Page 1 of By the Letter

Chapter One

Shira

I was nervous, butthat wasn’t anything new. My system was so used to it I barely noticed it anymore, and my body simply didn’t react. My brain might’ve screamed,“Danger, danger!”while my body said,“Meh. If I die, I die.”Which I was grateful for. If my heart started galloping every time my anxiety went haywire, I was fairly certain it would have shut down a decade ago.

Tonight, though, my palms were sweating, and there was a knot in my throat the size of a fist. Nerves and trepidation met with excitement and a smidge of arousal…which made sense, considering I was in a sex club.

A sex club.

This was Bea’s doing. My fearless, live-out-loud friend knew countless secret corners of Denver and had contacts in every walk of life. She was the one who had told me about the app I’d joined strictly out of curiosity, and she’d pushed me to explore.

I hadn’t told her about my…conversations with WhenInRome—or Wim, as I called him. He knew me as Goldie. Wholly uncreative on my part since it was a shortening of my last name, Goldman, but the first time Wim typed “Heeyyy, Goldie,” I’d decided I liked the nickname.

I’d arrived early, just in time to see the Shibari show on the intimate stage in the center of the lounge. A raven-haired woman in nothing but sheer black panties was being wrapped in red rope by two shirtless men. I hadn’t intended to watch, but I’d found myself tucked in a dark corner, entranced by what I was seeing.

If asked later, I might not have been able to describe exactly what the woman looked like, but I would be able to recount in fine detail her expression of pure euphoria. And the men? Oh, the men… Their devotion to their task and the woman between them sent shivers across my skin.

Idly, I wondered if I could do something like that. Give up all control to one or two men and let them move me around and do with me what they wanted.

Not in front of others. Never that. But maybe…

From nowhere, a tall blonde appeared next to me, her elbow bumping my arm. She was watching the show, solely focused on what was happening in front of us.

“Do you like it?” she whispered after a few breathless minutes.

The fist in my throat flexed as my jitters skyrocketed. Unexpected conversations were difficult for me. The comfort of the shadows cloaking us was the only reason I was able to push out a reply.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She turned to me, and I forced myself to face her, tipping my head back. I barely scraped five feet, though my heels were helping tonight. She blinked down at me, her eyes big and guileless.

“Is this your first time here?”

I nodded. “Yes. Do you…come here often?”

She snickered, and when it dawned on me she was laughing at my cheesy pickup line and notme, I smiled back at her.

“Every night, actually,” she replied. “I work here.”

“Oh? Do you do”—I nodded toward the stage—“that sort of thing?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m more of a paper pusher. But right now, I’m on a mission, and I think you’re exactly who I’m looking for.”

“Oh.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. I’d worn it down like Wim had requested. “I really doubt that. I’m just here to meet—”

“You’re Goldie, aren’t you?”

My lips parted in surprise. “How did you know that?”

She gestured toward my outfit and hair. “I was told to find a woman in a red dress with long black hair. You fit that description, my darling.”

I nodded, retucking the hair I’d just tucked. This was why I always wore it up. I fidgeted otherwise, and that drew more attention than I liked.

Wim must have told this woman how to find me. Wim, who, before this moment, had been a faceless man on the other side of my computer. A picture of a headless body I’d drooled over for the past few weeks. A promise of fantasies fulfilled.

Wim was real, and this was happening.

Tonight, we’d meet, and he’d take me.

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