Page 15 of Games We Play
She hoped Leah would say no. Sloan didn’t need ideas flooding her head. Ideas that could get her in trouble, and not only at home.
Leah’s biggest tell was when she bunched up her shoulders and looked away, abashed. “I may not get out much, but I know what a dominatrix is.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No. You asked me if I was into it.” Leah contemplated the scenery from their window-side table. A barge ambled its way down the Willamette River. Stars speckled in the dark sky. Lights in high-rise apartments flickered on. Leah stared at them as if she had never seen such sights in Portland before. “I can’t say I’ve ever had the chance to explore that side of myself.”
Sloan cracked her knuckles beneath the table.I have. I’ve explored those sides of myself until I almost completely lost who I was.Relationships were ruined. A promise to only indulge in kink with women who were trained to handle it was what kept Sloan afloat in her personal life.
“You would call yourself a submissive type?”
“I don’t know about that…” Leah poked at her salad. “Like I said. Never explored it.”
“I suppose there aren’t a lot of opportunities for lesbians to get their freak on in this town.”
“Not unless you’re willing to take risks with total strangers from Craigslist. Maybe if I had the kind of money you did, I could hire women to teach me or show me the ropes.” She clamped her lips around her fork. “So to speak,” she said, after swallowing.
“I’m not a professional of any kind,” Sloan explained. Her arms remained crossed on her legs, her pasta untouched. “But I am experienced. It feels like half of my life has been caught up in that sort of lifestyle.”
“Really? That’s awesome!”
Sloan shook her head. Honestly, it felt more like a curse.The worst decisions I ever made was because of my tastes in the bedroom.The bedroom? Bullshit. More like her whole life, because Margaret Sloan was the type to make everything a lifestyle. She didn’t know how to keep things only in the bedroom once her eyes were opened and her body lit aflame with hedonistic desires.
The only difference between her and women with less money was that she could buy her way out of trouble. Rehab. Therapists. Lawyers out of her own ass… she had done them all.
All but the one thing she really,reallydreamed of doing.
She popped open her purse, currently sitting in a basket beneath the table. There, in the bottom of her bulbous leather bag, was a diamond ring on a chain.
One day, she would toss that engraved peace of shit into Lake Michigan. Or maybe the Columbia River. Whichever city she happened to be in when she finally had the balls to cut shit out of her life.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
What a segue, honestly. “No, I don’t.” Sloan said. “I don’t really do relationships. I prefer to keep a certain amount of distance between myself and the women I see.”
“Don’t have time for relationships, huh? Guess I could see that.”
“Sure.” That was a good excuse. In truth, love was too complicated to indulge. “Let’s say I’m too busy jetting around the world going toe-to-toe with some of the planet’s biggest, money-grubbing assholes. You need a certain spine erected when you bust balls in the boardroom. It doesn’t make for good relationship material.”
“Yeah. I know that feeling.”
“Things in your life preventing you from having a happy relationship, Ms. Leah?”
She blushed. “Suppose. Even we plebeians have skeletons in our closet.”
Do you?Sloan would have to look into Leah’s should urges get the best of her.No skeletons allowed around me, thank you.“What a happy accident that has occurred in this town, Leah. You. Me. Two unlikely women who have so much in common but would have never met if it weren’t for the stupidest mix-up to ever befall real life.”
“You think it’s a good thing we’ve met?”
“As long as you’re not trying to get something out of me, I should hope so.”
“Ms. Sloan…” Leah laughed as if the woman in front of her was one of the most ridiculous she could have met. “The only thing I’m looking for in my life is a little adventure. It’s been a really long time since I was able to embrace certain parts of myself. That’s what happens when you work as hard as someone else but only make a fraction of the money.”
“It must be true, if you’re working at a little bakery and still living with your parents.” Sloan wouldn’t broach the part about working “just” as hard. Leah surely put in the effort and hours at her job, but did she deal with men who got pissed off enough at her presence in meetings that hitmen made the occasional go at her life?It’s been at least five years since the last one. I think, anyway. Who knows what my security people don’t tell me?She didn’t want to know. Wasn’t like businesswomen weren’t used to assholes trying to take them out. “What exactly are you proposing here, Leah? Thought you said you didn’t want anything from me.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I feel likeyou’remore likely to be the woman doing the proposing.”
Sloan narrowed her eyes. “How subversive of you.”
