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Around her, the clear stain on the log walls looked new, the black paint on the kitchen cupboards looked fresh. There weren’t any paintings on the log walls, only a sixty-five-inch flat screen above the earthy stone fireplace.
With the high cathedral ceilings in the living room, the fireplace drew the eye first, leading to a dark brown couch and a recliner around a wrought iron coffee table. Two large sliding doors stood on either side of the fireplace with a picture-perfect view of the mountains. “How long have you lived here?” she asked, glancing toward the open-concept kitchen again.
Shep kicked the fridge door closed. “When me and my brothers turned eighteen, our father gave us each a piece of the property to build on.” He cracked the beers open, tossing the caps into the garbage. “My father had no patience for laziness. He always said if we wanted a nice house, then we needed to build it.”
She looked around again, reassessing. “You built this?”
“Not at eighteen, no.” Shep returned to his seat, placing her bottle down first, then his in front of his plate. “I lived in a small trailer for a long time. After I moved home from LA and my company began to take off, Chase helped me build this place.”
The level of workmanship originally had her thinking that whoever built this had been doing so for years. “You said before that Chase wanted to start a construction company, right?”
Shep nodded, took a sip of his beer, then answered her. “He’s talented, a good builder, as you can see.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Every line of this house, every little detail, made it obvious that Chase had some serious skill when it came to building log homes. “All right, so then you and Chase built this place?”
“Nash helped too.” Shep cut into the final few pieces of his steak. “In fact, the three of us built all our houses, but without Chase, they wouldn’t look as good as they do.”
She laughed softly then took a couple of sips of the cool, crisp India pale ale before focusing on her food. Her stomach stretched and complained. She ignored the hell out of that and dug into the final three pieces of her steak. The man could cook.
Once she swallowed the final bite, she wiped the paper towel over her mouth. Shep had already finished his meal, watching her while he drank his beer. She began to discover the silence with him wasn’t awkward in the least but also felt full of questions. One particular question had been sitting on her mind for an hour. She was onto her third beer now, and before she could figure out if it was wise or not, she blurted out, “Are you into kinky sex?”
His brows rose with his laugh. He returned the bottle to the table. “Have you been holding that in?”
“Maybe a little bit.” She soothed away her embarrassment with a big sip of the crisp ale before continuing. “I mean, it’s hard to explain, but when you used the rope on me at the Spurs, it felt . . . different.”
He gave a purely masculine satisfied grin. “Of course it felt different; you practically melted for all to see.”
She smiled back since there was no arguing with that point, forcing herself to push on. “Which only proves my point further. The touch of the rope felt sensual, for sure, which got me to thinking that maybe it’s not all fun and games for you, and you’re into that kind of thing, and that’s why I reacted so intensely to the rope.”
He gave her a careful regard. “Have you considered that you reacted that way because you are into kinky sex yourself?”
Her mouth went dry, pulse kicking up a notch. “Well, I don’t have much experience with kinky sex, so I wouldn’t know what I’m into and what I’m not.” Of course, she’d fantasized over sex that left her sweaty, messy, and satisfied.
Leaning forward, he tilted his head, gazing at her with focus. “You’ve never been tied up?”
“No.”
“Blindfolded?”
She shook her head.
“That’s a shame,” he replied dryly. “How about spanked?”
She laughed awkwardly. “You know, in the moment, on the butt or something, yeah, but nothing more than that.”
“Toys?”
“I have a vibrator.”
He chuckled, displaying a wide grin. “Has a man ever used a toy on you?”
“Um, no.”
Again he paused to examine her, his gaze searching hers. “So, you’ve had very vanilla sex, then?”
“I suppose so,” she admitted.
“How many lovers have you had?”
