Naughty November

Chapter 1

ONE

ASHTON

“Did you need to work tonight?” Micha’s words were casual but there was a hint of don’t bullshit me in his tone.

Fuck.

“Um, no.” Clearly, pretending to have to work late on nights it was supposed to be my turn to pick hadn’t been as subtle as I’d hoped. “I’m done for the weekend.”

The fact that I was slightly frustrated about that said a lot about my state of mind because I loved my big lug more than life itself and he was starting to give me his I’m pissed look.

It was subtle. He wasn’t the type to get loud and angry. No, it was worse…he got disappointed. Ugh. I was such a dick.

Micha looked relaxed as he leaned back against the couch and flicked through the options on the TV, but his twitchy foot gave him away. It was one of his only tells and I’d been careful not to point it out, so to see his foot shift up and down made it clear he wasn’t as calm as he appeared. “You know, there’s probably a new movie out we could go see if you want.”

Ugh .

I was a royal dick.

“It’s Friday.” Frowning, I glanced over at the jar on the bookshelf. “And it’s my Friday. I get to pick.”

After a night of kinky crafts like decorating a jar with penis ribbon, the silly game of pulling kinks and BDSM topics out of the jar had started off as something ridiculous we’d done to spice things up without it being too stressful…but now it had gotten stressful. After a year of us alternating picking one out of the jar each week, we were down to only a handful, and somehow they’d ended up being the ones I was most nervous about.

I should’ve never crafted drunk.

Somehow after more than one drink, I lost all inhibitions and actually answered things honestly.

It was fucking dangerous, and while I had too much self-respect to cheat and go fishing for the ones I wanted to hide, I had questionable enough morals to try to avoid them.

Which was how I’d ended up with a frustrated partner looking at me like he didn’t believe me for a second.

He was really smart.

“Ashton, do you understand why I’m questioning what you want?” His unfortunately very reasonable question had me trying not to look too innocent. He wouldn’t believe it at all and I’d just end up looking more guilty.

“Um…” Ugh. He kept asking questions that were going to get me in trouble. “Yes. But there’s nothing to worry about.”

Trying to subtly work in the truth didn’t help the situation.

Nope.

He picked me up off the couch and sat me on his lap.

Sometimes one of my favorite things about our relationship was our size difference but sometimes it made me want to pout like a disgruntled five-year-old.

“I tried being patient.” Micha looked like that plan wasn’t in play any longer. “I tried asking you open-ended questions.”

Oh, yeah.

“Sorry?” I hadn’t exactly been a dick with those but I hadn’t been helpful either .

He huffed.

Ugh.

“I gave you space to work through your thoughts.” His gaze narrowed and he glared at me. I had to remind my dick that it wasn’t supposed to be sexy and he was an idiot if he thought Micha was trying to play with us. “Those plans didn’t work.”

Duh.

It was me we were talking about and he’d clearly forgotten that part.

“I’m sorry I frustrated you. That wasn’t my intention.” Avoiding the situation we were currently in had been my goal but that’d failed spectacularly. “Would you like to skip jar night and do something else? You’re kind of stressed.”

Understatement of the year right there.

“Do you want a blow job? How about we go get ice cream?” For a guy who looked a bit like a lumberjack and a biker had a baby, he loved sweets, and ice cream was one of his favorite things. “I could go for some chocolate ice cream.”

Oh, he was weakening.

“You could come over and ask me if I’d recommend it.” Raising one eyebrow, I gave him a quick peck. “You were so cute when you first tried flirting with me.”

He’d been adorably awkward when he’d been trying not to make me nervous, but what he hadn’t realized was that he was my walking fantasy, and I’d nearly come just seeing him.

Finally chuckling, he shook his head and tried to glare at me again. “You are not going to get out of this conversation just by looking cute.”

I was certainly going to try.

Wiggling on his lap, I cocked my head and pouted. “Don’t you want to pretend to go on our first date again?”

He snorted. “That was not our first date and you know it.”

Ha.

“But you’re not going to distract me with that argument either.” And he got me that time, finally glaring again. “Good try, though.”

“Thank you.” Sighing, I crashed into him and curled up so I could rest my head on his shoulder. “It’s been a lot of work. ”

“I know.” Rubbing my back, he kissed my head. “So let’s try a new way to handle the situation.”

I had to sigh dramatically again to make sure he knew I wasn’t happy with the situation , but he just silently chuckled, making his chest jerk. “If you insist.”

“I do.” Leaning back against the oversized couch, he continued to rub my back as he settled in for the duration. It was his we’re not going anywhere position and I knew I’d fucked up when we found ourselves like that. “I think we’re going to try talking through the problem this time.”

Yuck.

Talking sucked.

“If you think that’ll work, we can try it.” Closing my eyes, I pouted and sighed again, but he just ignored me.

He was really good at that when he wanted to be.

“I think it’s worth attempting, so to start, you’re going to explain to me why you’ve been ignoring the jar.” When I just groaned, his chest jerked again. “Alright, simpler question. Do you understand that we both know you’ve been trying to avoid jar night when it’s your turn to pick?”

Okay, that was easier.

“Yeah, I need to work on being more subtle.” It wasn’t my strong suit. “Stop laughing.”

He definitely wasn’t subtle either.

“Sorry.” He managed to control himself and kissed my head. “Let’s try this again.”

He hadn’t forgotten about it yet?

I was toast.

“Do you remember that you can safeword over any topic in the jar?” My nod confused him and he hummed, going still. “You’re sure you remember that?”

I was driving him batshit.

“Yes, even if we were the one to put something in the jar, we can yellow and put it back or red and just take it out. Sometimes the things we were curious about change and that’s okay.” He’d put bottoming in the jar, but he’d finally redded after yellowing three different times .

I wasn’t even sure why he’d put it in there to begin with considering I didn’t want to top, but he’d finally admitted he thought he should be sharing all of himself with me.

He was cute, but he wasn’t making me do all the work in the bedroom.

“Are there options in the jar that you want to red but are worried about telling me that?” There was doubt in his voice before he’d gotten the sentence out, so he didn’t seem surprised when I shook my head.

“Alright, I didn’t think so.” We both knew I was pretty good at saying no to things I thought were a turnoff. “Oh.”

Ugh.

“Are there options left in the jar that you’re embarrassed about wanting to try?” There was no more doubt in his voice but there was a lot of curiosity.

I didn’t manage to say yes but I did shrug.

He knew that was making progress, so he kept pushing. “Did you put something in the jar you know I wouldn’t want to do?”

I found myself shaking my head before I’d remembered that I was going to be stubborn.

Shoot.

“No. You’re very open-minded.” And he’d explored a variety of kinks before we’d met. I was the one with a slightly boring background and had been damned near vanilla before he’d helped me fix that.

“So you put topics in the jar that you know I’m okay with but that you’re embarrassed about wanting and you’ve just been hoping they wouldn’t get picked?” It sounded insane when he said it like that.

“Well, I was hoping that you’d pick them so you could safeword if it came down to that. If I didn’t pick them, I couldn’t worry about it as much.” Hmm. That didn’t sound any more sane when I said it that way. “It was logical at some point.”

He made another rude sound, but I got a kiss, so I decided not to complain.

“I know it was logical to you.” It was my turn to make a rude noise, but he just ignored me. “So this is what we’re going to do. There are only a handful of topics left, so we’re going to lay them out and we’re going to have a very rational conversation about the ones you’re embarrassed by.”

Ugh.

I hated it when he was a good partner and Dom.

The domination and submission side of our relationship was laid back and relaxed, but every once in a while, something hit his Dom side just right and it’d come out to play. Unfortunately, that usually revolved around things I was being a pain in the ass about.

“Fine.” There had to be a way to get out of it. I just had to figure that out before he let me off his lap. “We’ll have a good conversation.”

He picked me up.

Damn it. Sometimes being short sucked.

“Don’t grumble.” Micha huffed as I made an attempt to follow that order. “Grab the jar.”

I was still debating how to escape when he stopped at the bookshelf that covered one big wall and smacked my butt. “Now.”

He was such an asshole sometimes.

“I’m getting it.” I’d just been slow. “See?”

He snorted. “Good boy.”

“That’s cheating.” He knew I liked that phrase too much.

“No, it’s using my resources.” Micha shrugged as he took us back over and sat us down on the couch again, still keeping me trapped. “And my brain, because I think I’ve been too nice about letting you avoid your yellows for too long.”

Damn it.

Somehow I’d done this to myself but I couldn’t figure out how.

“Deciding that you’re not ready to try them yet is one thing, and even changing your mind isn’t an issue, but you’ve been avoiding them.” Micha’s disappointed tone was back and the worst part was that he was upset at both of us.

“So what we’re going to do is to look at the last topics and we’ll talk about them.” Taking the jar from me, he set it on the couch beside us. “We can say that we’re excited to try something. We can say we’re nervous about it but it’s not a problem. We can say yellow and do our best to explain our first thoughts. But the one thing we’re not going to do is to refuse to react completely. I need information to keep you safe and happy. That supersedes anything else.”

Sighing didn’t get me any attention at all. He just pretended to ignore me as he opened the glass mason jar I’d decorated with penis ribbon and dumped out the last of the pieces of paper. There were five. I’d lost track of some of them but I giggled when he turned over the first paper and it said toes.

It was Micha’s turn to sigh. “I still don’t know why I picked that one. Feet are not sexy.”

“You’d been reading one of my books.” Micha wasn’t a big reader but occasionally he got curious since I read so much. It was my favorite way to wind down, and one of his favorite ways to relax was to read over my shoulder and comment on what the characters were doing.

“That’s right.” Huffing, he set the paper down. “That character was very…enthusiastic.”

And Micha liked it when people got excited…so he’d gotten caught up in the moment.

I still wasn’t sure if he would’ve yellowed on it or not, but I didn’t have time to think about that when he turned the next one over.

Ugh.

“Your stillness is very telling, baby.” Setting aside the piece of paper I didn’t want to talk about, he picked another one. “Ah, clothespins.”

It was hard to remember to be stressed when some of the options were so much fun. Giggling, I buried my face against his neck. “I kept hoping you’d pick that one so we could see if you liked them too.”

I liked anything that pinched and squeezed. Spankings were fun under the right circumstances, but I wasn’t really into thuddy, sharp pain sensations. Micha, on the other hand, wasn’t a sub at all when it came to bedroom stuff and he’d never tried them.

Huffing, he set the paper down in the pile with the feet one. “You were a very precocious teenager.”

Yep.

“And…oh, I don’t remember you putting this in there.” Micha chuckled softly when I couldn’t resist freezing again. “I’m starting to see what you were so nervous about. ”

Ugh.

“Drunk me was very confident.” It wasn’t sober me’s fault, but I was the one dealing with the fallout.

“You had two margaritas over the course of an hour. You were not drunk enough to blame your choices on the drinks. You were sober enough that I let you use a glue gun.” He seemed very sure of my state of mind, but we clearly had very different memories of that night. “Let’s see if there’s anything else that would make you nervous.”

No.

Those were it.

“Alright, everything else is cute or something I’m pretty sure you were very eager to try, so we’re going to set those aside and put them back in the jar.” He stretched out, giving me time to process or panic by putting the rest of the papers away very slowly, but eventually there were just the two on the couch beside us. “There we go.”

Yep.

There was no avoiding it any longer.

“Tickling and wetting.” Micha kissed my head as both arms wrapped around me. “What are your first thoughts, baby?”

That I was an overconfident idiot and I wasn’t going to drink margaritas anymore.