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Page 23 of Playing with Forever

We’d been texting on and off all week, just like this…as if our too serious discussion that night at my place had never happened, which I was grateful for. It had been forever since I’d had enough of a relationship with a sub to flirt with her like this. Usually I met someone at the club, had fun once, or we only met up at the club and didn’t talk outside of it.

But my…situationshipwith Andrea just felt natural. The times we’d bumped into each other before we’d hooked up at The Players Club, we had always been prickly. Okay, so,I’dbeen prickly. I’d known I wanted her and that I wasn’t good for her, so I’d been a bit of a jackass. But she’d snarked right back at me, and now this felt like a natural next step in our dance to move from slightly antagonistic banter to proper flirting.

Austin nudged me with his elbow, redirecting my attention back to him. “Your three,” he murmured.

Realizing what he meant, I glanced casually over to my right and saw a blonde woman with legs for days sitting alone at one of the high-top tables in the middle of the bar. She was toying with her half-empty martini glass and glancing my way, a sultry smile on her lips.

She was gorgeous, no denying that. From the way she sat alone and the heels and short skirt she wore, not to mention the way she was openly eyeing me, I was pretty damn sure she was here hoping to meet someone for the night. Exactly the kind of woman I’d usually go for.

I took another sip of my drink, glancing back at Austin. “I’m exhausted, man. I don’t have the energy,” I lied. The truth was…the only woman I wanted was Andrea.

“Yeah, that’s something I’ve never heard you say,ever,” Austin retorted in shock. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”

I rolled my eyes. “ha ha.”

My phone buzzed again with another text from Andrea. I didn’t smile, but something must’ve happened to my face, some slight crinkling in my eyes or shift in my jaw, because Austin’s gaze flew to my phone. “Who’re you so chatty with?”

“No one.”

“Uh huh,” he said, trying to peer closer. “No one, he says, while furiously typing away, ignoring his brother, and not interested in the pretty woman who clearly wants him to fuck her. Don’t make me snatch your phone.”

“Like you could even manage it,” I teased him, but this was my brother. We’d been close, up until I left for the service. Afterwards…I did my best but I knew Austin could tell I held personal things back from him. I also never wanted my brother to feel I shut him out because of anything he did, when it was allme.

“It’s Andrea,” I told him, surprising myself with my own honesty.

Austin’s brows rose. “Andrea—AndreaCorbin?Madison’s Andrea?”

“Could you not say it like that?” I didn’t need the reminder that I was fucking the woman of someone in our close circle of family and friends, and the implications of how potentially disastrous that could be if things ended badly. “And yes,thatAndrea. We’ve been—”

“Holy shit,” Austin said, interrupting me before I could finish. “I assumed the two of you hooked up that night at The Players Club, but are you two now athing?”

“We’re not a thing,” I insisted, but I also wasn’t sure how to describe our situation.I’m giving her BDSM lessonsfelt like the setup for a porno, and I decided to just simplify our arrangement. “We’ve hooked up. A few times now,” I finished.

Austin stared at me in disbelief. “And the two of you are texting on the regular? That’s shocking, especially for you, considering your fuck ‘em and leave ‘em motto.”

I set my drink on the bar top, trying to downplay things. “I knew she was interested in me when we first met, all those years ago…and I was kind of a jerk in response.”

Surprise and curiosity flitted across Austin’s face. “Why?”

I exhaled a deep breath. “She’d just turned twenty-one, and our age difference felt like a lot, back then.” Not to mention I’d just been released from the Navy and was dealing with all the mental and emotional shit from losing my comrades.

“I get that,” he replied, nodding. “But it doesn’t feel like such a big age difference now, does it?”

“No.” And she wasn’t innocent anymore, either. Or at least she didn’t want to be innocent. She was ready to jump into the deep end of the BDSM pool without floaties, so to speak. Eager and willing to learn anything I threw her way. “She’s been quite a…challenge.” And that wasn’t a complaint because I liked a bit of provocation in the bedroom.

Austin chuckled. “That’s good. You need someone who’ll keep you on your toes.”

He was just talking sexually. That’s it. But my throat still closed up. God, I kept Andrea at arm’s length for areason. And now, I was like a teenager, sixteen again, convinced all I wanted was sex but secretly unable to tell the difference between that and love, like all kids.

“I’m not looking for a relationship,” I said firmly, as if saying it out loud could convince myself of that fact with Andrea.

“For crying out loud, Chase, it’s not the fifteen hundreds,” Austin said, his tone wry. “You don’t have to marry a girl because you’re sleeping with her. I think it’s great that you’ve got someone you can see regularly that you genuinely like and enjoy. They always say it’s better when you have a regular scene partner.”

I nodded and Austin clapped me on the shoulder. “Just let go of your precious control for once and enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”

I forced myself to smile, to give my brother what he wanted to see. “In that case, you won’t be upset if I ditch you to go see her?” I teased him.

“And abandon me? You—” Austin stopped, realizing I was joking. “Wow, you really had me going there for a second.”


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