Page 56 of Untether

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ she murmurs, and I watch those red lips move. Christ, she’s sexy. I take hold of her hand and brush my thumb over her knuckles.

‘I’ll be right there with you the whole time,’ I say. ‘We won’t get our room for another thirty minutes, but if you don’t like it next door we can come back out here till then, okay?’

‘Okay.’ She gives a curt littlelet’s do thisnod.

‘You need a safe word,’ I blurt out. I should have thought of it earlier, because she definitely fucking needs one with me in this mood.

‘A safe word,’ she repeats. ‘Um, all right then. Shit, I can’t think of one.’

‘Don’t overthink it. It just needs to be something you wouldn’t usually say in bed.’

She purses her lips before answering. ‘Huh, that’s a pretty long list. Um, fine, what about… parliament.’

I laugh. ‘Parliament?’

‘Sure. I don’t plan on talking about our government institutions while we’re, you know.’

‘I should fucking hope not,’ I mutter. ‘Parliament it is. Nice job. That’ll definitely stop me in action if you say it.’

And with that, I lead her to the huge double doors of The Playroom.

36

AIDA

“The Infernal Serpent”

—Milton,Paradise Lost

As soon as the bulky security guy opens the door for us, it’s like I’m stepping through a portal onto a different planet.

Holy fuck.

I don’t even know how to process what’s in front of me other than sensory overload. My first impressions? Smoke. Dim lighting overall, flashing lights coming from one side where it looks like someone is performing on stage. People, or more accurately, bodies, intertwined. Writhing. Loud music—far louder than in the bar—that’s a well-known aria I can’t currently place overlaid with some hypnotic techno beat.

Chunky white pillars punctuate the room, white drapes flowing between them. I’m taking everything in while trying not to look at anything too closely, because I still don’t knowhow I feel about seeing other people having sex. The idea of it still kinda gives me the ick, so I’m grateful all this smoke and darkness is muddying the picture to the point that I see skin and grinding but not the raw details. Not yet.

‘Cloakroom,’ my very own thug says against my ear, tugging me to one side, and I nearly laugh, because he made a big fucking deal of this feature via text. I have nothing to check, but I follow him over to the kiosk.

He stops and turns to me. ‘Take off my shirt, baby,’ he says, and I widen my eyes in surprise. Not that him taking off his dress shirt in the middle of a sex party is weird in itself, but because I wasn’t expecting it just yet. But who am I kidding? I suspect this gorgeous former rugby player is a total exhibitionist. I bet he was one of those guys at college who always took his shirt off on the dance floor after a few beers.

‘Sure,’ I say, and my fingers go to his buttons. He has most of them undone already, anyway, so it’s not exactly a tough job. I tug his shirt tails out of his pants and undo the bottom few buttons so it swings open. Even in the dim light, his stomach is clearly flat and toned with a dark trail of hair leading south that looks so insanelymaleit has me salivating.

He holds out his wrists and I unbutton one cuff and then the other.

‘Take it off,’ he says above the music. I look up at my masked man and snag my lower lip between my teeth, because I’ve been wanting to get my hands on his skin so badly. I reach up and glide my palms over his chest, pushing the shirt further open.Mmm. His skin is warm, and smooth, and gorgeous, the smattering of dark hair soft beneath my fingertips and the curve of his pecs perfectly firm.

I slide his shirt over his shoulders, down his arms,exposing a body so beautiful and male andyoungit’s frankly ridiculous. God, he’s in great shape. Like, ridiculous, Magic Mike shape. He’s fucking huge on the shoulders and arms, like I knew he would be, but seeing the definition of his muscles is a whole different thing from feeling them through his clothes.

The lights dance over his skin, throwing his sculpted, gym-honed physique into sharp relief.

But best of all?

He has a tattoo.

A huge one down one side of his abdomen. A thick, twisting, intricate serpent.

I didn’t expect that at all, but now I’ve seen it I realise I shouldn’t have been surprised. And if I’ve known since I met him that he was a naughty boy, then seeing him like this, shirtless and masked and tattooed, has that understanding ramping up to a whole other level.

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