Page 16 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

Sometimes she had challenges hearing the American, even with her hearing aids. Her voice must naturally pitch high. And sometimes she used words not in Zoe’s everyday English, like zucchini instead of courgette, and it made lipreading hard.

“A series bible for an author. To make sure there is continuity in her series. Like a character’s age or eye colour, that kind of thing. She wants to write a next generation of the books but can’t remember all the details.”

“Sounds like fun. How did you get into it?”

She guessed that the fun, you, into it was a question about how she had gotten the job. “I’d been working for a temp agency at a doctor’s office, doing virtual assistant work periodically, but it was getting harder to hear things over the phone. And then while I was searching for something else, I found this author’s job post about how she was looking for someone remote to do a bunch of her admin work. So, I messaged her directly and told her my situation and limitations. Turned out that even though she lives in the States, she was born in the UK and lived here for twenty years with her deaf brother and knows BSL.”

“Is it an author we’d know?” Alex asked.

Zoe thought about the premise. A sex club somewhere in Texas. In the middle of nowhere. With more hunky brooding doms than you could poke a stick at. And equipment and manoeuvres she’d never heard of. The hero had been in the middle of dripping hot wax on the heroine’s nipples before Willow had interrupted. Something that had intrigued her as much as it had terrified her.

“I doubt it. It’s fierier than the pits of Hades. My search history will never be the same again after looking up what a St. Andrew’s Cross looked like earlier.”

Willow gestured to see it, and Zoe turned her laptop

“You put your wrists there and ankles there.” Alex pointed out helpfully.

Willow’s eyes went wide. “Um. Well, that’s…terrifying. Hot, but terrifying.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Zoe continued. “Her car went off the road and she ambled into this private estate that’s a sex club. Personally, I’d be calling someone to tow me out of the ditch. Instead, she ended up getting spanked after interfering with a scene and is amazingly in full agreement.”

Alex laughed. “The best sex happens when there are a lot of emotions happening.”

Sex. Lots. Emotions.He was harder to lipread when he was smiling, but his lips were just so…damn.

“This guy just seems to always know what the heroine needs, even if she doesn’t know herself. The feminist part of me totally riles against the idea that anybody could get off on being told what to do and how to do it. I mean, there’s a book in this series where he collars her.”

“Arrests her?” Willow asked. “He’s a cop?”

“No. Like physically buys her a choker necklace with a padlock on and collars her as his.”

“Just because it doesn’t make sense to us, doesn’t mean it’s not perfect for them,” Alex said.

“I get that,” Zoe said. “The weird thing is, it’s not weird. Like, by the time you get to that point in the book, you understand why she is like she is. And when I read it, I was sitting there, thinking I want someone to collar me too.”

“Really?” Alex asked, leaning towards her.

She could feel heat rise into her cheeks and was suddenly very aware she was having a fairly intimate conversation about sex with two people she wasn’t having sex with. It was…strange. “No. I mean. What it symbolises. That he’ll always look after her.”

“I don’t suppose it’s any different to wearing an engagement or wedding ring,” Willow said. “Luke and I had this conversation about our contract versus marriage. It’s all just paperwork to make sure you stay together. Perhaps jewellery that stakes claim all falls into the same bucket of symbols of commitment.”

Zoe focused hard on Willow’s lips, taking a minute to make sense of what she’d caught. “Symbols of commitment I get. It’s not romantic though when you think of it as paperwork.”

Willow rubbed her hand over her ever-increasing bump. “I don’t know. I think only the people involved can define what’s romantic or what their relationship needs.”

“And having a contract can help some people feel secure with their boundaries,” Alex added.

“True,” Zoe acknowledged. “That’s one thing about these BDSM books, they do a way better job of establishing boundaries and talking about what turns each other on than they do in vanilla life.”

“Vanilla life?” Willow asked.

“The term for regular, non-kink sex,” Zoe answered.

“I hate the term kink,” Alex said, his lips set.

Willow frowned. “But isn’t all sex kinky? Like, where’s the line?”

Zoe shrugged. “Good question.”

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