Page 26 of Daddy's Little Matchmaker

She cleared her throat and shook her head, the change of clothes already making her feel more confident. “No. That’s what tonight is all about, right? Getting to know the sides of us that we hide from everyone else. Let’s find out if we actually like each other with no inhibitions.”

Connor blinked a couple of times as if taken aback, and then slowly nodded. “No inhibitions. Bring it on.”

She grabbed her coat from the closet by the door. “Ready to go?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Our Uber is waiting downstairs.”

She chuckled as she slipped her coat on. “And immediately our inhibitions come right back into place.”

He laughed and added, “We wouldn’t want to traumatize the Uber driver.”

They kept their Uber conversations limited to the weather, shelter animals, and Connor’s flight schedule. Half an hour later, their driver dropped them off in downtown Portland right in front of a restaurant that Tessica was certain she couldn’t afford.

Connor closed the Uber door and it drove off. “I’ve already made reservations, and I intend to pay for our meal.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And what if I want to pay for my own meal?”

He mimicked her expression. “Then you’re out of luck. I already told you we’re taking an Uber back to our separate homes, so you’re going to let me pay, and you’re not going to argue about it.”

Her stomach lurched at his commanding tone, and her heart rate sped up. That tone brought up long suppressed thoughts and desires that she almost never acknowledged. She broke eye contact and mumbled, “Okay.”

Connor opened the door to the French restaurant for her, and gently guided her forward with a hand in the middle of her back.

While Connor told the host about their reservation, Tessica took off her coat, and glanced down at her red dress with irony. So much for her Domme persona in the face of Connor’s confident dominance. But then the softer and submissive side of her was equally as valid and natural to her as her Domme side. She just didn’t let it come out much.

Once they were shown to their table, Connor ordered them a bottle of Merlot. She looked around. “Where’s the menu?”

“They don’t have one. We get seven courses, and it’s whatever the chef is making today.”

“Oh.” Tessica had never heard of anything like that. “Well, that makes it easy as long as you’re not a picky eater.”

“Are you?” Connor asked.

“Not particularly.”

He scooted closer to her in the round booth, so they were about a foot apart. “All right, time to dive in. When did you first know you were kinky?”

She took a deep breath to fortify herself. “That’s complicated. I became self-aware of my kink when I was about twenty-six. Or maybe I should say that’s when I found a title for what I was. That’s when I was willing to admit it to myself. In hindsight, I can see that I was different from an early age, but I didn’t know what it meant. And I was completely in denial from the time I was sixteen until I was twenty-six. What about you?”

“I knew I liked things that weren’t normal from puberty on, but I didn’t have a name for it until I was in boot camp.”

“When you were eighteen?” she asked.

“That’s right. One of my friends had a dirty magazine with a page about BDSM. I put two and two together very quickly.”

“You were already married?”

He nodded. “I was. I can’t remember, were you already married at twenty-six?”

“Yeah, I was.”

The waiter came back with two glasses and the bottle of wine Connor had ordered. Once Connor had tasted it and approved, the waiter poured them both a glass and left the bottle.

Tessica took a sip.

“What do you think?”

“Honestly, I’m not much of a wine connoisseur. I’m sure all the nuance is lost on me. But it tastes good.”

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