Page 18 of Q is for…


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Tareq tugged, positioning her forearm on the table, her wrist still captive.

“The look on your face wasn’t good.So I made an educated guess.”

Nomi swallowed.“It’s possible that…It’s possible that you feel the need to push forward with our scene only because you feel a sense of responsibility towards me.”

Tareq shook his head.“Are you questioning my taste again?”

“No.I’m exploring the possibility that this is a mistake.Not a malicious one—”

“If you’d been listening, you’d have heard me say that it’s not the game, or not just the game, that made me feel this way about you.”

“What did?”

“That moment we had in the conclave.You were the only other person I saw who was ready to bust out laughing, rather than be caught up in the drama of it all.”

The knot in her stomach relaxed.“It was the craft-project feel of the sparkly letters that did it for me.”

“The rolling cork board was almost more than I could take,” he said, mock serious.

Before she could add another comment that would continue to lighten the mood and steer them away from dangerous conversational waters, Tareq tightened his grip on her wrist, just a little squeeze, but it made her go still.

Gently, if firmly, he rotated her wrist, until her hand rested palm up on the table.

Tareq placed his palm on the inside of her wrist, letting the weight of his hand hold her down without applying any other pressure.

The soft, needy places inside woke up, battering against the inside of her protective walls.She wanted to let go of every reservation, forget all the reasons she was wary, and submit to this man.

She wanted to know what he would do to her.Wanted to see if he would use her in unholy ways, while also treasuring and protecting her.

When he finally lifted his palm off her arm, Nomi didn’t move.

“As much as I enjoy bantering with you, I think it’s time to have a more serious conversation.”

Nomi had to take a sip of her drink before she could answer.“Agreed.”

Tareq reached under the table and pulled out a large envelope.

“Assignment packet,” he said with a grin, but then went serious as he took out the papers inside.“Do you remember what you put on your checklist?”

“I know what my hard limits are.What I’m less sure of is which things I marked as ‘willing to try’.”

Rather than a binary yes or no, the checklist every member filled out when they joined offered three options.“Yes”, “hard limit no”, and “willing to try”.

Ostensibly, they’d probably been meant to use these checklists regularly as part of negotiating individual scenes or in finding new partners.Instead, Nomi hadn’t seen hers since joining.She had a few partners she trusted, a few scenes she really enjoyed, and she stuck to those.

Maybe the overseers had a point about everyone becoming complacent.

“You marked both Q items as willing to try.”

“Are you going to tell me what they are?”

“Are you willing to be surprised, knowing that past-you was willing to try them?”

“If I say no, will you accuse me of not trusting you?”

“No.I want you to be comfortable and confident with the scene.”

“The idea of not knowing is…more interesting than expected.”

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