Tempered by Her (4 page)

Chapter Seven

I was determined to make a change, but just the sight of her submissive
nature and her raspberry scent had my inner Dom hollering to escape the cage I fought
to keep him locked inside. Unable to help myself, my mind wandered to my
favorite flogger. Hot wax dripping on her skin, causing her to arch and gasp.

I cleared my throat and turned left, leaving the parking garage behind.

Darkness had already taken over Boston’s north end, the streetlights
glinting like diamonds on the inch of snow coating the sidewalks and parked
cars. We drove in silence for two blocks while I fidgeted in my seat, trying to
come up with something to converse about—something we might have in common
other than work.

Goodie-two-shoes and selfish prick. Not likely. I down shifted a little
harder than necessary.

“Everything okay?” Raquel’s voice sounded tiny and nervous.

Going for change meant honesty, and saying exactly what was on my mind.
Kind of.
“Just thinking it sucks that
outside work, all we know about each other is gossip or assumption.”

“We can remedy that.”

Her simple reply made me smile and erased my annoyance. “You first.”

Light laughter escaped her, relaxing me back into my seat. “Tell me
what
you’ve
assumed,” she said.

“All right.” I nodded, enjoying a conversation with the opposite sex
for the first time since I could remember. “You’re a good little girl, going to
marry a perfect Christian man, have five children, and a white picket fence
around your suburbia home.”

“Hardly.”

I whipped my head toward her. “What’d I get wrong?”

“I’m a good little girl, but that’s about it.”

Not looking for a perfect
Christian man to give her five kids? Well, fuck me.
Hope leapt up and took note. “Seriously? I
thought for sure I had you pegged.”

Her face grew thoughtful as she peered out the windshield. “If you’d
said that about me a month ago, I would’ve totally agreed, but now that I’ve
moved out on my own, well...” She shrugged and smiled. “I’m kinda looking
forward to making my own life, my own choices and seeing where they take me.”

I couldn’t help gazing at her in a way I’d learned made other women
grow hot. “Sounds like a good plan.”

Cheeks pink, she glanced away again. “My faith, values, and convictions
will never change, but beyond that? Guess I’ll just have to wait and see.” She
shifted back toward me and cleared her throat. “What else?”

I wasn’t too disappointed about her convictions not changing. Since I’d
made up my mind to try for more, I looked forward to doing exactly as she’d
said. Waiting—holding off—always made for a better ending. “You’re pure,
innocent, kind, and good. All things I haven’t experienced since childhood.”

“Childhood, meaning I’m too young for you?”

“No.” I snorted, praying to the Mother Mary that Raquel wouldn’t play
the typical female games, trying to read into whatever words spewed out of my
mouth. “Meaning you’re untouchable.” My grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“Unattainable to someone like me.”

“Someone like you.” She grew silent, and I couldn’t resist another peek
at her profile in the passing street lights.

“Go ahead.” I turned forward once more, stopping to let a handful of
pedestrians cross the street. “Tell me what you’ve heard—or what you think of
me.”

Raquel hesitated long enough I had to turn. She fiddled with her purse,
her gaze downcast. “You are sin personified,” she whispered.

I burst into laughter and shifted into first, leaving the crosswalk
behind.

“Why so amused?”

“I’ve been called all kinds of things,” I said, still chuckling, “but
nothing’s ever stroked my ego like that.”

Raquel huffed something that sounded an awful lot like
cocky jerk
.

“So that means you
do
find me
tempting like Jenny said, doesn’t it?” I asked while pulling up to Valentino’s
valet attendant.

Lower lip between her teeth, she cast me a sidelong glance.

I put the car into park, but didn’t release her gaze. “Be a good girl, and
don’t lie to me, Raquel Hawkins. I tempt that innocent mind and body, don’t
I
?”

“Yes.”

Her whispered reply had me telling my cock to back down and wait.
Grinning, I hopped out and handed over the keys to the waiting attendant. She
wanted me. I wanted her. It would doubtless take a wedding for me to get in her
pants, but fuck it all, I was willing to wait and do it right. Willing to give
change
a try.

****

“You what?” Raquel laughed at my confession.

I bit back my smirk. “I said I like country music.”

“No way.”

“Honest to God. Chesney,
Aldean
, Underwood. Got
all their albums at home. I even went to all three’s concerts this year.”

“Get out.”

I swallowed down the last of my wine and pulled our almost empty bottle
from its bucket of ice. “Why? What’d you think I listened to?”

Raquel shrugged and twirled linguine around her fork. “Hip hop. Techno
or whatever they call the crap at dance clubs.”

“Who said I went to dance clubs?”

Her cheeks tinged pink, and bottle tipped to pour, I stared as I’d been
doing all night as she put the pasta between her lips. A smear of red clam
sauce lingered on her lower lip. I wanted to lean across the damn table
separating us and lick it off.

“Don’t you?” she asked once she swallowed, drawing my attention back up
to her smiling eyes half-hidden behind her
smokin
’
hot secretary glasses.

“Don’t I what?”

“Go to dance clubs.”

I wasn’t about to tell her what kind of clubs caught my fancy. Clearing
my throat, I poured myself the last of the wine since she hadn’t touched her
half-full glass in over an hour. “I don’t dance.”

“You did with me.” Although her face flamed, she held my gaze.

“And it was the best fuckin’ dance of my life.” Determined to keep our
conversation and my mind off sex or anything even remotely related, I plowed
onward in getting to know her better. “So, are you a Sox fan?”

She nodded. “Bruins, too.”

“Really? Never would have taken you for a sports fan.”

“There’s another nasty assumption.” She
tsked
and wiped her lips clean with a linen napkin. “In the Hawkins household, if a
game was on, we tuned in.”

“Ever been to Fenway?”

She sighed and slumped in her chair as a busboy cleared our table,
discrete and quiet enough our conversation didn’t pause. “No. My father took
the boys a couple of times, but always left me and my sisters at home.”

“I’ll take you to opening day if you’d like.”

Her eyes widened. “You can get tickets for opening day?”

“I have season tickets.”

“Of course you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “You’re a Risso. I’m guessing you can buy
pretty much whatever you want. My parents? No such luck. We ate them out of
house and home.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Two of each. Both sisters are older and married, and my twin brothers will
graduate this year.”

The waiter interrupted, asking if we wanted dessert.

“Two espressos and we’ll share the Tiramisu,” I said without looking up
at him.

“Very well, sir.”

“What if I didn’t like Tiramisu,” Raquel asked as the waiter strode
away, her brow arched, a sweet smile lifting her lips.

“You have to.”

“Oh I do, do I?”

I sat back and placed my hands on my thighs. “You’re perfect in every
other way, so I had to assume you’d love my favorite dessert.”

She laughed and glancing away, shook her head. “And yet another
assumption. I’m hardly perfect.”

“Seem to be so far.”

Teeth clamping down on her bottom lip, her gleeful eyes seemed to toy
with revealing a deep, dark secret.

“Tell me.”

Her face flushed as she glanced away and smoothed back her hair. “Tell you
what?”

“The thoughts making you squirm in your seat. The secret of what makes
you less than perfect in your eyes.”

Her head whipped toward me. “How did you—”

“You’re an easy read.”

She blew a puff of air between her lips and looked at her wine glass. “Lovely.”

“Tell me.”

She shook her head.

“Raquel.” It took a few seconds, but she obeyed my unspoken request to
meet my gaze. Hot pleasure fed my inner Dom, and I leaned forward, fuckin’ starved
for more. “Tell me.”

Chapter Eight

Never once had I considered telling the truth about my mind’s sinful
nature to a person I knew. Sure, I chatted online with cyber buds about it
while on the internet at the library, but kept it at that lest my father and
mother ever found out.

I stared into Zane’s intense eyes, jitters having a party in my stomach
and quickening my breath. According to gossip, he
lived
what I read about. What I dreamed about. Telling him probably
wouldn’t be the best idea, but he tempted me like no other. I wanted to tell
him. See what he thought after knowing the truth—hear his thoughts, taste a
smidgeon of what he could offer.

Just keep it at information,
Raquel. Save the experience for later.

Clearing my throat, I tore my attention from his eyes and focused on
the large piece of Tiramisu our waiter had placed between us during the silent
interlude. “I’m not as innocent as you think.”

Zane didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t seem to breathe. “So you know exactly
what I meant every time I cornered you in your office, whispered naughty things
in your ear, and flushed your face like it is now?”

I swallowed, my stomach fluttering, knowing my reply would escape
breathless. “Not in deed, but the words, yes.”

“Words.”

He didn’t voice it as a question, but his tone required an answer I
felt compelled to give. “I’ve read a few books.”
Stinkin
’
dry mouth … I had to try swallowing again. Didn’t work. “Steamy romances.”
Still avoiding his gaze, I reached for my espresso, needing moisture to return
to my tongue.

“Fifty Shades type stuff?” he asked.

I sipped, put the cup back down, and dared a quick peek at him through
my lashes. Leaning forward and body tensed as though teetering on a steep
cliff, he stared. He held a heat in his eyes that made my sex clench and
nipples harden.

My heartbeat thrummed double time. “I … um … started, but didn’t finish
because it wasn’t real.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean wasn’t real?”

“He didn’t care for her like a real Dom would.”

Zane’s breath caught, and he sat back. “Well fuck me sideways. So you
do
know a thing or two, you naughty
little girl.”

Face hot as the hell I feared burning in, I bit down on my bottom lip.

“You sneak those books into your
ereader
,
don’t you? Devour them while curled up in your bed.”

I forced myself to nod.

He leaned forward, pushing aside the plate of dessert. “Do you ever
touch yourself?” His whisper scorched every inch of my body. “Trace a finger
through the wetness of your pussy?”

Holy…
I shifted on the cushioned chair, the apex
of my thighs alive and throbbing as I struggled to draw breath.

“Ah.” Zane sat back again. “You do.” His cocky, sexy as all get-out
grin appeared. “Who do you think about when you touch yourself, Raquel?”

A gulp sounded, but it took a second to realize it came from my throat.
“You.”

Moisture soaked my panties as his smile dissolved and he gave me
that
look. The one I thought of on a
daily basis. The one I imagined while doing exactly as he’d said.

“
Goddamnit
.” He didn’t sound very happy, but
his heat-filled expression was pure hunger and lust, not anger. “Here I am
trying to do the right thing, trying to be good for you, and you drop a fuckin’
bomb like that.”

“I’m sorry?”

A slow smile grew, one as deadly as the desire in his eyes. “Don’t be.”

“I spilled my secret.” My voice shook from the uncontrollable jitters
wracking my insides. “Your turn.”

“Ask away, gorgeous.” He held out his arms. “I’m an open book.”

I nodded, and went for it, even though I’d experienced enough from him
to know it to be true. “Office gossip says you’re a Dominant.”

“I am.” Zane owned what he was with confidence, no hesitation, no guilt
on his face as his hands returned to rest on his thighs.

Curiosity threatened to kill me, or at least send me to hell, but I
wanted—needed—more. “Have you ever gone to a BDSM club? Watched or played out
scenes?”

“Yes.”

“What’s” —I licked my lip— “what’s it like?”

His brow rose, and he glanced at my wine glass. “Are you tipsy?”

“No. I’ve only had half a glass in two hours. Why?”

“Because I don’t want alcohol involved in this conversation.”

“You’ve had two glasses.”

“And it’d take another three or four for me to even feel it.” He
studied my face a few moments in silence, but a guilty conscious kept me from
prompting him to answer my avoided question. “If you really want to know what
the lifestyle is like, I’ll take you to Chantelle’s. Let you see for yourself.”

My head whipped around as I searched for acquaintances, someone I might
know, someone who would overhear our conversation and report back to my
parents.

“No one can hear us, Raquel. Tell me what you want.”

Zane’s eyes bore into me, catching my breath. I’d had no intention of
any such conversation, any such suggestion, but there it was. Sin on a platter.
Temptation unlike any hot chocolate or chocolate frosted donut
Dunk’s
could offer. “You’re serious?”

“Very.”

Definitely should have been
named Eve.
I bit the inside
of my lip, hard enough to make me wince. While I longed to do exactly as he
suggested, I couldn’t get caught going to such an establishment. A dangerous thought
entered my mind, and I spewed it out before giving it a second thought. “What
about your place?”

A cat-in-the-cream-bowl smirk lifted a corner of his lips. “Raquel
Hawkins. Was that a proposition?”

“N-no. I mean, I don’t mean sex. I meant … stink.” Thoughts and
feelings a jumbled mess, I snapped my jaw shut while contemplating how to
explain. “Can you show me what it’s like to be a sub?”

He cursed under his breath. “I can’t do that and keep my hands to
myself.”

“Then don’t.” My words escaped unfiltered, without thought of
consequence. “Just … no sex.”

He stilled like a tiger tensed to pounce. “Define sex.”

Heat flushed my entire body, but if I wanted to learn about the
lifestyle, get it out of my system before finding a nice guy to settle down
with, I needed to overcome my embarrassment. “Penetration. Keeping my virginity
intact.”

Zane stood without another word, pulled a couple
hundreds
from his pocket, and tossed them on the table. He held out his hand. “I’ll show
you whatever you want, take you however far you’re willing to go, but you’re
not allowed to hate me in the morning.”

Heart threatening to erupt in my chest, I twined my fingers through
his.

“You also have to promise me one thing,” he said, pulling me to my
feet.

“What’s that?” I squeaked.

“Dinner with me tomorrow night.”

I managed a nod.