Three Hard Lessons (2 page)

“Thirty grand,” Nina’s voice rasped as she repeated it, stunned. “Uh, excellent. Great.”

I could practically hear the gears in her head churning. Was she trying to find a way to get him to negotiate higher? This unprecedented event had us both scrambling.

“Thirty thousand dollars,” she echoed again, and it sounded like she’s barely left off the phrase,
“You’re sure?”
I had to get her out of here before her babbling brought him to his senses.

“Thank you, Nina,” I said. Hopefully my dismissive tone wasn’t lost on her. Brisk and sharp footfalls away from me announced it wasn’t. I let out a breath when the door shut, leaving me alone with the rough edged voice I liked and the worry I did not.

In the quiet, my trepidation built to a level I couldn’t control.

“Are you still there?” I couldn’t hear him breathing anymore.

“Yes, sorry. I was looking at this, um . . . menu.”

The willing list. The menu was set up on an easel in the back of the room. It was everything I would allow my client to either do to me, or was willing to do to him.

“There’s a lot on here.” It didn’t sound judgmental, which was good. He was the one who just agreed to pay for pussy—or whatever else he wanted—so he had no room to be judging anyone.

I controlled my voice. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

There wasn’t anything on the list I was opposed to, obviously, but there were a few things I hadn’t tried before. Some were the silly ones like diapering, but some were the scarier ones like autoerotic asphyxiation.

“Kissing?”

Oh.
“You won’t find that on the menu.”

“Because it’s a given?”

“It’s not allowed.”

He exhaled. Was that a sigh of disappointment? “A club rule?”

“No,” I said. “Mine, sir.”

“What happens if I break your rule?” He asked it plainly, like he was concerned he might do it.

I paused. It had happened before, and I had the fucker thrown out. Breach of our totally illegal contract and all. But thirty grand made things different. I was basically the star of this club and received the highest percentage off my deals. I’d be netting ninety percent of that thirty grand, or ninety percent of zero if I wanted to be inflexible on this.

“I suggest you try very hard not to.” I didn’t want to have to cross that bridge.

“What if I want to hold your hand?” His voice was casual.

I couldn’t wrap my head around that concept. “You want to hold my hand?”

“I noticed that’s not on the list either.”

Was he fucking with me? “If you want to hold my hand, sir, you can do that.” It would be awkward as hell, but whatever.

“Dom,” he said.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Dom.”

Of course it is.
“Okay. My name is Sub.”

“Sub?” This voice was confused. “Is that short for some–? Oh, I get it. No, my name really is Dom.”

His cold, thick fingers touched my wrist and I startled.

“Sorry, may I touch you?”

He’d just agreed to pay thirty grand to do a helluva lot more than
touch
me. My teasing personality slipped out before I could stop it.

“Anxious to get to the hand holding?”

There was a half-laugh from him as he undid the restraint around my wrist, Velcro peeling open with its scratchy, tearing noise. As soon as it was free, footsteps took him around the table to the other side where he freed this wrist, too.

Okay, now what?

I lay motionless on the table, waiting for his command. I had to remind myself he was new to this, and obviously shy. Most guys were on me the moment the sales assistant walked out of the room, some even before. I wasn’t sure I had the patience to deal with a timid client, but the money promptly told me to shut the fuck up.

“Dom? You need to tell me what you’d like to do.”

“Oh. Can you, um, sit up?”

As I did, there was a rustle of clothes. Good, he was getting undressed. Once the clothes hit the floor I could get this show on the road. The cool fingers closed on my hand, lifting it off the leather.

Right away I could tell his goal wasn’t to hold my hand. Warm fabric lined with silk slipped over the skin of my forearm, traveling upwards. Holy shit. He was putting some sort of suit jacket on me, the one he’d probably just taken off.

“What are you doing?” Again, I wasn’t supposed to ask questions, but this was disorienting.

“I’d like to talk, and this is the only way we can do that.” The jacket was around my shoulders now, and he urged my other arm into the empty sleeve, pulling the front of the jacket closed. “You are way too distracting when you’re naked.”

The sleeves of his jacket were well past my fingertips, so he was probably tall. The warm, slippery fabric felt wonderful on my skin, and the manly scent of cologne clung to his jacket. Shit, he smelled good.
Focus,
my brain ordered. He wanted to talk, and that idea was scary. I could do all sorts of things he’d like, but conversation? That wasn’t one of them.

We lapsed into silence. For wanting to talk, he was doing a shitty job of it.

“Are you nervous?” I prompted. Maybe he was having a hard time getting it up. “Do you want me to go down on you?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I . . .” Breath left him in what sounded like a frustrated burst. “I live in Tokyo.”

Um . . . kay?
He said it like that could explain what his issue was. Was he Japanese? Was this a culture thing?

“Have you ever been?” he continued.

“To Japan? No, but I’d love to. I lived in the Netherlands for a semester, but I stayed in Europe. That’s the farthest east I made it.”

“What was that like, living overseas? Did you like it?”

I did. That night in the red light district had shown me not just what I was interested in, but what I was so very good at. “It was fucking awesome.”

“Did you ever get lonely?” His voice was low, which intensified the gravel in it. “Did you feel like an outsider?”

I shook my head. “In Amsterdam? Nope. I was staying at an international dorm, though. We were a stoned and drunk version of the UN.”

His silence drained the memories of my wildest times away. I turned on the table to face his voice, letting my legs dangle over the side.

“Japan is . . . not welcoming to foreigners.” So, he wasn’t Japanese after all. My hand not holding his suit jacket closed was flat on the leather beside me, and his fingers brushed up against mine.

What the fuck? What was that? How had this innocent gesture made my heart beat faster? The cushion top shifted as he sat beside me, his fingers now trailing a pattern on the back of my hand.

“You know, Japan has these hostess bars where men pay to have an hour’s worth of conversation with a woman who’s not their wife or girlfriend.”

Tingling warmth was left in the wake of his strokes. Everything was upside-down. What was happening? “Why?” I asked in my disoriented state.

“Everyone’s desperate to connect. There are people packed in all around, and yet it’s the most isolating place you can imagine.” Dom eased his fingers under my palm, turning it so he could lace his fingers with mine. “I can’t go into a lot of these bars because I’m an American. Not that it fucking matters. It’s unlikely the women speak English. And the ones I can go in are usually Yakuza owned. Not exactly safe.”

His once cold hand now scorched on mine. Jesus, when was the last time I held hands with someone? Eighth grade? This was weird, and yet, oddly nice. I tightened my hold on him, and my breathing became uneven.

“You like the sexy hand holding, don’t you?” he said.

I choked back the startled, nervous giggle. I wanted to take the blindfold off. I wanted him to order me to lie back down so he could shove himself inside me and the power I was accustomed to would be mine again. Nothing shocked me anymore when I was on this table; I’d seen and done just about everything. But this unfamiliar experience and my reaction to it . . .

“We can do so much more than just this,” I whispered. It might have been a plea.

“I know. There’s a menu of all the stuff we can do over there on an easel.” The knuckles of his free hand brushed over my cheek, turning my head toward him. “Maybe I want to do the stuff that’s not on there.”

I didn’t have time to respond. The hand cradled my face and held me into his kiss. Soft, damp lips grazed mine as if testing the waters, and when I didn’t move, he kissed me for real. His mouth moved on mine, gentle yet in control. A hint of possession that was kind of hot.

No. Against the rules,
my brain yelled.

I tried to turn away, but his hand holding mine abandoned it so he could grip my face between his palms, denying my halfhearted escape, and shifting me to the best angle. So he could slip his wet, soft tongue into my betraying and welcoming mouth.

Electricity arced through my body. Fuck, it turned me on, which had never happened before. Kissing with men usually did nothing for me. It had always been a weird tangle of probing tongues and noses smashed together, but this kiss wasn’t anything like that. It was hot. I wanted more, and I sighed audibly when he was polite enough to give it to me.

He must have figured out I was cool with him breaking the rule, because one hand relaxed and worked its way up onto the back of my head, tugging the elastic bands up. The tension on the blindfold eased away just as he did. He was giving me back my sight as a reward for accepting his kiss. When the blindfold was off, my eyes fluttered open and adjusted to the light.

“Holy shit,” I said, echoing back his reaction to me.

Dom was a shade too handsome to call cute. He was more elegant and serious looking than a catalog-model pretty boy. The man beside me, a blindfold in one hand, was out of this world hot. Long lashes framed strikingly aqua-blue eyes. His hair was longer on the top than it was on the sides and fawn colored. Two days’ worth of stubble etched his strong, defined jaw. Distinctly male, and sexy as fuck.

His piercing eyes clouded with distrust at my reaction, and for a half-second it looked like he was thinking about how he could get the blindfold back on. So I yanked it from his hand and tossed it aside. I wanted to clear that up right away.

“I said
holy shit
because you’re really fucking hot. What the hell are you doing here?”
Stop talking, Payton.
“You could go into any bar and women would drop their panties for you.”

A huge smile spread on his face. “You think so?”

I scrunched brows. “I don’t get why you did this.”

The warmth in his eyes faded a touch. “I don’t have a lot of time. I only came home for Thanksgiving.” He straightened, smoothing a hand down the buttons of his gray dress shirt. “I’d rather not waste it shouting over a speaker at some crowded bar, hoping to get . . . to find a connection.” His eyes drifted from mine. “This way you have to talk to me.”

“Talk,” I said. “You don’t want to have sex?”

His eyes snapped back to mine, and color warmed over his cheeks. “I didn’t say that.”

Oh, hell. He
was
cute, when he was embarrassed. He wanted a sure thing, too.

“Can I be honest?” His blue eyes blinked slowly, hypnotizing.

I nodded. “Sure.”

“Meeting women in Tokyo is fucking impossible when you’re a
Gaijin
. I’ve been there almost a year.” His gaze fell away and he tangled his hand with mine once again. “It’s been a long time and I’m way off my game.”

Oh my god, really? “You haven’t had sex in a year?”

He pressed his lips together for a moment. “Not with someone else.”

My eyes raked down his body, noting the delicious build hidden beneath the dress shirt and black suit pants. He probably spent as much time in the gym as I did. A year without someone riding that? What a waste.

“You look like a man who knows how to fuck.”

The subdued color flashed on his face again. “I’d like to think so, yeah.”

“Show me.” It came out before I could stop it, and my hand let go of the lapels of the jacket so it fell open. Cool air rolled over my bare skin, giving me goosebumps.

He frowned and cinched the jacket closed, bringing his face so much closer to mine. “Can we slow down?”

The vibrant blue eyes were wide and gorgeous. Flecks of dark gray scattered among his irises matched his shirt perfectly. My job was to give him what he wanted. My desires were irrelevant, I reminded myself. Since he was already there, it took him no time to close the breath of space between us and attempt to kiss me again.

I leaned away. “Remember my rule.”

“You didn’t seem to mind last time.” His voice was an even mixture of accusation and desperation.

“I’m sure it was an accident, and I believe in second chances.” I folded my jacket-clad arms over my chest and crossed my legs that dangled over the side of the table. The bottom of the fabric just covered the naughty bits, but gave him a magnificent view of my inner thigh. The muscles along his jaw tightened.