a man into my bed, I don’t play those power games. It’s entirely different. That isn’t what you’re afraid of, though, is it?”

“Not really.” Noah had to be clear. “I’m afraid if I went all the way, then I’d be different enough that other people would know I was gay.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. It’s illogical, but I swear, they’d just look and know.”

“What would happen if they did know?” Ronan asked. “Let’s go back to tonight. You walked in, and everyone there knew.”

Noah felt tension creep into his body.

“Now that they know, what would they do? What would they say?”

“I told you I know it doesn’t make sense.”

“I realize that, but let’s pretend it’s possible. Let’s go to the extreme with the fear and see what happens. Okay?”

“Okay.” Just thinking about that being real made the short hairs on Noah’s neck bristle.

“You walk into the burger place. A woman looks at you, and her eyes go wide. She knows. You know that she knows. What happens next?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does she call you names? Does she try to beat you up? Does she pull out a gun and shoot—”

“She tells my parents!” Noah blurted out his greatest fear and immediately clapped his hand over his mouth.

“And what would they do?”

“They’d hate me.” Noah realized what Ronan had done. He’d managed to get to the very nitty-gritty core of his fears. More than anything in the world, Noah feared losing his parents’ love.

“Would they? I find that hard to believe.”

“You don’t know them.”

“They raised you. You’re nice. You’re polite. You genuinely care about other people. I can’t imagine those things came out of nowhere. You learned that from someone. I’m guessing your parents taught that kind of behavior to you.”

Noah
had
learned his manners from his folks. “I just don’t want to disappoint them.”

“So they wouldn’t hate you, but they would be disappointed.”

“I think so.” Noah hadn’t ever allowed himself to think about what would happen if he told his parents. He shied away from the thought, because he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.

“What about your brothers?”

“They’d be disappointed, too. Embarrassed. It would be shameful for everyone in my family, because it would be like guilt by association. My parents would think they’d done something wrong, and my brothers would be furious I’d hurt our parents.”

“Are you the youngest?”

“I am. Does that matter?”

“I was just curious. Don’t you think they would still love you?” Ronan moved incrementally closer, giving Noah the comfort of his presence.

“Maybe. But they’d have to love me from a distance.”

“Why?”

“My dad’s business might be hurt.”

“What does your father do?”

“He has a small construction firm. I learned about the industry working summers for him, but he’s not big enough to need a full-time accountant when he has my mom. My dad’s company does a lot of work for church members.” Noah flashed back to something that happened in high school. “My brother got in a fight with the bishop’s son during his senior year. They were fighting over a girl, and things became violent. When my brother was expelled for a week, my dad’s business suffered.”

“How do you know his business suffered? Did he tell you, or did you notice things were slower?”

“Are you implying my dad is a liar?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m asking you a question.” Again, Ronan didn’t take offense at Noah’s quick heat. He remained calm and kept his place on the sofa. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we can move on.”

“My dad didn’t say anything to us. He said something to my mom that I overheard. And things
were
slower with the business. When the boy my brother was fighting with ended up going on a mission and the girl elected to wait for him, my brother left her alone and then business picked back up.” Noah sighed. “But the lesson was clear. Having the good will of our fellow ward members was a big deal. If everyone in the ward knew I was gay, it could really destroy my parents’ livelihood.”

Chapter Nine

Ronan understood the squeeze on Noah. His concern wasn’t social anxiety or some perception issue that could be corrected with therapy. It was a true and profound question of protecting his parents.

“The official stance from the church is to love the sinner and hate the sin, but that’s not what happens.” Noah looked beyond Ronan, his gaze seemingly on something in the past. “If you’re openly gay, you and your family are shunned. They aren’t even that subtle about what they’re doing.”

“It’s happened before in your ward?” Ronan was guessing, but given how intense Noah’s fear was and that faraway look in his eyes, something had to implant worry deep into his very soul.

Noah nodded miserably. “Sarah Marsters was gay, but she was also devout. She got outed somehow, but she kept coming to church.”

“Good for her.” Ronan wasn’t a religious sort, but the idea that anyone would be put into a position where he or she felt they had to live a lie to stay devout or worship alone in order to be true to themselves saddened him.

“Sarah wasn’t going to change to suit other people.” Noah’s admiration for Sarah was clear, but then his expression turned sad. “They made things so miserable for her and her family she finally moved away.” Noah met Ronan’s gaze, his torment clear. “I always wondered what happened to her.”

“Does she still talk to her parents?”

“I don’t know.” Noah shrugged. “Once she left, it was like she vanished. No one talked about her and her parents never mentioned her. It was like she never existed.”

The situation broke Ronan’s heart. Unlike Noah’s baseless fear that everyone knew his truth by looking at him, this was a genuine concern backed up by a similar situation playing out horribly. Now that Ronan knew such a scenario had directly touched Noah, he wasn’t surprised Noah was terrified of the same thing happening to him. Nothing made such a harsh impact as a glaring example.

Clearly, the thought of hurting his parents or of being torn from them was destroying Noah. Ronan’s initial impulse—anger—was mitigated by his realization that he couldn’t hold that much fury in his heart and still help Noah. Fighting ignorance with rage wasn’t going to do anything but make a bad situation worse. One thing that Ronan knew with certainty was that he had a better chance of swimming to the moon than he did of changing anyone’s mind about homosexuality. Even a part of Noah hated himself for what he was. That was probably never going to change unless Noah gave up a tremendous amount of his current existence.

“I guess now you don’t want to date me anymore, do you?” Noah strove for humor, but it fell a little flat. He expected Ronan to reject him because of all the baggage he brought with him into a potential relationship. What stunned Ronan was that he didn’t want to quit. The old Ronan of just a few short years ago might have immediately set his sights elsewhere, because starting up anything with Noah would mean a tremendous investment of time and effort that had more than an eighty percent chance of failure. What made Ronan want to stay was what he’d seen in Noah in the short time he’d been with him. Cutting him loose would hurt Noah, but it would destroy something in Ronan. A part of him feared if he walked away, Noah would eventually curl up into a ball of self-loathing and die by his own hand.

“I think the more important question is, what do you want?” Ronan was going to trust his instincts. He felt there was a profound connection between them. He believed they could have something great, but he had to know Noah was willing to help himself. Ronan wanted to help, even if his assistance meant he ultimately had to let Noah go, but he couldn’t do it all himself. It would take two of them.

“Me? I want it all.”

“Be more specific.”

“If I could have everything I wanted?”

“Give me a list.”

“I would get rid of my horrible self-consciousness. I would tell my family the truth, and they would love me anyway. The church wouldn’t care. And you—” Noah stopped abruptly when he met Ronan’s gaze.

“And me?”

“You would teach me everything you know about BDSM.”

A part of Ronan wanted to probe deeper into what Noah wanted from him, but he realized if he pushed too hard, he’d push him away. So he didn’t. Noah had made it clear he was afraid of never being ready for sex with Ronan. If he took that out of his expectations, they might eventually get there. Deciding he wouldn’t know until he tried, Ronan evenly offered, “I can give you what you want from me.”

“You’ll do more scenes with me?” Noah seemed genuinely surprised.

“I’d like that very much.”

“And you won’t push for sex?”

“I won’t push for more than you’re willing to give.”

“That’s not fair.” Noah struggled to hold Ronan’s gaze, but he managed. “You can’t ask me to be completely honest with you when you give me answers that can be interpreted in multiple ways.”

“You’re right.” Ronan was actually proud of Noah for calling him on his slippery response. “I owe you the same kind of clarity I’m asking for from you. I won’t push you for sex.”

Noah didn’t seem relieved. Tentatively, he moved back, putting distance between them. “I only want to engage you for scenes.”

Ronan understood. He felt stung, but that didn’t change the fact he had to honor Noah’s feelings. Just because he’d thought there was something more between them didn’t mean Noah did, too. Even if Noah did have an inkling, he was nowhere near ready to embrace a relationship with him or any man.

Noah stood. His entire body was shaking ever so slightly, but resolve seemed to etch his features. “I think it’s best we make this relationship clear from this point forward.”

Ronan knew what was coming, but he was powerless to stop Noah from reaching into his jacket pocket and extracting his wallet. “As you said earlier, money clearly defines the roles between people. I need to do that.”

“I don’t want your money.” Ronan had been a professional Dom for almost a decade. He’d never once felt dirty, but he did now. The image of Noah, ripe with his newly tarnished innocence standing there, his fingers hovering over the bills in his wallet, would stay with Ronan for the rest of his life.

“I can’t do this any other way.” Noah sounded as agonized as he looked. “I swear I’m not trying to be mean to you. I’m only trying to protect myself.”

That comment lessened the sting. It was as if Noah had rubbed salve on the pain he’d inflicted. Ronan grasped what he was trying to do. And though he swore he was out of the professional Dom business, a compelling man who was in dire need of his services yanked him right back in.

Ronan stood, which caused Noah to take a step back. The difference in their heights and weights wasn’t that noticeable when they were cuddled up on the couch. Standing side by side, those differences were profound. Ronan was half a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier. But there was more than that. Noah was light in coloring with his blond corn-silk hair and cornflower-blue eyes. Ronan was dark in coloring with his bronzed skin and brown hair and eyes. They were night and day, but also yin and yang. Opposites attracted because together they often made a whole.