Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [474]
I opened my mouth, closed it, stroked my hands down the silk of the robe, and finally had to look away from those pain-filled eyes while I tried to think how to answer. Not truth or lie, but how to say it.
He stood up, suddenly, abruptly. “That’s alright, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Sit back down, Richard. I’m just trying to think how to say it, so it doesn’t sound stupid.”
He stood there, his face all set to be angry, as if he didn’t believe me.
“Fine, stay standing, but you asked if you’d ever hurt me when we made love, right?”
He nodded.
“Yes, and no.”
The scowl turned into a frown. “What does that mean, ‘yes and no’?”
“It means that Mother Nature has made it almost impossible for you to be anything but rough, unless you’re very careful.”
He frowned harder. “I don’t understand.”
Of course he didn’t, of course he would make this as embarrassing as possible. “Richard, you are aware that you’re well-endowed, right?” I felt the blush start creeping up my neck, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I’d always blushed fairly easily, but I’d seldom hated it as much as I did in that moment.
“Raina said I was. It was one of the reasons she wanted me for the movies.”
“You didn’t know you were large before Raina?”
It was his turn to blush. “I was a virgin before Raina.”
I shivered, and the look on his face was so raw, that I said out loud, “The thought of a virgin with Raina is just frightening. She was one very sick puppy.”
He nodded. “I know that, now.”
“Did you know it at the beginning with her?” I asked.
“I didn’t have anything to compare it to,” he said.
I had an idea. Raina had been his first lover, and Raina had been into sadomasochism on a scale that made a joke out of safe, sane, and consensual. She’d done porn, hell, snuff films. She’d been one of the scariest and most twisted people I’d ever met, and I’d met a lot. Richard had nothing to compare it to, what exactly did that mean?
I tried to lead up to it, obliquely, my version of subtle. I went back to my orignial point. “You’re big, Richard, which means when you’re making love, unless you’re careful it can hurt.”
“I did hurt you,” he said, and he sounded desolate.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Richard, listen to what I’m actually saying, don’t editorialize in your own head, okay?” I stood, so I could pace. This was not a conversation for sitting still.
“I’ll try,” he said.
“Good enough.” I came to stand in front of him and tried again. “A lot of women don’t like their cervix bumped during sex.”
He gave me that puzzled frown again. How did I end up giving my ex-fiancé sex education? How does anyone end up in these kinds of conversations? Just unlucky, I guess.
“If you go too deep, you reach the end of most women. You bump into the end of the vagina, you hit their cervix.”
He nodded, then said, “I always come to the end.”
I made a violà gesture. “That’s my point.”
“What’s your point?”
I put hands on hips because either he was being deliberately obtuse, or he really wasn’t getting it. “You’re big enough that you always bump someone’s cervix if you’re in a position that allows all of your . . . penis to go inside her. I can’t be any plainer, Richard, so please make the connection here.”
“You mean it hurts them,” he said.
“Yes.”
“It hurt you,” he said.
“No. I like having my cervix bumped. I have a whole different kind of orgasm from it, so I don’t mind.”
He was frowning again, but more like he was thinking. “You’re saying that if you didn’t like it, that it would hurt.”
“It would just hurt,” I said, “because in some positions, with someone as well-endowed as you are, it is a sort of pain. But for me, and I’m betting for Raina, it was more pleasure than pain.” I hated putting myself in any category that contained Raina, but I would have bet good money that I was right.
“I hurt you, but I