I made a self-deprecating joke and hardcore evaded the question like a fucking champ.
You must be under the impression I’m smart just because I’m an author and read a lot of books. What you must’ve missed was the fact that I write SMUT, and I have a great editor to fix up all my grammar and punctuation. So you’d probably be disappointed and ask for your money back for the coffee if you’re really wanting to have an INTELLECTUAL conversation. But thank you so much for asking.
He took the rejection like the gentleman he’s been the entire week and is still answering any random question I pop on to ask. If he keeps it up, even though I don’t find him necessarily attractive from his photos, I think I’d be down to meet him for coffee eventually. Who knows, maybe there’d be tons of chemistry in person that I just can’t feel through the computer screen. After all, I haven’t felt even the slightest attraction to any of the men on these sites, so it could be possible I don’t have that ability.
But when I decide to go into the settings of my Feeld app and finally try expanding the distance from ten miles up to thirty, I know that’s not the case—I most definitely have that ability—the very moment I click on the search results.
I gasp and jerk back from my phone, which is pointless, because my head is already up against the couch.
“Holy shit. Holy fucking shit!” I squawk, glancing over at my cat with wide eyes, but he’s so used to my outbursts he doesn’t even open his to see what I’m freaking out over. So I turn back to my cell, reaching out blindly for my wine glass before guzzling down the rest of the sweet liquid courage.
Staring back at me from the screen, even if he is wearing silver thin-framed sunglasses with reflective blue lenses, is my freaking gym crush!
I let out a sigh, deflating closer to my phone, and it feels almost like he’s here in person, since I’ve never actually seen him in such detail in real life. Always somewhat from afar unless he happens to be hurrying past me on the gym floor or out the door. And as powerful as all those quick glimpses were, they were nothing compared to this. My breathing has halted as I take in every detail of his devastatingly handsome face.
He must like to play around with his facial hair, since it’s different from the last time I saw him, when he had a full, fluffy beard, and the time before that, when he had a goatee. Because in this photo, he’s clean-shaven except for a very tidy, super-short salt-and-pepper beard just along his sexy sharp jawline. With no sideburns peeking out from beneath his faded bandana that was likely black at one time, his beard starts just at his earlobes, meeting in the middle of his chin, then grows up to the very edge of his full bottom lip.
He’s not exactly smiling, but his face is relaxed, the corners of his lips barely upturned, which makes me inhale deeply, then let it out as yet another dreamy sigh. It’s a rare occasion I ever spot a man with a resting pleasant face—the opposite of a resting bitch face. It always seems to me that men relax with an ever-present scowl.
But not my Gym Daddy.
Gym Daddy looks approachable, as if a stranger could ask him a question and he’d be quick to happily respond. Which I’ve noticed there before, actually. Other men go up to him all the time, everyone seeming to know him, and he always greets them with a friendly smile and an enthusiastic grip of hands.
I hate that his eyes are covered. Getting to see him in high-res is amazing, but the fact that he’s wearing sunglasses, denying me the chance to study all of his beautiful features, is a fucking tease. I feel edged, like he got me right to the brink of ecstasy, then stole it away with a wicked grin.
And just like edging, it only makes me want more.
Yet the other pictures on his profile aren’t even of him, as I click through them. But they most definitely add to the enticement. One is a photo of a nice little home dungeon, a St. Andrew’s cross standing proudly in the center.
The other is of a coffee mug that says Romantic Sadist in bold black letters on a white background.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “Another sadist.” I glance at Kronk, and he must’ve sensed the rise in my blood pressure or something, because his eyes are actually open, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say there’s concern in the green orbs. I reach over and stroke between his ears, and he rolls onto his back to use his paws to push my hand away.