“Well . . . yes.”
“Many Doms are like that, but I walk my own path. I don’t need the lifestyle. I enjoy it, and I’m good at it, but if I’m interested in a woman who’s not into being dominated, I can shut it off.”
“Would you shut it off with me?”
His devilish chuckle put a smile on her face. “I most definitely would not shut it off with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you enjoy it too much . . . and you make me enjoy it even more.”
“I do?”
“Oh yeah. You make me want to do things I haven’t done in years.”
“Such as . . .?”
He laughed again, just as lasciviously. “Patience, Jenna.”
“I’m not a patient person.”
“I know. You have yet to wait for me to give you permission to come.”
They’d had phone sex several times, and each time he got her so turned on she couldn’t hold back. Orgasms and Warren’s voice were like lightning and thunder, a perfect pairing.
She smiled to herself. “I guess you’re just going to have to keep working with me.”
“Or tie your hands to the headboard so you can’t touch yourself.”
She liked the sound of that. “To do that, you would actually have to come to my apartment.”
“That can be arranged.”
“You’re teasing me.” He enjoyed teasing her about coming over to her apartment and acting out their phone fantasies in person, because he knew it pushed all her buttons in all the right ways.
“If you continue to disobey me, you’ll leave me no choice.”
She lay back on the bed and started fingering herself. “Then by all means help me continue to disobey you so I can get you over here. Tell me what you’ll do to me.”
And he did.
And she disobeyed.
Again.
Being bad felt so good.
Chapter Six
The next night—a coveted Friday night she usually spent writing—Jenna donned one of only two cocktail dresses she kept in the back of her closet for special occasions.
She had bought the bronze, hand-beaded Rachel Gilbert square-necked design for her cousin’s wedding three years ago and had worn it exactly six times. Tonight made lucky seven. Paired with nude Stuart Weitzman three-inch sandals, the below-the-knee hem made her look taller than she was. Always a plus when you were usually the shortest person in the room.
With her matching beaded clutch in hand and a wispy, cream-colored shawl slung around her shoulders, she hopped into the back of the Lyft when it pulled up to her building. Then it whisked her away from her writing for the evening to a charity event for battered and abused women at the Met.
If she was going to take time off from fulfilling her dreams of becoming a full-time author, this was the event to do it for. She was as passionate about the charity as the partners at her firm were, two of whom were women who did volunteer work for women’s shelters.
Jenna herself had donated royalties of her book, Unchained, to the charity. The book had been about a woman in her late thirties who had suffered abuse at the hands of her first husband and how she had never quite been able to get her life back together after leaving him. Then she met a man—a Dominant—who helped her put the final pieces back into place while helping her discover her passion for intimacy again. It had been a challenging book to write, walking a fine line between respecting the sensitivity of the heroine’s past abuse while pulling her into a world where a lot of things could have triggered her.
In the end, she felt that she’d honored both through the patient, compassionate hands of the hero, and Unchained remained her favorite book she’d written to date.
Nibbling hors d’oeuvres and sipping champagne, Jenna maneuvered her way through the crowds who had come from all corners of New York high society to be a part of the evening. She stopped to chat to people she knew from the office when they crossed paths, but she couldn’t turn off her writer’s mind, seeing story inspiration in every conversation, display, sculpture, and painting.
Two hours into the evening, she had left quite a trail of pictures on her social media page, cataloging her way through the museum from The Great Hall, to Egyptian Art, The American Wing, Medieval Art, and now found herself standing in front of a statue of a naked Perseus holding Medusa’s severed head in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts wing.
She was just about to post her picture of the nude Perseus when a text notification popped up on her phone.
It was from Warren.
She opened it.
“Found you,” it read.
Below his message was a photo of her taking a picture of the statue. It had been taken from behind her to the right.
He was here? Warren was at the Met?
She began to look over her shoulder when hands gripped her firmly but gently around her upper arms.
She sucked in her breath.
“Don’t turn around.” His voice sounded even better in person, like warm honey instead of dark chocolate.
Her head snapped back to the front as heat unspooled inside her belly and puddled between her legs. Good God, his effect on her was even stronger in person than on the phone.
His gripped loosened. “Nice dress.” He smoothed his palms up to her shoulders.
Her dress was backless, and her hair was pulled into a french twist, exposing her from nape to waist. The heat from his body warmed her skin as he stepped even closer, tracing the curves of her shoulders with his fingertips.
“Is this okay?” he asked, skimming the tips of his fingers across the skin above her shoulder blades.
His soft caresses felt nice, both invigorating and provocative. More importantly, he was finally touching her! After weeks of talking on the phone, soundwaves and cell towers no longer had to connect them across the miles that separated them. Only an inch or two stood between them now.
Adrenaline pumped through her veins, making her shiver. Her pulse hammered with such force, she could hear the rhythmic whooshing sound of
