“You really never had a sub before, huh?” Mal asks after a brief pause, nibbling on the crust of a toast triangle.

“Not anything long term, just a coupl’a exes and hookups.”

“Nothing at the club?”

“Uh, well I joined today, so no.”

“No shit?” Mal’s eyebrows quirk up again. Rowan likes how expressive they are. “Figured you were new since I hadn’t seen you around, but I didn’t peg you for a first-timer.”

Rowan doesn’t tell him that he’s not really a first-timer when it comes to the club scene. Only the nonsketchy, legitimate, legal club scene. Instead he brilliantly says, “Well, you’ve got a dick, so you wouldn’t need to peg me.”

The flat stare he gets in response makes him bite his bottom lip.

“That your way of saying you bottom too?”

“No… well, I have, and I like it every once in a while, but mostly I top. What about you?”

“Eh. Get an itch to top occasionally, but I like havin’ somethin’ up my ass too much to do it all the time.”

“Cool.”

Cool. As if that’s not Rowan’s wet fucking dream. He’s sure his face is doing something stupid, but Mal doesn’t react, so maybe he’s merely mentally drooling.

“So you’ve had Doms before? Long-term ones?” Rowan asks once he regains his composure.

Something in Mal’s expression seems to close off at that, eyebrows knitted together slightly and eyes flicking to the side.

“Yeah. Nothin’ worth sharing.”

“Got it.”

It’s easy to forget that, despite what Mal and Rowan had done together and how they’re talking to each other now, they’re still strangers. And some things don’t need to be shared. Skeletons in the closet and all that. Rowan gets it. His own closet’s practically a fucking graveyard, so he doesn’t resent Mal for not wanting to open up about personal stuff that doesn’t directly involve Rowan.

“You kinda said a few things you like earlier, but what else are you into?” Rowan asks, changing the subject.

“Want my laundry list of kinks, Red?”

Rowan shrugs. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Gonna be here for a while.”

“This place is open twenty-four seven, isn’t it?”

That earns him a smirk and a quick huff of air through Mal’s nose, and Rowan feels his chest puff up a tiny bit at having made Mal laugh again.

“Got a point there. I said I liked it rough, so that includes pushin’ me around, manhandling, overpowering me, all’a that. Bein’ held in place and forced to do whatever the Dom says, obviously consensually. I’m not into that nonconsensual playacting shit. And havin’—”

“Wait, wait, wait, hang on,” Rowan says, fishing for his phone in his pocket and swiping to open his Notes app. “Gonna write this down.”

“Tch. Fuckin’ Boy Scout, huh?”