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His tenacity was inspiring, and I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of determination. I had to do this. I didn’t want to be a scared, timid girl, afraid of the shadows lurking in the night. I wanted to explore the dark edges of desire—with him—and I wanted to please him.

“Do you have any highlighters around here?” I asked.

“Ah, I might?”

The perplexed expression on his face was almost comical, forcing me to clarify my obsessive need for organization.

“My OCD is kicking in. I mean, I’m not really OCD. I just need to color code this stuff, okay?”

His confusion was slowly replaced by amusement, making me fully aware of how silly this all was, despite my crazy need to have some sort of framework outlined for this relationship.

“Let me see what I can find,” he said with a slight chuckle.

Alexander went back over to his desk and began rifling through a drawer. I took a minute to scan the list again. I thought about the night before and the way he had worked magic on my body. I’d certainly enjoyed it, ropes and all. I was sure it was only a sampling of what he could make me feel.

I need to keep an open mind—with both pain and pleasure.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Alexander

As I rifled through one of my desk drawers, searching for highlighters, I was dumbfounded over how quickly Krystina was able to diffuse my temper. When she’d come into my office, I had every intention of solely focusing on business and calling it quits on the other half of the deal. After all, she had left me alone last night.

When I’d needed her.

But then she walked into my office. Just the sight of her stopped me in my tracks. As much as I tried, I couldn’t concentrate on the business in front of me. Gone was the thought of ending the personal side of our agreement. Instead, I could only focus on her alluring face and the memory of her head thrown back in passion. And although she was now clothed in tight jeans and a Wally’s T-shirt, I couldn’t help but envision the sight of her perfect breasts molded in my hands, responsive to every touch.

I walked back to where Krystina was sitting and held out my hand to show her the findings—a red marker and a yellow and green highlighter.

“I thought you could use the red Sharpie to cross off any definite ‘no,’ the yellow highlighter for a ‘maybe’ and the green one for a ‘yes.’ Is that OCD enough for you?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Alex. But, yes—this will work just fine,” she bit out, snatching the colored markers out of my hand.

I watched her run her finger down the list, immediately taking the red marker to cross off caning.

“Remember what I said, Krystina. I won’t hurt you,” I said, interrupting the striking of her script.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she said, and I was curious as to why she was suddenly so certain of that. Perhaps I was finally beginning to gain her trust.

“I’m glad you’re starting to have a little bit of faith in me. Keeping that in mind, you shouldn’t cross things off so quickly.”

“This particular thing, it’s not about trust or faith, Alex. It just sounds so medieval. The whole idea is a turn-off.”

I simply nodded and allowed her to go back to the list.

She highlighted spanking in green, having already experienced the feel of my hand on her ass, but hesitated over flogging and whipping. She almost color-coded them red but picked up the yellow marker instead. However, before she could mark them, I stopped her hand.

“Remember the soft feel of the flogger in your hands from last night. Trust me, Krystina.”

I saw the question in her eyes, deep and probing. But after a brief moment of indecision, she coded both green.

“Okay. I can make sense of most of the bondage part of the list, but you’ll have to explain suspension to me,” she said.

“It’s what like it sounds like. I suspend you from the rails of my bed, leaving your body free for me to do whatever I’d like.”

Her head snapped up to look at me. Those big browns went big as if she were picturing herself suspended in the air. My cock twitched, and I shifted slightly in my seat, the image filling my own head.

Krystina—spread out and on display. We are never going to make it through the list if I keep picturing all of this stuff.