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“I don’t know. After the long drive through the woods. I think I was kind of expecting more of a serial killer shack than a suburbia mini-mansion.”
Ink laughed. He loved the honesty that seemed to always come from Jade. “Just because we don’t have neighbors doesn’t mean that we don’t want a nice house.”
“We?” She turned back to him with a smile. “You and Hannibal share this house?”
“Yes. We weren’t kidding when we said we share everything.”
“It must be nice to have someone you’re that close to.” Ink could see sadness swimming in the back of her eyes and wondered if she was thinking about that asshole of a business partner. “You guys said you’d been together since the military. How long is that?”
Ink paused and considered. “I met Hannibal in my second year and we served almost five years together. We’ve been out for ten years. So for almost fifteen years we’ve been friends.”
“That’s almost as long as Eric and I have been friends. But we met in middle school.”
“Are you implying I’m old?”
She smiled at him. “Not at all.” Ink enjoyed the heat that filled her gaze. “Do I get to see the inside?”
“I think that can be arranged.”
He offered her his arm and escorted her into their house. Nerves played havoc with his stomach. The overwhelming desire for her to like the place was ridiculous. They had designed it to make them happy, not some random woman. Not that she was a random woman.
He shouldn’t have worried. Her expressive face lit up with delight as she looked around the living room. She wandered through the space, studying the unique pieces of artwork that they had displayed on the walls.
“Most of these are your work.” She looked at him over her shoulder.
“They are.”
Jade had stopped in front of one of his favorites, the black and white drawing unusual for him. He rarely worked in charcoal, but it had turned out wonderfully. In the middle of a dark forest, a woman in a flowing dress was tied with her hands above her head, her back facing the viewer. In the foreground, a blurred shadowy figure held something coiled in his hand. If you knew he was the artist, it wouldn’t be a hard guess to say that something was a whip.
Ink loved doing tattoos, but artwork like this had been his passion since he first picked up a pencil. He still spent hours every week working on pieces designed solely for himself. His work was kept in a special storage unit he rented, only putting their favorites up on the walls. Hannibal occasionally tried to convince him to do a gallery show or try to sell some of them. But money wasn’t why he drew.
As they both looked over the drawing, Ink realized that the tied up woman bore a surface level resemblance to Jade. The strong well-defined muscles and the long curling hair, which was amusing because he hadn’t based this particular picture on anyone.
Ink pictured their little Jewel tied up like that in their backyard and his cock grew painfully stiff. The trust and hunger that would be in her eyes, the way her body would shiver in both fear and anticipation. He wanted her not only willing but eager to feel his whip.
“Is that a whip in his hand?”
“It is. People usually guess a length of rope.”
Jade shook her head and nodded over to a shelf nearby where he had one of his showier whips coiled up on display. “I saw that, so maybe my brain was already going there. Is it yours?”
“The picture or the whip?” Ink teased.
“I have no doubt the picture is yours. Only you could not have a single face in the picture but still display such emotion.”
“You’re right. They’re both mine.” Ink studied her expression. Was she afraid?
“Are you any good with it?” Jade’s tone was curious, and he wished he could see inside her head.
“I try to practice every day. It relaxes me.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Hard to imagine a whip, as relaxing. But then again, I leap over buildings and obstacles to relax, so I guess I can’t really judge. I saw a whip cracking contest once. Some of the people there were pretty good.”
“I haven’t been in a contest since I was a teenager. They are a lot more common in Texas than they are here.”
“I can imagine.” She bit her lip as if trying to hold back a question, but Ink was patient and after only a minute, she spoke. “Have you ever used a whip on a person?”
“Would that scare you?”
