My heart was leaping out of my chest. This was it! He said yes to a lunch date.
A few tight seconds passed as I thought of how much I wanted to see him; how much I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to drive up to his house, watch as he came out of the front door looking cute, and get into my truck beside me.
I found myself doing exactly that about half an hour later.
He buckled himself in as I backed out of his driveway.
It was as though my life before meeting this stranger was a sea of boring gray bricks. And then he came in, and there was color. All the colors around me looked brighter, and for the first time in a while, I felt something.
I felt happy.
We chatted on the way to the restaurant; a charming little diner down by the lake where we’d get a view of the water.
We talked about so many surface-level things, and like a drug, the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know more.
When I pulled up to a stoplight, my eyes were drawn to the messenger bag at his feet.
“Why did you bring your bag?” I asked, curious.
“Oh, it completes my outfit.” He said, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
I found myself chuckling. “Well, it fits.”
He crossed his long legs in the seat next to me, pursed his lips and looked aloof.
I smirked. Here was the real personality coming out, and I couldn’t wait to coax him more out of his shell.
Once we got to the restaurant, he set his messenger bag next to the table. It sagged against the chair.
Once we placed our orders, I couldn’t help but start talking about last night.
“Look, I’m really sorry about my brother. He can be… difficult sometimes.” I said, straightening the napkin and silverware next to me.
“Oh, I wasn’t offended. It was just… a lot, you know?”
The way he looked at me; innocently like that, made me want to take care of him forever. Anything he could ever want, I would find a way to make it his.
“A lot?” I asked, wondering if he meant me, or Jake, or both.
“Just a lot going on. A lot of things I had to keep track of. When that happens, I feel like I’m losing control. But not in the good way.”
I nearly spat out my water. “What do you mean by that?”
“By what?”
“By, losing control. In the good way.”
My mouth went dry. Was this really happening? Was there a small sliver of a chance that this beautiful man that was sitting across from me was… was into my kink?
I was aware that I’d already hit the lottery several times over by him even sitting across from me now. Wasn’t it greedy to hope for even more?
“I mean… I like not being in control, sometimes.” He said, the blush rising into his cheeks.
I felt a stirring in my pants, watching his face turn redder and redder.
“How about you?” He asked, clearly trying to not have to talk about it anymore.
“Well, I’m a cop,” I said. “So of course I like control.”
Then I stared at him right in the eye, trying to communicate to him everything I didn’t say. Did he know? Could he speak my language?
Was it possible that he was hoping for the same thing that I was?
There were a few seconds of silence as his blue eyes locked onto mine. Then the waiter appeared and ruined everything.
“Here’s the Mediterranean chicken, and here’s the pasta. Anything else I can get you?” he asked cordially.
I knew he didn’t deserve it, but I hated the waiter more than anyone in the world at that second.
“No, we’re good, thanks,” I said, sliding my eyes back over to Luke.
Luke was looking at me like I was… like I was something more than what I was.
I liked it.
Unfortunately, the waiter coming by to drop off the food completely derailed where the conversation was going, and we reverted to talking about normal things.
I wanted nothing more than to get back to that conversation about control, and tried several times to steer our talk towards that. But it was clear that Luke was done talking about it, as he thwarted me at every step of the way.
He was skilled at directing where a conversation went. I liked that.
It was the complete opposite of my brother’s — and the rest of my family’s standard operating procedure — which was to just talk and talk and see what happened. Sometimes they derailed a conversation with something dramatic just to see the wreckage.
But this guy — Luke, there was this carefulness about him that I liked. He was delicate about the word choices he used. He was delicate about the way he held his silverware. He was delicate about what foods he ate and in what order.
“Why are you separating all your food out like that?” I asked, watching as the tangled pile of pasta ended up on one side of the plate, mushrooms in another, pieces of spinach in the lower quadrant, and the chicken in a neat pile off to the side.
“I like to keep them separate.” He explained, his beautiful blue eyes flickering up to meet mine.
I smiled and shook my head, feeling a pang of endearment for him.
Midway through the meal, he got up to go use the bathroom. As he left the table, he pushed his chair in, but didn’t realize that it knocked over his messenger bag.
He was taking off before I could let him know. The soft leather of the bag sagged to the side, and the contents slid out ever so slightly.
I got up from my seat and went to push the papers and folders back in so that none of the waitstaff whizzing through the aisles would trip over it, and then I saw it.
Obey, the book told me, the cursive red letters swirling across the top of the book.
My heart was pounding as I shoved that back in
