“My—” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re awfully mouthy for a sub.”
He tensed but returned my challenging look, as if he knew he was on thin ice but wanted to see how long it would hold him. “You didn’t think I’d be easy, did you?”
Gulp. Holy shit.
“I do like a challenge.” I held his gaze, lifting my chin slightly again. “Well, tonight we can stop with a drink. Or we can see if we’re…compatible.”
He broke eye contact for a split second. “What do you want to do?”
“I think you know exactly what I want to do.”
“Then I guess…” He tapped his fingers nervously. “I guess I should be asking where.”
I held his gaze. It wasn’t beneath me to bring someone home on a first date, and I wasn’t opposed to going to their place after little more than a cursory introduction. But we had to tread carefully. Kink required a certain level of trust, and we were still more or less strangers. Location wasn’t something to take lightly. My place denied him home-turf advantage. His might bring me too close to some carefully laid boundaries.
I thumbed the edge of my glass. “A hotel is probably best. Neutral territory.”
Rick nodded, the faintest bit of tension melting out of his shoulders. “Good idea.”
I sat straighter. “I’m going to pay our tab, and then we’re going to get the hell out of here.”
“Wasn’t I going to buy you a drink?”
“It was iced tea. I can handle it.” I gestured toward the door. “You stop on the way and get any…essentials you think we’re going to need tonight. I’ll meet you in the lobby of the Coastal Star Hotel.”
Rick nodded. “Okay. Will do.”
We didn’t have much of a tab to pay for—iced tea and water didn’t rack up a tremendous bill—but I left the waitress a big tip for putting up with us. Then we slid out of the booth and headed downstairs to the parking garage.
We didn’t talk on the way down the stairs, and each time we came to a landing, I expected him to break off, saying he’d parked on this level while I continued down to the lowest one. But we were still together when we reached the bottom.
A small cluster of cars took up the middle rows, with my Camry all by itself near the far wall.
“I’m over there.” I gestured toward it. “What about you?”
“Right here.” He pressed the button on his key fob, and the lights flashed on a black Mercedes a few feet away. He stopped, spinning the key ring on his finger. “So…I’ll meet you…”
“The Coastal Star Hotel.”
“Right. Right. So I guess I’ll…”
“See you there?”
“Yeah.”
But neither of us moved.
We made eye contact. Broke it. Made it again. My heart was going crazy, as much from excitement as this alien nervousness. I didn’t think I’d been this nervous since I was nineteen and trying to work up the courage to kiss the woman who’d one day be my ex-wife.
Ah, that was it.
I took a breath and stepped closer to him. “You know, it seems weird to be on our way to a hotel room already. I haven’t even kissed you.”
Rick grinned, drawing my attention right to his slim but somehow full lips. “No time like the present, right?”
“Is that an invitation?”
“It’s…” He cleared his throat. “It’s your call, but the door is certainly open.”
I glanced around. This garage was bigger than the bar where we’d been too exposed to chance so much as a hand on an arm, but there was no one around that I could see. And at this point, with a phantom tingle where his foot had touched mine, I was rapidly forgetting why I’d ever held back in the first place.
I took another step, and though our height difference was more pronounced now, it didn’t feel that way. I didn’t feel in the least bit like I was looking up at him. Quite the opposite, actually, and the thought of him literally looking up at me—from his knees, from his back, from whatever position I’d ordered him into—went straight to my balls.
Well shit. If I was going to get hard anyway…
For a second, I preemptively panicked at the idea of someone walking down those stairs and catching us, but the thought of not kissing Rick right now was a bigger motivator than the fear of getting caught. So, I put a hand on his waist, lifted my heels just slightly off the ground and pressed my lips to his.
And everything…just…stopped.