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“If she were so worried, she would have hurried back.”
“You can’t blame her for being slow. It’s easy to get distracted in Clay’s house.”
“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t make it farther than the porch.”
“You’re missing out.”
“On what? If I’d had a chance to refuse to come at all, I wouldn’t have come, but I got bamboozled into this thinking the event was just a raffle drawing, not a den of iniquity.”
“The iniquity generally happens elsewhere, truth be told. Most of what goes on here is a little flirtin’, a little teasin’. Maybe folks’ll play a little bit and put on a show if they feel like it, but that doesn’t happen as often as some of the people in attendance would like.”
“Yourself included?”
He shrugged. “I’m not much of a voyeur. I’d rather be watched than be the one doing the watching. I’ve always been something of an exhibitionist.”
Her jaw dropped and eyes went round as saucers.
Chuckling, he hooked his fingers beneath her chin and nudged it up. While he was there, he stole a caress. He’d been wondering if her skin was as silky as it looked, and he decided as he pulled the pad of his thumb along the edge of her jaw that yes, it was.
Surprisingly, she didn’t knock his hand away, but she did stare down at it before cutting a sideways glare at him.
“Sorry.” He draped his hands over the steering wheel and stared through the rows at cars in search for that flash of red hair that would indicate Carine was on her way out. “I generally keep my hands to myself. I couldn’t resist.”
“Apology accepted.” She turned her phone over, input some numbers, and put the device to her ear. “Where the hell is Carine?”
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
“It’d be just my luck that she got distracted by some big blond lumberjack and went into that so-called dungeon with him.”
“Okay, first of all, alumberjack?”
“Her newest fetish”—she rolled her eyes—“seems to be lumbersexuals. Big guys with facial hair and man-buns.”
“I don’t think anyone matching that description showed up tonight, but I’d reckon there are a few blonds in there, if that’s what she really likes. Lord knows more than enough men in there have been trying to figure that out in two years. And second of all, it’s not aso-calleddungeon. It’s a legitimate dungeon.”
“You’re bullshitting me.”
“Nope. Clay used to own a fetish club down in Miami and it got flooded out during a storm. The torture devices in the basement were what he had leftover in storage. They get a lot of use.”
Her jaw dropped again, and this time instead of touching her, he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and chuckled.
“I don’t want to imagine that,” she said. “I probably know way too many people in that house right now, at least by sight.”
“Really? That’s funny, because I know everyone in there, and I’ve never seen you before.”
The lady cleared her throat and turned her gaze to the windshield. “Carine, where the hell are you?” she said into the phone. “You’ve been gone for, like, ten minutes and I’m sitting here with…” She turned to Tim.
“Tim,” he offered.
“Tim. I’m sitting here with Tim wondering if you got invited into the dungeon or something.”
He couldn’t make out what Carine was saying on the other end, but whatever it was had the lady in the car pulling some very annoyed expressions.
Probably used to being the responsible one, he mused.
He’d been uptight like that once upon a time, and a very enthusiastic dominatrix had cured him of it and unlocked the part of him that taught him how to be in control when he needed to be and to let go of the small things.
He bet the lady in the car could do with a bit of reprogramming, and perhaps he wouldn’t even have to blow the dust off his crop to do it.
