Page 21 of Hooked

“All right, you two, I apologized. I can’t help that I’ve been dying to hear about Club Decadence from someone who has actually been.” Emma grabbed her hand and dragged her over to the couch. “Do they really have gold-plated fixtures and marble floors? Were the Decadence masters as smoking hot as everyone claims? And the giant playroom, tell me about that. Did they fuck openly in a free-for-all BDSM-style orgy?”

“Emma!” her husband chastised sharply with a grimace. A dom himself, he didn’t tolerate crude language from his submissive wife, unless they were playing, when, according to Emma, both of them could get pretty salty.

“Sorry, babe.” She flashed him her dimples, which earned her a warning look.

“Can you behave while I get Livia a glass of wine?” he asked.

“I’ll try really hard, sir.”

He grunted. “It will take a miracle, I’m afraid.”

To ease the sting of his words, he kissed the top of her head before disappearing into the kitchen.

“Okay,” she immediately whispered. “Now that the big bad dom is gone, give me the dirt.”

Livia tried to answer her questions in order. “Let’s see. First, I honestly didn’t notice the fixtures or the floors. Second, yes, I didn’t see them all, but the ones I did were to-die-for hot. And third, again, I don’t know because I never made it past the bar to the dungeon. But the third-floor apartments are very nice.”

Emma’s smile faded, and she blinked. “Wait! Apartments? No one said anything about apartments.” She paused a moment, her brain clearly struggling to process the information as she added, “And back up a minute. How could you go and not see the dungeon? Did you chicken out?”

“No. I met someone.”

Emma’s shock and bewilderment were instantly swept aside and replaced with a wide grin. “Awesome! Did you finally get laid?”

“Emma Jean, that is enough!” David barked on his way back in with three glasses of wine held easily in one hand.

After murmuring another apology for being crude, she turned wide eyes on Livia. “Let me rephrase. Did you sleep with him?”

Her face was already hot, but it went up in flames, which was answer enough.

“Hot damn, you did!” Emma looked at David with wide eyes, ignoring his heavy sigh as she repeated, “She met someone.” Turning back to Livia, she demanded, “Tell me all about him. Is he a hunky Green Beret, too?”

“Not quite. I think he’s hunky, but not in a mountainous, rugged Green Beret kind of way. He’s tall and lean, built more like a swimmer than John Rambo, and very smart, and—”

“Good in bed? Did the room even have a bed? Or did you do it on some fancy piece of bondage equipment?”

Livia opened her mouth to reply, but her eyes shifted to David and she stopped.

“Don’t mind me,” he said, unfazed. “People tell me about their sex lives all the time during therapy.”

As a clinical psychologist, he must have heard all manner of outrageous things, sex included. Besides, he was a dom himself and she’d known him forever. Shrugging off her concerns for what was proper, she admitted, “Yes, there was a very nice comfortable bed andgooddoesn’t do the sex justice.”

Her friend practically vibrated with excitement. “What does it justice? Great?” Emma held her hands up about eight inches apart. “Fantastic? Magnificent? Humongous?” With each word, she moved them farther apart until she had her hands at a ridiculous—and humanly impossible—distance from each other.

Both Emma and Livia burst into laughter as David, playing the put-upon husband, grabbed his wife’s hands and pulled them down. “You are both incorrigible.”

“Seriously, give me the deets,” her friend pleaded.

“I won’t go into size specifications—”

“Bless you,” David interjected.

“But,” Livia went on as though he hadn’t interrupted, “the experience was great, magnificent, and fantastic, all of that and more. It was also potentially life-altering because there’s a problem. I’ve known him for years.”

Emma gasped. “You’re kidding. Who is it?”

“Joseph Hooks.”

This time Emma’s jaw practically dropped to the floor, and her eyes got as big as moons. For once, she was speechless.

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