“It’s just around—” I started.
“I’d really rather you show me,” he said, not giving me a chance to direct him any other way.
I swallowed, and goosebumps rose on my skin. I couldn’t decide if I was actually afraid to show him the restroom or excited.
“I have one in my office,” Hudson began to offer.
“No bother,” Nathan said dismissively. “You’re ready to close up and leave. The public restroom will be fine. Trish?”
I stepped out of the office and into the hallway, ultra-conscious of the man behind me. He didn’t say a word to me, and I didn’t say a word to him.
When I reached the bathroom in the hall, I half turned toward him and gestured. “Here’s the men’s room.”
He opened the door, but he didn’t go in. “After you.”
I paused, not sure if I wanted to do what he said just because he’d said it, but even more sure I didn’t want to not do what he said. I looked down the hallway both ways. There was no one watching.
“I’m not going to force you. You have to walk through this door on your own,” he said when I didn’t walk in.
Apparently he believed in consent and all, too.
Good man.
I peeked into the restroom. It was empty. It was after five on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Who would be here at this time? I stepped inside, my heels echoing loudly on the tiled floor.
The door closed with a bang behind me, and I jumped. I turned around to face him.
Nathan did the same scan of the room, making sure the stalls were all open and empty before stalking toward me.
Without consciously thinking about it, I backed up until I hit the wall behind me. Still, he approached until he was no more than a foot away. He put his arms on either side of me, caging me in, but touching me absolutely nowhere.
“I finished that meeting with the biggest fucking hard-on of my life,” he said, his voice ragged and worn.
I took a shuddering breath, wishing I had the nerve to glance down to see if he was still hard. Wishing I had the nerve to put my hand forward and brush against the crotch of his pants.
But I was too entranced by his green, green eyes. Plus, he’d left the door unlocked.
“While Hudson looked over my designs,” Nate went on, “I kept thinking all I wanted to do was walk out to your desk, bend you over, and spank you. Make you pay for leaving me so aroused. So fucking aroused and miserable.”
His eyes darted down to my lips, darted lower. My breasts ached, my back arched forward to move them toward him.
“But you said it yourself—we crossed the line. Business and pleasure. They can’t mix.”
I let out a sigh of frustration. Here I was thinking he was about to touch me, about to kiss me. I was about to lose myself in my yearning for him. And now he was saying that it wasn’t an option?
“If you want to play, I’ll play. Show up this Saturday.” He leaned in toward me, brushed his nose near mine. Just close enough to feel the tickle as it edged against my bridge. His mouth hovered just above mine. But he didn’t partake of my lips. He didn’t let himself have even one little taste. “Show up,” he said. I could feel his breath skid across my mouth.
Then he straightened, and as he had last time, he disappeared before I had a chance to gather my wits enough to respond.
Seemed I wasn’t the only one who liked the Cinderella kink. Only Nathan Sinclair apparently did want to be chased.
And for once, I was ready to play along.
Chapter Four
I wore satin that Saturday night, a long blue slip dress with slits up both sides. I never wore underwear to the parties. They were too much of an inconvenience, and the few times I had worn them, I’d just ended up giving them away as souvenirs. I liked nice lingerie. I preferred to keep most of it.
The shoes I wore—simple heels, easy to slip off—were also standard for an evening at the Open Door. But somehow I felt simultaneously more dressed up and more naked than I had in a long time. I left my hair down, and it fell long past my shoulders in dark, nearly black waves. It felt less like I was going to a weekly party and more like I was going on a date. A glamorous date.
It was a signal that I should not go.
But I went. Nothing could have kept me away.
I spent the beginning of the night as a voyeur, camped out on the settee watching as the Doms paraded their submissives around the room, entertaining everyone with their tricks and commands.
I had a few invitations to play from the regulars—Andrew, who’d shown up with a girl I’d never met before. Of course, Chuck Richard was there, wanting to fondle and stroke my skin. But I shooed them all away, feigning an introverted mood, when really I was just looking and waiting for one person in particular.
An hour went by. Then an hour and a half. After two hours, I kicked myself internally a bunch of times before realizing that I was in a place where people would gladly do that for me. So when Andrew suggested a game, an adult version of Spin-the-Bottle, I decided to join in.
An oddly shaped circle was created, some people choosing to sit on the floor, some on the furniture. I curled up with my knees to one side on the floor, and when I finished straightening my gown around me, I looked up to find that the man sitting on the ottoman across from me was Nathan.
And suddenly the room felt so much brighter than it had a few minutes before. Like there’d been too many plugs shoved into one outlet and finally someone had tugged one free, the power had surged, and the lights glowed.
Everyone disappeared around me and the only face I could see was his, handsome and rugged, his grin directed at me. His eyes lit up like they were the source of the glow, and they were the only things I could see.
Somehow I was sure I’d just broken one of my rules. I didn’t know which one, and I didn’t even care.
The game began as Andrew spun the bottle, an empty Pinot Noir that somebody had guzzled within the first half-hour of our arrival. It landed on another gentleman, someone I didn’t know by name, and that man was told to take a slip of paper from one of the gender specific bags—there was one for female anatomy, one for male anatomy.
Andrew took one from the male bag and read aloud, “Back massage.”
Now the person who’d spun the bottle was to indulge in the activity listed on the paper for two minutes, the length of time allotted to each turn. There was even an hourglass someone had found hidden away in a board game in a closet somewhere that was tipped over at the beginning of each of the sensual delights.
“Can I take off my shirt?” the man I didn’t know asked.
“You can take off whatever you’d like,” Betsy called, cheering him on.