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“And you aren’t?” Angel’s attention was fixed back firmly on Maria, as was Leigh’s although Leigh still seemed a bit unfocused by her own thoughts.
“If I wasn’t so worried about the sex stuff I would be.” Maria sighed. “I feel like we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well, even though we haven’t exactly been dating. But we’d been hanging out on a daily basis before this past weekend. The sex stuff just threw me for a loop, but it’s important if we’re gonna be more than friends. I just feel like I only have two choices with him—friendship or relationship. And it seems like a lot of pressure. Not to mention, what if we try and I hate it or suck at it and then everything’s just ruined?” Realizing her voice was getting a little bit loud, Maria coughed and looked back down at the stupid napkin she was now tearing into teeny tiny pieces. She was making a mess, but she didn’t particularly care right now.
“You need an Introductory Scene.”
“What?” Maria blinked. “What’s that?”
Angel groaned. “Seriously? He didn’t tell you about Introductory Scenes? We didn’t mention it?”
“I’m not sure,” Maria said, blushing a bit. Had he? Had the other women? “If anyone did I don’t remember...”
“Oh well, you’ve had a lot of information thrown at you recently,” Angel said sympathetically. “Introductory Scenes are for newbies to the club, submissives and dominants but it mostly seems like it’s the submissives who take advantage of it. Kind of a way to find out what you like or don’t like, if you’re inexperienced or unsure.” She grinned. “It sounds like exactly what you should do. I know Rick used to do them, so he knows how to.”
Maria made a face at being reminded Rick had probably had sexual contact with quite a few of the women at Stronghold. Still definitely not something she was a fan of... although she just kept reminding herself that obviously none of those women had stuck. Rick blatantly wanted a relationship, and he’d brought her into the club to do it rather than choosing one of them. She hoped the girls had been right about the other women not being man-stealers, because if Maria caught one of them going for Rick while she was there, the end result was not going to be pretty. It might be hot when Rick got all alpha and controlling, but Maria was not a pushover and she wasn’t just going to sit on the sidelines while someone made a move on her man.
Pushing past her own issues, she had to admit she liked the idea of doing what sound like a try-out scene. Try it out, see if she liked it.
And also see if Rick liked her within it.
“I think...” she said slowly, aware Angel and Leigh were both watching her with hopeful anticipation. She smiled. “I think it sounds brilliant.”
Two Jacks and three eights. A full house. Rick kept his face carefully blank as he threw down another chip, knowing Adam and Olivia would both be studying him closely. Playing poker with such highly observant people made for some brutal games.
But it was nice to sit and hang out with friends. Especially since he still hadn’t heard from Maria. The distraction was very welcome. He’d been helping out in Adam’s office today when Adam had asked him and Justin if they wanted to get together since Angel was going to happy hour with Leigh. Justin had preferred to go home to Chris and Jessica, but Rick had jumped at the chance. They’d ended up getting Olivia to join them as well.
Taking a sip of his beer, Rick looked up to watch as Olivia contemplated her hand.
“Fold,” she said finally, putting the cards face down.
Adam studied her, as if wondering if she’d seen something he hadn’t. They’d been at this for a couple of hours now and Olivia was the closest to going out. None of them had told her that whenever she had a good hand, her right eyebrow would go up. That was half the fun, discovering out each other’s tells and then trying to erase their own. Rick had figured out a while ago that he had a tendency to bounce his leg when he was unsure about his hand. Now he threw in a bounce every now and then just to throw the others off.
“Call,” Adam said finally, tossing in his chip.
Grinning, Rick laid out his cards and Adam cursed. The other man was only holding two pair.
“Close but not close enough,” Rick said, chortling as he scooped up the chips. It was a fairly decent haul, but the real pleasure was in the win. They never bet a lot of money, but the competition was always fierce.
The doorbell rang unexpectedly, just as Rick was finishing up organizing his chips. He looked at his friends. “Did you guys know if anyone else was coming?”
Olivia shook her head at the same time Adam said, “No.”
Faint hope it might be Maria, finally, sprung up in Rick’s chest, but he did his best to ignore it, knowing it was a much better chance he’d be disappointed. When he looked through the peephole, it was all he could do to contain his emotions. If Adam and Olivia hadn’t been there, he probably would have done some kind of stupid looking jump or motion, just to vent some of the excess energy suddenly running through his veins.
Instead, he just opened the door, putting a hopeful smile on his face. Even though he was pretty sure the nervously determined expression on Maria’s face came from a tense submissive, about to admit her desires, and not from a woman who was about to turn him down, he didn’t want to get his hopes up only to have them flung back in his face. There was a chance she was nervous about telling him no, but the tight feeling in his gut came from some kind of primitive male instinct that made him want to beat his chest in victory. Witnesses notwithstanding.
“Hey,” he said, letting his pleasure at seeing her fill his expression.
To his delight, she smiled back, still nervously. If she was coming to reject him, she wouldn’t be smiling, he was sure of that. His grin widened.
“Hey... Um...”
“Is that Maria?” Olivia called out. Rick turned to glare over his shoulder. From where Olivia was sitting she could clearly see it was Maria.
“Oh... you have company... maybe I should—“
“No,” Rick cut her off, reaching out to grip her upper arm as she started to pull back. Fuck no. She was finally here, and he wasn’t going to chance her going away and changing her mind. Or even just making him wait longer to know for sure what she was going to say. “It’s just Adam and Olivia. Want to come in? We’re playing poker.”
Maria fidgeted, still obviously a bit nervous, although she waved at Olivia. Adam had turned around in his chair, Rick saw, but from the other side of the doorway Maria couldn’t see him. “No, I’ve got some stuff I have to do. I just came by to um... well...”
