by Evelyn Adams
“Let me guess,” I said, tugging my hand free of his and feeling the loss immediately. “You don’t want me to orgasm without your permission.” I slid enough derision in my voice to make it clear exactly what I thought about his suggestion.
“Good Lord, no,” he said, laughing so loud a couple passing on the street glanced in our direction. “Kitten.” He pitched his voice low and despite my frustration, I leaned closer. “I want you to have as many orgasms as you possibly can. I want your body drenched with sweat as you ride your hand or your vibrator—hell, the fucking bed frame for all I care. Spend all day, every day, figuring how to get yourself off if you want.”
His words sent my already aroused body on hyper alert. My panties had gone from damp to drenched and were rapidly heading toward natural disaster state.
“But you said...” I stuttered the words out as soon as I managed to marshal enough breath to make a sound.
“I said I don’t want you to orgasm alone. Before you come, you need to send me a text, call me, send me a video or a screaming voice mail. Just don’t go it alone. Reach out.”
I worked his instructions around in my head, trying them on for size. The idea of him listening to me climax both excited and terrified me. I’d never planned on letting him get that close, which was insane on any level because I’d stripped naked for the man. He was settling for something as anonymous as a text.
“Why?”
Before he answered, he reached out to cuff my wrist with his hand, circling it with his thumb and index finger, catching me in place and making me feel both small and safe.
“Part of submitting and real intimacy is a willingness to make yourself vulnerable. I have a feeling it’s been a long time since you’ve been vulnerable with anyone.”
I wanted to deny it, to tell him he was full of shit, but I couldn’t lie to him. Not about this.
“Can you do that for me?”
I swallowed hard and nodded.
I managed to make it to the elevator and let the doors slide shut behind me before I slid my hand into my panties. My fingertips slipped effortlessly over my clit. I couldn’t remember ever being this wet. Before the car reached the third floor, I was sagging against the wall, Erik’s name on my lips as the orgasm crashed over me.
The first climax barely took the edge off my hunger and any satisfaction evaporated as the doors slid open on the floor to my studio. I was going to have to do that again, who knew how many times, to work the lawyer out of my system so I could concentrate on something other than the way he made my body respond. I ignored, for the time being, I’d promised to tell him when I did. I could probably lump them together. One text for a handful of orgasms should do it. I was going to sink into a long, hot bubble bath, come as many times as I wanted and call it one. One bath. One session. Letter of the law and all that shit.
I keyed in the code to the studio. I could have gone home and straight to the bath, but I needed my phone. And my bra. Without Erik’s jacket, I felt much too exposed to walk the short distance to my apartment. Ignoring the way my body tightened at the memory of the last time I’d been in the space, I crossed the room. One of the drawers to my cabinet was open a fraction of an inch. I went to close it and then stopped, pulling it open instead. There was an empty space in the red velvet lining where one of the pairs of nipple clamps normally sat. The man had pocketed my clamps.
Ignoring the tingle in my breasts at the idea of Erik walking around with nipple clamps in his pocket, I closed the drawer. I made quick work of shrugging into my bra and refastening my blouse. When I was sure I was presentable, I grabbed my phone. Email would have to do. I’d never gotten his number. Except when I woke up my phone, there was a new stored contact. Under Sir.
It was marginally better than Master, I suppose.
CAME IN THE ELEVATOR. SORRY. DIDN’T HAVE MY PHONE.
I watched the screen, waiting for his reply. It came back so quickly he must have been expecting my text.
SINCE I KNOW HOW MUCH YOU WANTED ME, WE’LL MAKE AN EXCEPTION THIS TIME.
Well hell, I hadn’t exactly thought that one through. The man didn’t need any help with his confidence.
I WANT MY NIPPLE CLAMPS BACK. SURELY YOU MAKE ENOUGH TO BUY YOUR OWN.
It took longer for him to reply, and I was feeling a little smug for maybe finally leaving him speechless for a change.
KITTEN, THE NEXT TIME YOU SEE THEM, YOU’LL BE WEARING THEM.
I swallowed hard (I had a feeling it was going to replace my antacid habit), silenced my phone and locked up for the day. I didn’t stand a chance.
I FINISHED LISTENING TO THE text-to-voice app read back the last of the string of emails and popped the earbud out. I’d already gone over the notes for the meeting a dozen or so times. I should be ready, but after the debacle with the GS case, I couldn’t afford to fuck this up. I’d messaged the other partners about my recusal and forwarded the files to one of the junior associates, but I’d taken the chicken-shit way out, disguised as business, and hadn’t actually spoken to anyone. I had no idea the extent of the fallout, but it couldn’t be good.
I’d been tightening the ropes around the shipping firm for months. Tonight was the night to close the deal and move my firm into the number-one spot as counsel for one of the largest transportation companies in the country. Hell, it was only a matter of time before they were number one in the world. If—when—I got them to sign with us, I’d be a superhero.
Assuming I didn’t let the distraction get the better of me. Alex had me twisted up in knots. I’d spent way too much time trying to push her out of my head, with only marginal success. I tucked the notes into my folio. The words had started to turn and run into each other anyway. I glanced down at my phone one last time to see if she’d responded to my last text. I hadn’t heard from her since her elevator text and that was too damn long ago. I could multitask with the best of them, but only if I could compartmentalize the different pieces. The sexy Dr. Smithson managed to work her way into everything, and I was having a hard time picking out the individual threads, which wasn’t going to work for me. I needed this dinner to go well.
The town car pulled to a stop in front of the restaurant and I tried to ignore the jolt I got from seeing the place where I caught Alex the first time we met. Maybe dinner at Matt’s hadn’t been such a great idea. I’d chosen it weeks ago because the staff knew me and would go out of their way to ensure the dinner went off without a hitch. As long as I managed to stay out of my own fucking way.
I thanked the driver and hurried through the front door. The pretty hostess smiled at me and led me to a table on the second floor overlooking the balcony, where Jared was already waiting, looking a thousand times more comfortable than I felt.
“You need to chill the fuck out, man,” said Jared, after I’d placed my drink order and dropped my folio on the floor. “Clients can smell desperation a mile away. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” Or I would be by the time the Gulf Enterprises team arrived. I might have to work harder than Jared at some things, but confidence wasn’t usually one of them.
“First you’re dropping cases and now you’re twitchy before meetings. Get it together.”
That answered the question about whether he’d heard about the recusal and added to the long list of things I didn’t want to talk about. I couldn’t bullshit Jared. He might not figure out the truth but he’d smell the lie.
“Stop being an ass. The client’s here.” Grateful for the diversion, I stood as the hostess led the small group to our table. The fact that I thought of the reason for the meeting as a diversion illustrated how screwed-up my priorities had become.
I managed to make it through the small talk over appetizers and worked my way into the meat of the deal during the entrees. By the time the server set the blood orange-infused custards in front of us, I’d hit my stride. Jared had relaxed back into his chair, clearly confident in my ability to close.
“We’ll take
good care of you,” I said, standing and clasping the owner’s hand after the coffee cups were empty and the papers had been signed.
“I’m sure you will.” The older man gripped my elbow and squeezed my hand, clearly intending to convey a dominance over me he didn’t have.
He could knock himself out if it made him feel more secure. I knew how good I was. I didn’t need to white-knuckle the old man to prove it. The deal would make the firm a lot of money, but there was nothing one-sided about it. With the potential pitfalls involved in navigating international markets and regulations, Gulf Enterprises was lucky to get us. At any price. I was feeling pretty damn satisfied. And then my phone buzzed with an incoming text.
I always turned my phone off during meetings but I’d been so caught up waiting for Alex to text, I’d forgotten.
“Do you need to get that?” asked the older man, arching a brow.
I glanced at our joined hands and realized my grip had involuntarily tightened at the sound of the incoming message.
“No, of course not,” I said, relaxing my hand and reaching up to clap him reassuringly on the back a second before my pocket started to talk.
Fuck. I’d left the text-to-voice app open. Losing what was left of my cool, I reached inside my pocket to silence the phone but not before it broadcast its message to everyone within earshot.
“I came again. In the tub this time.”
The computer-generated voice did nothing to hide the meaning of the message. If anything, it made the whole thing that much worse.
“Client?” asked the company’s PR person, not bothering to hide his grin.
The owner didn’t look amused, and I could see Jared in my peripheral vision looking like he’d be happy to take a bat to my Porsche. I couldn’t blame him. I shut off the phone but the damage was done.
“No, sir. That was personal. I apologize.”
The older man nodded but it was clear from his expression exactly what he thought about his attorneys having personal lives. At least we still were his attorneys. Despite my colossal lapse in judgment, I could still spin this as a win.
He made a noncommittal noise, and I said a silent prayer of gratitude that Alex’s text came in after the papers had been signed. Of course, if I hadn’t had my head up my ass and remembered to turn off the app, it wouldn’t have mattered either way.
Jared circled around the table, submitting to his own round of Vulcan death grip handshakes before walking the team to the top of the stairs. I took the opportunity to slip the phone from my pocket and open Alex’s message, without the sound this time. The picture was worse.
“Who do you have waiting for you in the tub?” asked Jared from too close behind me. “And here I thought your problem was blue balls-induced stress.”
I stuffed the phone in my pocket, not caring that I looked guilty as hell. There was no way on God’s green earth I was sharing Alex’s photo with Jared.
“No one.” He wouldn’t buy it, but I had to try.
“Fuck you.”
“Nice talk. We did it.” I tapped the signed contract still sitting on the table, hoping to distract him.
“Yeah, yeah, we get to learn international shipping regulations. Woo-hoo. Who’s in the tub?” He collapsed back in his seat and pinned me with his courtroom glare, the one he used with hostile witnesses. “Wait a minute. It’s Dr. Smithson, isn’t it? The Dom trainer. She’s the reason you ditched the case.” His eyes went so wide his eyebrows hit his hairline. “Dom whisperer is more like it if she’s got you this fucked up.”
I pressed my lips together. Unless I looked him in the eye and lied my ass off, he was going to find out about Alex.
“Holy shit!” he said, loud enough to make other diners glance in our direction.
“I don’t think they heard you on the other side of the Quarter.”
“Holy shit.” He pitched his voice artificially low but his eyebrows were still trying to bury themselves in his hairline. “You are so screwed. Who else knows? The other partners?”
“No and they won’t. Not unless you tell them.”
I glared at him and he held his hand up in front of his face like the most unlikely Boy Scout on the face of the planet.
“I’m not telling. So what’s the deal? You recuse yourself this morning and have her accounting for her orgasms by dinner? What the fuck, man?”
I didn’t like how crazy it sounded when he laid it out like that. I directed things; I didn’t react. Except with Alex. All bets were off where she was concerned.
“Remember the woman from the bar a couple of weeks ago?”
The speed with which he recalled the casual meeting was a testament to how long it had been since my friends saw me with a woman.
“The one with the redhead. I remember.”
I waited for a moment while he puzzled through things.
“No way. She’s Dr. Smithson? The one you were trying to ruin this morning?”
I nodded, letting the realization settle over him at the same time it all came rushing back to me.
“The Lexi responsible for the clusterfuck at the club? No shit.” He blew out his breath and shook his head.
“That about sums it up.”
“So what happened? You had a colossal hard-on for her this morning,” he said, grinning at his choice of words. “I remember talk of ‘burying the reckless woman who had no clue what she was playing at.’ How did you get from there to here?”
“I got her to agree to take me through a session.” I left out the paying her part. I was already on legal ground so shaky I could go under at any moment. I didn’t need to add to the quicksand.
“I’m not sure whether to bow to your awesomeness or run before the lightning strikes. You’re either a genius or totally fucked.”
Or both, I thought.
“It didn’t work out exactly the way I’d planned.” Understatement of the century.
“I don’t know, man. She’s calling to tell you she got herself off in the tub. It seems to me that has promise.”
He gave me a shit-eating grin and I felt my lips curving in spite of the warning alarms going off in my head.
“Maybe.”
“Are you going to bring her to the club? It’s been a long damn time since you played in public. What better way to teach her what she doesn’t know?”
Jared had a point. I couldn’t explain why the idea didn’t sit well with me, but something about taking Alex to play at the club felt off. I was going to continue letting my gut run the show. For now at least.
“It’s too soon.” It was a bullshit answer but it was the best I could give him.
“For her or for you?” he asked, clearly skeptical.
“Both maybe.”
“You’ve got to know, but don’t wait too long. Julie’s been gone a long time.”
Hearing him say my ex’s name caught me off guard and I realized she didn’t even play into my decision not to take Alex to Bacchus. Interesting.
The server appeared with two rocks glasses of Scotch and the chef’s apologies. Apparently Matt was too busy in the kitchen to join us. It had been a long shot. The restaurant was packed.
“No worries,” said Jared, winking at the pretty young woman. “At least he sends exceptional presents.”
She smiled at him and shook her head, clearly over him before he even got started. Smart woman. I took a swallow of the smoky amber liquid, wondering how long I was going to have to wait before I could ditch my nosey friend and figure out how I wanted to respond to Alex’s text.
“Was there something else on your mind?” I tossed it out there all casual like but I could tell by the arch of his eyebrow he wasn’t buying it.
“Why yes actually, there was. Unless you have somewhere else you need to be? Like maybe in a tub somewhere?”
“Shut up. What is it?”
“I’m just messing with you. It can wait until the morning. Sounds like you’ve got your hands full. Or are about to,” he said, grinning. “I’m gla
d. You’ve been alone too long. And unlike me, one-night hookups never really seemed to do it for you.”
I opened my mouth to tell him it wasn’t like that—that I was still alone. Whatever Alex and I were doing, it wasn’t a long-term relationship. But when I started to speak, I realized I didn’t want to say the words out loud. How fucked up was that?
“Thanks.” I should stay and talk until Jared was ready to go, but it felt like my phone with Alex’s photo was burning a hole in my jacket pocket.
“Go on,” he said, waving me away. “I’m going to head downstairs to the bar for a bit. See if I can find someone new to the city in need of some company.”
I didn’t wait. I shook his hand and headed for the exit. My phone was in my hand before I hit the bottom of the stairs.
“OOH, WHAT’S IN THE FANCY box?” I asked, glancing at the boutique store package resting on Charlotte’s orderly desk.
After we left the deposition, I’d gotten a dozen or so increasingly demanding texts from her, culminating with an admonition to get my pretty little ass into her office at nine or she’d show me what a flogger could really do. She was tiny; I could take her. But I loved her so I hauled my butt into her office in the morning to answer questions I’d much rather avoid.
“I have many, many questions.” She peered at me over the top of her reading glasses, managing to look like a cross between a sexy Alice in Wonderland and an angry nun. “But since you went first, you tell me. Why is Erik Jensen, Esq., sending gifts addressed to you from Les Bains de Mer to my office?”
“It’s from him?” I asked, taking a step back and staring at the pale-blue box printed with delicate white shells as if it might hold a snake. That’s what did in Cleopatra, right? Not that I was comparing myself to the Egyptian queen or anything, but trust a dangerous man and the next thing you knew, you were getting snake deliveries.
