He approached my table and his hand touched the back of his chair.
“You’re here,” he said. His voice—that same voice that begged and whimpered over the voice notes. Not too dark and deep, but level, precise, each word crisp and articulated.
He sounded surprised, as though he hadn’t been certain I would show up.
“I’m here,” I repeated his words back to him. I cocked my head. “And you are…” I checked my phone. “Ten minutes late.”
“Work ran late.” He remained there, standing, hand on the back of his chair.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Are you going to join me?”
Simply, he replied, “Am I?”
Huh?
Then I realized…he was waiting for permission.Mypermission.
I was in charge here. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
This much power was exhilarating…and daunting. I wanted to get the role right. I rolled my shoulders back, pretending that my delay was intentional. I nodded to the chair. “Sit.”
He did, settling in. He rested his hands on the table, clasping a wrist. The waitress fluttered over—the woman who hadn’t had time to serve me before, now seemed to have her whole day open up for the attractive man across from me.
“What are you having?” Dorian asked me.
“Mojito for me,” I said.
“Make it two,” he said, and handed the drink list back to the waitress.
I realized, then, how fucking strange this was.
I’d heard this manabsolutely unravelfor me only nights ago.
And now, for the first time, I was meeting him. Face to face.
I leaned forward in my seat, clasping my hands in front of me. Time to break the ice. “So. Where do you work?”
He narrowed his eyes. I noticed them now—really noticed them. Not just the color of them—robin egg blue. It was theclarityof them. The sharpness. He looked at you and you could tell he wasn’t conjuring thenext thing he wanted to say in his head. He wasseeingyou. Really seeing you. Watching you with intelligent, deliberate focus.
I found it both exciting and deeply unsettling. Like I was on an autopsy table and he was peeling back layers of skin, hunting dispassionately around my insides, weighing and measuring my heart.
“Are we really doing this?” he asked me.
I blinked. “Doing what?”
“Vanilla small talk.”
That spun my head around. Here was a man the opposite of Shawn. Shawn had wanted only vanilla—the appearance of what he deemedcorrectandnormal.
Dorian had no interest in my job, my friends, my home life. He just wanted me to step on his throat and made him whimper.
And that was whatIwanted too, wasn’t it? All the kinky play. No strings attached. But now that we were here—face to face—I found myself curious about the man behind the username.
“Does it hurt?” I asked him. “Is small talk painful for you?”
“Incredibly.”
“Good thing you’re a masochist, then, because we’re about to make the smallest fucking talk. What’s your favorite color?”
