“Explain?” he asks, with a dash of alarm.
“Who was she? The other girl.”
“I’d met her before at a party.” I feel my eyebrows dispute this, because how? Unless she was my double. “She was wearing a mask,” he adds, perceiving my doubt. “A mask and very little else.”
“Oh, it wasthatkind of thing.” I nod sagely as though I have firsthand knowledge of such gatherings rather than intel gathered from hot billionaire romance books.
“She was blond and of a similar build to you.” I can literally feel his eyes strain not to look at me again. I guess that makes me Whit’s type. “When the porter called up, I obviously wasn’t listening well enough. I just assumed it was her, that she’d taken me up on my invitation.”
“Your invitation to…”
“To fuck.” The way his teeth graze his lip, the harsh sounding fricative, makes my insides a puddle of goo.
What if we’d gone further? What if I hadn’t said my name?Then he would’ve screwed some random woman, my mind whispers.He wouldn’t have been screwing you.
“So did she turn up after? After me?”
“No,” he answers simply.
I don’t think he realizes my relief. But then, I didn’t expect to feel it, either. “But she likes that kind of stuff?”
His soft laughter makes my arms feel all goose bumpy. “What kind ofstuffwould that be?” he all but purrs, like he can’t help himself.
“Calling you Daddy.” There, I said it—I said it as I resist the urge to wet my parched lips. “Showing you her underwear because you told her to.” My words sound shaky as I glance down at my lap. “Being touched like that. Being talked to like that.” Being owned, I add mentally. Thinking about it makes my insides pulse and my outsides hot and shivery. When I glance up again, it’s with a jolt of pleasure that I realize he’s eating my words up.
“Yes, I think it’s fair to say she enjoys that kind of thing.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because she gets off on it.” His voice is a low rumble, his gaze owning mine. “She enjoys the dynamic.”
“What do you mean?”
“That she enjoys being directed. She gets off on the praise.”
“Oh.” Story… so it checks out. “You think?”
“I do. She probably revels in the power play because she’s a little sexually submissive.”
My answer is a puff of air. I’m submissive? Because theshewe’re discussing is obviously me. I blink and look up. “Submissive,” I whisper to myself before my attention switches to Whit. “So that would make you, what?”
“That would make me…” He crooks a finger, and I lean in closer before he closes the space between us. I shiver as his soft hair brushes my cheek, his lips just a breath from my ear. “None of your business,” he whispers.
I spring back, my cheeks not the only part of me burning. He watches as I lift my hand to the spot beneath my ear as though I could further experience that caress. He watches me without bothering to hide his satisfaction.
“You play dirty.”
“If you’re going to play…” He frowns, leaving the end of his sentence dangling in the air.
“How does a person find someone to play with?” I ask with wide-eyed innocence. I’m not even kidding. I’m not a virgin, but I might as well be as far as this conversation goes. I’m not kidding. All my knowledge of this stuff comes from books andCosmo. “You know, should someone be interested.”
His jaw flexes. The shadow of bristles suits him, somehow highlighting the broad strokes of his bone structure. I’m disappointed when he offers me nothing else but a narrow-eyed dark-gold stare.
“I mean it. If a girl thinks she might like that sort of thing, how does she find someone who also—”
“Mimi.” He makes my name sound like a reprimand. “Cut it out.”
“What? I’m only asking! You can’t get angry with me for that.”
