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As they exited the room, he left the door cracked, suggesting he planned to do some work later. How many evenings did he spend here? If she worked late hours, it was likely he would be nearby. He and all his creations. Another hazardous thought.
"Do you listen to music while you do the building and sanding?" she asked, shoving that away.
"Sometimes. Depends on my mood. Usually the local oldies station. They play everything from Motown through the eighties."
"You're showing your age."
"Closing in on forty fast, and proud of it, baby." Giving her a wink, he pulled back the curtain that separated the storeroom from the main floor. "The center aisle here has fasteners, hooks, tie-downs and rope. It's the one Alice needed most often when she was running short on things for her displays. She'd nip in here, grab something and disappear through the curtain, waving at me with what she was taking."
It coaxed a small smile from her, especially when he gave her hair a quick, playful tug. She wanted to apologize for how defensive she'd become in the other room, but she bit it back. He'd been pricking things she'd rather not explore, and maybe her brusque responses would keep him from revisiting that territory. For her part, she knew it was best she steer clear of that room in the future, and show only a distant politeness if he brought up other projects.
Yeah right. Because so far she'd passed that test with flying colors. Not.
"Do you offer discounts to the local dungeon members?"
He nodded, not taking it as the joke she'd intended. "If they show me their membership card, I give them ten percent off for bringing their business here instead of 'Dom Depot'." He fingered a length of chain on a spool, and she found herself caught by how the silver links looked, twined around his knuckles. "D/s equipment is expensive and practitioners are creative. We're always looking for new ways to restrain, to punish."
"Not pleasure?"
"It's all about pleasure, Madison." He met her gaze. "Give me your hand again."
She thought about saying no. Instead she laid her hand in his, curiously docile. When his grip closed over it, he used the other hand to pull off a length of blue nylon rope. He wrapped the silken cord around her wrist. Once, twice . . . three times. Then he held the end of the rope under his thumb over her pulse, his other fingers wrapped around her forearm.
"Breathe," he reminded her. "When I did that, your eyes glazed and your lips parted. Something inside you focused and got still, waiting."
"What am I waiting for?" she asked, hearing a whispery note to her voice. She cleared her throat.
"To see what I'll do next. What I'll demand from you." Slow and easy, but confident--the way she suspected he'd deal with a shy wild animal--he shifted behind her, his chest pressed against her back. Sliding his free hand onto her shoulder, he gripped it briefly before he moved to her throat, his fingers settling over it in a firm collar.
"Ah . . ." Her mind flailed for an appropriate response, but every other part of her got even more still, as if waiting for the answer to a question.
"When I place my hand over a submissive's neck like this, she might be keyed up, anxious, or aroused, but there's a subtle give, a relaxing of tension. In this position, where I hold all the power, there's nothing she can do. Nothing she needs to do. I've got her, on every level."
Oh God. It was just like her fantasy. I've got you. You're all fucking mine.
"Like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf?" She forced out the comment, all too aware she was leaning against him, not pulling away, when she should have jumped back like he'd hit her with electrodes.
"You know how they say magic is just unexplained science? In D/s, chains are magic. Binding the body frees the soul, lets it fly. A woman stops thinking. She just feels."
"You're thinking again. You get punished when you think." More of the same fantasy.
He stroked her carotid with light fingertips and she barely suppressed a moan. She expected he felt the vibration beneath his hold, though.
"Think about Naughty Bits," he murmured. "Some women walk by it with those ugly-assed rectangular glasses and their overeducated noses in the air, and see it as frivolous or worse, a disgrace, where women do things to please men, serve their baser desires."
"Alice would talk about that. She knew it wasn't true."
"So do you. Deep down, you know the opposite is true. It's where a woman can explore a different, powerful side of herself, unleash it for mutual pleasure."
His thumb holding the rope lifted, and she watched it loosen and uncoil, dropping away as she lowered her arm and he stepped back from her. He kept a hand at her waist, not removing that support until she was steady on her feet.
Just as she'd thought, he was teaching her. He probably did demonstrations at his club. That was why he could draw her into something as captivating as any stage performance. It wasn't personal. She could tell him to back off if she thought he was going overboard, if he was using it as an excuse to feel her up, but this didn't feel like that.
Alice had told her to trust him so he could make her see Naughty Bits in a way that would help her continue its success. All this was merely an unusual on-the-job training program. Thinking about the customer earlier in the day, versus this moment, Madison could see the connection, a hint of the possibilities. She wasn't supposed to be a clerk, telling her clientele which aisle held nipple clamps. She was a travel agent, helping plan a memorable experience. It made her wish she could turn the clock back to the morning and do it over.
But if she could do that, she'd turn the clock back for far more important things.
"Alice used to say, if time travel were possible, people shouldn't go back in time to stop huge catastrophes. They should change small things, because a pebble has the best effect. Ripples-on-the-pond."
