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When he crooked a finger, a pretty woman wearing nothing but rope slid over to them.
“Good evening, Master Zine.”
“Good evening.My companion would like…” He looked at her.
What Nomi actually wanted was something with lots of juice and sugar that made it far too easy to suck down drink after drink.
“Red wine.Whatever you have open is fine,” she said instead.Las Palmas’ cellars were curated by a club member, and everything they had was both quality and drinkable.She didn’t love red wine, but for appearances’ sake it was the better option.
“Same,” he said.“Actually, a Malbec if it’s open, a Cab if not.”
They were quiet as they waited for their drinks.The silence was tense, but not strained.The tension was anticipation.
Nomi picked up her glass when it arrived, holding it out to Tareq.He tapped his to hers, and the soft chime sound felt like the starting bell of a boxing match.
“The way I figure,” Tareq said, “there are three, maybe four reasons someone would say fuck this and leave after that announcement.”
Nomi pressed the rim of the glass to her lower lip but didn’t sip, her attention on Tareq.
“First, you don’t want to be told what to do.I get that.Especially since right before they showed off their sparkly alphabet—”
Nomi grinned at that description.
“They insulted us by saying we were complacent.”
“True,” she agreed.
“But the insult also turns the game into a challenge.Then it becomes less them telling us what to do, more them challenging us.”
“And you love a good challenge.”
“Don’t you?”
Nomi saluted him with her glass in response.
“Next option.You’re worried about the actual contents of the checklist.Either you don’t remember what’s on it, don’t remember how you filled it out, or do remember, and you’ve changed your mind since then.Meaning there might be things on your yes list that are now hard limits.”
“That would certainly be a concern,” she agreed, hating the direction of this conversation, yet not wanting to stop it either.
“Which leads to the third reason.”The way he paused, his attention narrowed in on her, meant he’d already guessed this was her main objection.
“You don’t want to be assigned a partner.”
Nomi exhaled slowly.She faced forward and didn’t look at Tareq, though he was a looming presence in her peripheral vision.
“Again, maybe it’s a control thing, but I think it’s more than that.”
The conventionally attractive man beside her wasn’t going to guess the exact reason she couldn’t risk partnering with a stranger, but she had a bad feeling he’d come close.
“I think it’s because you don’t trust easily.”
That surprised her, and Nomi looked over at him.In this light she could see his eyes were actually brown with flecks of gold and maybe even a little green.
“This—” He gestured around the room.“—is all about trust.And I’m guessing there are a few Doms you trust, but you’re not willing to risk being partnered with someone not on your trusted person list.”
Nomi stared down at her glass.Trust.It really did come down to that, didn’t it?She didn’t, couldn’t, trust someone not to take one look at her, and because of the way she looked, hurt her.
“Am I right, Nomi?”
