Austin didn’t havea subtle bone in his entire body. That negotiation had clearly gone wrongsomewhere.
“You guys realizeyou’ve made Shane part of your family, so you’re asking me to hypotheticallyout myself to my family, right?” I didn’t necessarily have a problem withopening up to Shane since he seemed to be fairly interesting himself at thispoint, but they needed to see it from my perspective.
“Yes.” Austinfinally grew more serious. “We wouldn’t ask unless it was important to us. Yes,we tease and say outrageous things, but this is different.”
Why was itdifferent?
I had a feeling Iwasn’t going to know the answer to that until I actually talked about myself.Rock, let me introduce you to hard place.
Everything that Iknew about Austin from our personal interactions and even his TV appearancessaid he loved to play the dumb flirt, but that he was incredibly intelligentand fiercely loyal. I’d even seen a site that had claimed to have proof thathis IQ was genius level.
That probablyexplained why he was so odd, honestly.
The only reasonhe’d show up like this was if he were protecting one of the guys…or maybe allof them.
Shit.
They had too manysuspicions at this point. I wouldn’t lose much by opening up and it might saveme from them poking around any longer. They had the combined resources to makethings difficult if they decided to go snooping in my private life.
“I was introducedto the lifestyle in college. I found other like-minded people soon after I gotout and I’ve been in the lifestyle ever since.” They were both watchingsilently like I was offering up the secrets of the universe, so I kept going.
At the very leastit was a good way to keep Austin quiet.
“I haven’t beendating much lately, but in the past, I’ve had subs of different sorts. Nothingyou say will shock me.” They’d have to be into something a lot more interestingthan BDSM to shock me.
Wade took the leadthis time. “I think it’s pretty evident that most of the guys aren’t involvedin typical relationships.”
I nodded. “Yes,you’re actually terrible at hiding it.”
Austin shruggedcarelessly, but I could see the grin he was trying to hold back. The othersmight be trying to keep their kink in the closet, but if I had to guess, I’dsay he was tired of it.
Wade sighed.“They’re trying.”
“It’s hard. I getthat.” I glanced between them. “Is that everything you needed to know?”
It felt like avery strange job interview.
They turned andhad some kind of silent conversation that was composed of stares and theoccasional noise. Finally they turned back to me and Austin spoke. “We’reopening a BDSM club and if you’re going to be around all the time you werebound to hear about it, so we needed to make sure you wouldn’t lose your mind.”
Not what I’d beenexpecting, but it filled in some of the blanks.
“Okay.” When thatdidn’t seem to satisfy them, I glanced back and forth. “Is everything goingwell?”
Wade leanedforward. “You don’t mind? It’s not…”
I shrugged. “I’vebeen visiting private dungeons for years. Unfortunately, they’re usually inpeople’s houses and that can have a lot of drama associated with it whencouples break up or when something goes wrong. Having a professional space inthe area would be nice as long as you find ways to maintain people’s privacy.”
Again, it seemedlike I surprised them.
“Privatedungeons?” Austin sighed. “Why won’t Silas let me have one?”
Wade snorted.“Because you’re constantly followed by cameras. Someone would notice if you puta dungeon in your house.”
“Yeah, I have to sayhe’s right.” I laughed when Austin gave another dramatic sigh. “The club is thenext best thing, though.”
He perked up atthat reminder. “Yes, and that’s coming along nicely.”
“I’ll get to atleast come look around before you open, right?” I wasn’t going to assume I’dget an invitation, but at the very least I was curious.
