“It’s whatever you want it to be, really. It’s sectioned into three parts—vanilla, Neapolitan and chocolate cherry with nuts. The flavor you choose is up to you.”
“I’ve heard stories but I’ve never been.” Kelly frowned. “Leave it to you to show up in town a couple weeks a year and hit that place up first thing.”
“Honey, you play at being bad and I’m the real deal.” Alana gave her a wolfish grin. “I’m a Neapolitan girl, by the way.”
“Which is?” she asked, trying like hell to keep her mind off her phone. Worrying about it all night long wouldn’t make it appear in her purse.
“It’s better seen than described. Kink’s not a BDSM club or anything like that, though I’m sure some of the people who go there are into the lifestyle. They do have a room that caters to that but it’s not really my scene. Kink’s more about the freedom to be yourself. However you want to be, with whoever watching.”
Kelly sat on the end of her bed and stared at her reflection in the mirror over her dresser. She wasn’t some neophyte sexually. She’d come a long way from her wallflower days in high school, and a lot of that was because of the confidence her sex list had given her.
She’d taken control of her sex life in college, just as she regulated her diet and exercise. Maybe she’d never be a centerfold model orcute, but she made the most of what she had to work with.
Some guys found her attractive now. Even if keeping the list had become predictable and tedious, she stayed the course.
Because that was what she did.
Thanks to having unreliable parents who’d missed school events, ignored holidays and greeted birthdays with barely a hug, she’d fought to create her own family of friends and work.
Anything to combat the loneliness she’d never fully been able to shake.
Much as she hated to acknowledge it, she missed her parents. Even now, her mom and dad were strumming guitars by a campfire in Sedona rather than returning home to celebrate their only child’s upcoming twenty-sixth birthday, despite her admission that she wished they’d come for a visit.
So much for that.
She’d learned to make her own routines. And to cling to them. Routines meant safety. Familiarity. Boredom.
Hooking up with Spencer would definitely change things up. But the chances of it actually happening were pretty much nonexistent.
Even if he wasn’t sleeping with Leigh, that didn’t mean he was available. He’d spelled it out to her, hadn’t he? He was married to the store.
And he hadn’t added that he was in the market for a mistress.
She needed, one way or another, to break her obsession with him. But Kink? How could any man she met there help her on her quest to get more out of life than work?
A Kink guy couldn’t be long-term material. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even last until the weekend.
Maybe not even until the parking lot.
“I’m not sure, Lan. I’ve got work tomorrow. Early. And—”
“And you have your methodical little system going and you refuse to deviate from it. I know. Just come and scope things out. There’s a regular dance club in the vanilla section. You can hang out there if you’re not into the rest.”
“Yeah, and it’ll be super fun to hang there alone while you’re having group sex in the lounge.”
Alana wiggled her brows. “Oh, so you’ve heard of the lounge? How about the steam room?”
“I’ve heard stories,” she repeated.
“So why don’t you stop listening to talk and start checking it out for yourself?”
Kelly swallowed hard and reclined on her elbows. Maybe Alana was right. Despite her list, she really wasn’t a bad girl at heart. Truthfully the whole thing was becoming more trouble than it was worth. She hadn’t ticked off the last few guys she’d listed, and except for one of them, she didn’t even care.
She sighed. There it was again. That niggle for a boyfriend, for something real that didn’t begin with a name and a ranking.
Next thing she knew her biological clock would start ticking and she’d be really screwed.
Nah, it was probably just an itch. Maybe even birthday-related. Birthdays tended to mess with people’s heads.