Page 7 of Toy Shop

I’m within reach, placing my palm on the top of her wrist and lowering the hand holding the tote bag. Her gaze stalks my moves, my slow, unhurried gait until I reach her side.

I bend from my six-foot-two height. “Do I intimidate you, Nola?”

Her breath hitches, her nipples protrude from the thin jersey fabric of her dress. Her voice, however, lets on nothing about her trepidation or arousal. “No. Just not interested.”

Nola’s aura magnetizes me to her, her flowery scent making my hair stand at the back of my neck. The desire to be the owner of her pain and pleasure for this one night rises, consumes me whole.

I’ll never force a woman into giving herself to me, but I’ll be damned if I don’t attempt to convince her.

Watching for any resistance about me intruding on her personal space, I wrap an arm around her nimble waist. With two inches separating our bodies, my hand trails up and down her arm.

The electricity buzzing in the air between us is a lightning bolt boxed into this room: enormous, powerful, impossible to ignore.

Nola’s dilated pupils glare at me, accusing me of the attraction I’m awakening in her. She’s got me all wrong if she thinks I’ll apologize for it.

“How about we try this on for size?” I start. Matteo chooses this moment to enter, holding two whiskey tumblers. I motion for him to return to where he came from. “I’ll choose one toy, give you one class. Only for tonight. Nothing to overwhelm you.”

She upholds her glare. “Why would I say yes?”

The answer is so simple; I don’t consider it for over a second. “To show you what you’re missing. Show you what you could do later when you’re alone, getting off when you fantasize about me.”

A sculpted eyebrow is raised, her head rearing. “Cocky much?”

“I can back it up. So no, not cocky.” I release my hand to cup her forearm. The sensations at the contact are further proof of how fucking right this is. “You can always opt out halfway, say the word red and I’ll stop to check on you, we’ll reevaluate the whole thing and if you eventually decide that you want me gone, then I’m out.”

Nola observes me, gauging my sincerity, my confidence.

An eternity transpires between us. Then she hands me the bag, surprising me by saying, “Prove yourself.”

CHAPTER THREE

Nola

John Doe is fucking hot. I refuse to address him as Chad Chadwick in my head. No freaking way does a Chad Chadwick walk, talk, and breathe fire like this man right here.

Chad Chadwick is a family guy from the suburbs, has a dad bod, and is in charge of the neighborhood barbecues. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just this man isn’t it.

John Doe, he’s the forever single to the wives of the world’s Chad Chadwicks get off on when their Chad’s chadwick—if you know what I mean—is pumping them missionary style once the kids have gone to bed, the bills have been paid, and garbage taken out.

I digress, but I can’t help it. My brain is a mumbling mess.

This tall, frighteningly handsome human creation offers me utterly sinister things while looking like he’s about to have me for dinner. His brown eyes gauge my reactions, a shark circling his prey.

His lips tip upward into a smile that says it all. He knows I’m inwardly drooling over him. But other than that, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

He accepts the bag and grins at me approvingly. “Right over here.”

“Cool.” I breathe in, realizing too late I’ve made a colossal mistake. John’s cologne and traces of the whiskey filter into my nose, stripping me of the ability to withhold the shiver of the pulsating arousal.

His hand cups my arm and then slides down my back, angling me toward the chairs on the far side of the room. I put one foot in front of the other, attempting a sexy prowl, oozing every bit of adult energy I have in me.

We’re playing on an uneven playfield. He, this smoldering grown-up man and me, the girl who’s never experimented with a vibrator. I refused him because of this reason, catching on quickly how clueless I am about life in general compared to him.

But I can’t deny this visceral attraction, how I’m magnetized, drifting toward him simply because he asked me to. I’m not afraid, either. How could I be? He’s invited me into a room not even barricaded by a door, gave me a safeword and a promise my instincts told me he’d stand behind.

We stop at the two chairs at the end of the table. They’re not a foot away from the back wall decorated with a large painting of the night and stars.

“Have a seat,” John instructs.

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