“I like you, but I don’t know you well enough yet. If you’re just looking to get laid, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“You have your doms for that.” The second it was out, I wanted to take the shitty comment back. I hadn’t meant to be so plain, but it felt like I’d already lost the chance to date her before I’d known I was competing, and I was a sore loser.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem offended. “Yes, exactly.”
; “And what if I’m not just looking to get laid? I asked you to dinner—”
“A lot of guys think dinner’s a prerequisite.” Her expression dared me to say otherwise.
I wasn’t going to, because she had a point. “Fair enough, but you didn’t answer my question.”
She sat back in her chair and evaluated me critically. “I’m not allowed to sleep with you, but we could get to know each other and see if there’s something here.”
My eyes went as large as the head of a timpani drum. “What about them?”
“I won’t be fucking them either.”
Was this crazy? I had to say it out loud to make sure I was understanding it. “So, you propose we date, but not sleep together.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“And your couple would be stuck in a holding pattern.”
“Unless I decide to end it, yeah.”
“Or I don’t make the cut, and you go back to them.” I shoved a hand through my hair, probably making a mess of it. “It sounds like they’re getting the raw end of the deal.”
“There are other ways for me to please them.”
“How?”
“I could give them control over us.” Her eyes were full of seduction. “If you were into that sort of thing.”
Beneath the table, my dick twitched. Her sexy voice instantly made me into a lot of things, including considering her strange offer. I knew nothing about this couple, other than one evening with me had her considering leaving them. If this couple and I went head-to-head, how could I not win?
“I know this is a lot,” she said. “I’m super excited you’re still sitting here after I laid all this out. But . . .” she took in a deep breath, pushed up her shirt sleeves, and leaned on the table, “there’s something else I have to tell you.”
My gaze locked onto the beautiful tattoo crawling along her forearm, and my heart stopped.
Bloody. Fucking. Hell.
-15-
Grant
Without thought, I reached across the table and grabbed Tara’s wrist, gently pulling her arm toward me and pushing up her sleeve. I stared at the tattoo in disbelief.
Like an idiot, my first reaction was to scan the restaurant as if Julius was going to appear from nowhere and throttle me. He’d warned me to stay away from his club, giving me a thinly-veiled threat. Yet, here I was, sitting across from the woman I’d tried to buy a night with. I was chilled with a cold sweat of panic.
My second reaction was a flood of memories. What Tara looked like naked and bound to the table. How the ice cube melted and slipped from my fingers. How she’d tasted. I ran the edge of my thumb over a curve in the ink, and her eyes hazed. My sweat turned from cold to hot, my body overwhelmed.
My third reaction was anger. I glared at the scrolling tattoo and grew mad. Not just at the patterned artwork, or the way I couldn’t seem to let go of her, but at myself. How hadn’t I noticed it before? Fuck her sleeves. And why hadn’t I recognized her? It was amazing what a difference a simple blindfold could make. I wanted to put one on now and go back in time to when I was blissfully ignorant.
Ignorant.
She hadn’t really told me what she did for a living, but judging by her expression, that confession was up next. If she didn’t tell me, and someone saw us together right now, I could claim I didn’t know. It was a stretch, but it could work.