Page 98 of Past Due

After seeing how efficiently she had packed for her months abroad, he believed it. Considering what she had told him about her mother’s hoarding tendencies, it wasn’t a surprise. Having her own space to keep neat and minimal had probably been a relief to her.

“1-9-1-1,” she said when they reached the gate of the community. “I’m on this first street, straight ahead, all the way to the end.”

“I know,” he replied without thinking.

She shifted in her seat. “Oh?”

He avoided her interested gaze as he admitted, “I may have driven by one or twice.”

“Were you stalking me?” she teased.

“No!”

“Creeping by my place late at night is kind of stalkerish.”

“It’s not stalking if you’re checking up on someone and making sure they’re safe.”

“Says every stalker ever when they get hauled before a judge,” she insisted playfully.

“Funny,” he growled.

“Maybe I should ask for a TRO,” she suggested, “but with some modifications.”

“Like?”

“Oh, instead of restraining you from bothering me, you have to keep me in restraints.”

“Marley,” he warned, “don’t give me ideas.”

“I have some other ideas,” she continued, her fingers walking up his arm as he drove slowly down her street. “Ideas that include cuffs and blindfolds and maybe your belt.”

“Keep that up and I’ll ask Zec if I can borrow his dungeon.”

She froze. “Are you serious? He has a legit dungeon?”

“What else would you call a place like the one he has? All that leather and the wall of canes and the metal boxes and restraints?”

“Uh, okay, that’s terrifying,” she said, no longer playfully teasing.

“It’s all consensual. Paid,” he added. “With professionals.”

“Is he the one doling out the pain or the one receiving?”

“He’s the giver.”

“Huh,” she remarked thoughtfully. “I mean that makes sense. From what little I know of him, he definitely gives off the repressed sadist vibe.”

“The what?”

“Have you used his dungeon? Or hired the same kinds of professionals?”

“This feels like a minefield or a trap,” he grumbled.

“I won’t judge,” she promised.

“No,” he answered truthfully and met her gaze in the dim light. “I’m not into that scene. I have been with professional women before,” he admitted. “But not in years and I’ve always been careful with my partners.”

“Okay.”

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