“Did you?”
No. She had no idea how it would all work, how she’d manage to do everything. She didn’t even want to think about what Sasha would say. But one look into his captivating eyes, a glance at his easy smile, was all she needed.
“Not yet, but I will.”
“Would it be pushing my luck to ask you out to coffee sometime next week? Before the benefit?”
Two dates in one week? “Thursday afternoon?”
He took a business card from the papers on the table and wrote something down. “Here’s my cell. Call me.”
She would. She definitely would.
A week later, she was putting the final touches on a funeral arrangement when Sasha came through the door. It was Wednesday. Recently, Sasha had been taking a long lunch on Wednesdays to spend time with her latest boyfriend, Peter.
“How was lunch?” Julie asked. She really didn’t have to. Sasha nearly screamed “satisfied woman” the way she strolled into the shop, stopping here and there to touch a petal.
“Now, you know I didn’t eat anything.” Her eyes grew dreamy and she smirked. “But, since you mentioned it. While I was—”
“Stop it right there. No kinky sex talk in the shop. Someone could walk in.”
Julie knew her friend Sasha was a sexual submissive, and she understood a few details of what that entailed. Whenever Sasha played with a new Dom privately, Julie acted as her safety call, waiting a specified time for Sasha to text or call with a secret code so Julie would know all was well. Truth be told, even though some part of her thought there should be something scary about needing a safety call, a bigger part of her had always wondered what it’d be like to submit sexually.
“Just saying,” Sasha said. “You can always tell a good one. It’s like they can read your mind. Kinda freaky.”
“Good what?”
“Good Dominant.”
“The guy in charge?”
“It’s so much more than that. It’s like an itch, an ache. And when you’re with the right Dom, and he scratches it just so?” Sasha sighed with deep satisfaction and simultaneous excitement.
Hearing Sasha talk about it made Julie want to try it all the more. After all, it seemed to suit Sasha. And just because she tried it didn’t mean she had to do it forever. She could just see if she liked it.
But no sooner had that thought passed through her mind than she wondered what it would be like to submit to Daniel. Would he be gentle in bed or was he into taking what he wanted hard and fast?
“You’re sighing,” Sasha said. “What’s on your mind?”
Had she sighed out loud? She didn’t even realize it. “Just thinking about something.”
“Would that something happen to be a certain vice president?”
“Here lately, it’s always about him.”
“Just be careful, okay?”
But that was the problem. She was always careful. For once she wanted to take a risk.
Daniel was standing inside the coffee shop, waiting, when Julie arrived on Thursday. She took a second to watch him from the window. Having arrived after work, he was wearing a beautiful dark suit that emphasized his blond good looks. He was drawing admiring glances from several women.
Locally owned, the coffee shop was her and Sasha’s favorite hangout. Furnished with plush leather couches and handmade bookshelves, it was the perfect place to spend a winter afternoon. She wondered if Daniel had ever been inside before. Right now he was looking at the far wall, frowning at something she couldn’t see.
Must have been a bad day.
She looked down at the polo shirt she always wore to work and wished she’d had time to run home and change into something nicer. It wouldn’t look like she belonged with Daniel when she joined him. Shaking her head, she pushed open the door. Let people think what they would. For the moment, she was with Daniel and that was all that mattered.
His expression lightened when he saw her and he walked over. “Hey, come on in. Let me take your coat.”
She shrugged out of her winter coat, trying hard not to react when their hands brushed. “Thanks.”
He seemed completely unaffected, hanging the coat on the rack beside the door. “You want to get a table while I order?”
She told him what she wanted, medium latte and a blueberry scone, then found a secluded corner table and waited. He hadn’t been in line long when a young woman approached him. He shook his head at whatever it was she said. The lady reached out to touch him, but he shot her a look that froze her in her tracks.
The look troubled Julie a bit. It had been so cold and stern, and seemed totally out of character for Daniel. At least, it seemed out of character for what she knew of Daniel so far. Maybe she hadn’t read him as well as she thought.
She asked him about it when he found her minutes later. “Did that chick hit on you?”
He placed her latte and scone in front of her. “Yes, some people can’t take no for an answer.”
“Some people are really bold. I can’t imagine approaching a stranger in a coffee shop.”
He took a sip from his cup. “She wasn’t a stranger.”
Did that make her an ex, a friend who wanted more, maybe a business associate? She wanted to ask, but didn’t. It was their first date; she had no claims on him and he owed her no explanations.
“I’m very selective about who I go out with,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow and he laughed.
“That sounds a bit snobbish, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“Slightly. You make it sound like you think the rest of us will date anyone with a basic grasp of the English language and most of their teeth.”
“Let me rephrase, then.” He sat thinking for several seconds before finally giving up. “Nah. I’ve got nothing.”
“That’s okay, I understand. You have certain criteria you’d like in a woman and some people don’t make the cut. I’m selective about who I go out with, too.”
“I’m glad I fit the bill.”
She shrugged. “What can I say, I’m putty in the hands of a man who talks in complete sentences.”
He didn’t take it like the joke she’d intended; instead, his eyes flashed with desire. “I doubt you’d be putty for just any man no matter how well he spoke.”
Damn near every conversation she’d ever had with Sasha about submission ran through her mind, but she pushed them out of her head. She focused her attention on Daniel, trying hard not to imagine being putty in his hands.
“It’s a figure of speech. I’m a self-made businesswoman. I’m putty in no one’s hands and I don’t intend to be.”
“Is that so?” His eyes looked so deeply into hers that she wondered if he saw through her words.
“Yes,” she said, but even she didn’t believe her response. From the look he gave her, she could tell Daniel didn’t either.
“That’s too bad.”
He spoke the words so softly, she wasn’t sure she was meant to have heard them.
He changed subjects, bringing up the benefit on Saturday. Julie asked about his grandfather and he was happy to talk about him. He shared some stories about fishing as a young boy with his grandpa that made her laugh, but also realize the warmth and love that had been between them. Her own grandparents had died before she was born, so she didn’t have a connection like Daniel did. She admired the love he obviously felt toward his grandfather, and was moved that he expressed it by organizing the melanoma fund-raiser every year.
She found Daniel easygoing and fun to talk with. He had an air about him that set her at ease. Except for the times—and it happened more than once, so she knew it wasn’t her imagination—that he looked at her with those blue eyes and the intensity took her breath.