“Did you? But I didn’t see you on—oh, yours must have been private.”
“Yep. I mean, I thought about pinging you a few times, but with our, um, situation, I thought better of it.” He met my gaze, smiling a little bit sheepishly. “But when I realized you were on your phone right then, I thought, what the hell? I’ll take the chance.” He sat up a bit. He was taller than me by a couple of inches, and the way he sat now emphasized that, made me look up just slightly. “So here we are.”
“Yeah.” I shifted too, lifting my chin. “Here we are.”
Eyes locked on mine, he rested his forearms on the table, which brought him down just slightly. “It’s funny,” he said quietly. “You just never know who’s kinky, do you?” A grin spread across his slim lips. “I noticed you the first time I met you, but I was surprised as hell to see you on Leathr. Realizing we were on the same wavelength…” The grin broadened.
I was about to respond, but the waitress showed up with my drink. I thanked her and, as she walked away, took a deep swallow. “I didn’t expect you to be kinky either.”
“Appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?”
“They can. Especially when you find out that one of the ten most powerful men in the region likes getting down on his knees and having his face fucked.”
Rick dropped his gaze and shuddered hard. The pink in his cheeks didn’t strike me as embarrassment. I suspected that wasn’t the only place he had blood rushing right then.
I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “I kind of like the sound of that, you know? Someone with as much power and influence as you, down on your knees in front of me. Especially if you’ve got your hands tied. And maybe your ankles. If you’re good.”
Rick moistened his lips, and his eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Yeah. We’re on the same wavelength.”
Oh God. This is going to be awesome.
“Good. Good.”
I watched him for a moment. “Have you had any bad experiences with Doms? You don’t have to go into detail, but I’d just as soon not step on any land mines.”
“No bad experiences, no. I still prefer to take things a little slower at first, though. Not just jump in and start breaking out the whips and leather, even when it’s tempting.”
I nodded. “No sense diving in headfirst while we’re still strangers for all intents and purposes.”
He held my gaze. How surreal, even thinking of being anything beyond strangers with him. Or realizing that, despite spending an unholy amount of time together in those stupid meetings, that was exactly what we were—we barely spoke directly to each other, since my bosses freaked out if anyone jumped the chain of command and addressed a client. Even in the same room, at the same table, in the same conversation, our interactions were filtered through Marie or Mitchell.
Until now.
I cleared my throat. “So then I guess the question is, what do we do until we get this ‘stranger’ thing out of the way?”
Rick smiled. “You’re the Dom. I’d say that’s your call.”
“In theory.” I took a drink of my iced tea, because holy hell, my mouth was parched. “But you know how it works—the Dom calls the shots, but the sub is the one in charge.”
“True. Then I guess we’ll take it a little at a time.”
I nodded. “I can work with that.”
“Good. Because I’ve met a few Doms who are impatient as fuck.”
“Ugh. No. I would never move faster than my sub was ready to move.”
“Good,” he said again. “Then I’d say we’re off to a damned good start.”
I nodded.
“And while we’re on the subject, it doesn’t have to be all kink, all the time. In fact, I’d prefer if it wasn’t. I dated a guy for a while who wasn’t into sex unless it was kinky, and it was…” Rick exhaled, shaking his head. “It was exhausting, you know?”
“Yeah, I agree. Some people like it that way all the time, but I’m with you.” I laughed quietly. “Maybe I’m just getting too old.”
Rick snorted. “I doubt that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Because if you are, then I am, and…no.”
I laughed again. “Fair enough. To be serious, though, I do enjoy vanilla too.”
“So I read. And same here.”
God, this was weird. We were in the same booth, on the same wavelength, and if I kept playing my cards right—no, if he kept playing his cards right—we’d be in the same bed.
Except we hadn’t even touched yet. Verbal games only went so far.
We were way too out in the open for any contact beyond hands on the tabletop. Not even touching an arm or teasing the inside of a wrist with a finger. Maybe if we were a couple of twenty-somethings, it would’ve been different, but I came from an era where that sort of thing didn’t fly. And, well, old habits died hard.
But I still wanted to touch him. More than that, I wanted to see him squirm.