Little Tease (Rack and Ruin #1)

“I can’t believe it!”

If it was possible, my friend Alex—also known as Smurfette, for her bright blue hair—was more hyperactive than a five-year-old on a cola high. She was practically bouncing up and down, staring at me as if I should already know what she couldn’t believe. “Huh?”

“I go to Alaska for two weeks, and not only does a new fet club have its grand opening, but you and Josh have the most charged introduction DC has ever seen?”

I stared at her, blindsided. In the couple of weeks since Rack and Ruin’s opening night, I’d tried to forget Josh. Tried not to regret sitting beside him on the couch, rather than at his feet. Tried not to wonder how the night would had ended if I’d knelt for him. “What did you hear?”

Rolling her eyes, Smurfette picked up a flogger from the stall in the corner of the club, trailing the suede tassels through her fingers. “Only that when you guys faced off, the sexual tension was so thick that everyone within ten feet spontaneously orgasmed…”

For a few moments, I was struck speechless by the blatant overstatement. “Did *he* tell you that?” I demanded finally.

“Nah.” The voice was male, amused, and all too familiar. Josh’s arm brushed against mine as he leaned around me to pick up a wooden paddle from the stall. “Made for a good story, though. Hey, Alex,” he added, and Smurfette stepped forward to gave him a quick hug before excusing herself.

After the hour or so we’d spent talking at the opening night, I’d realised Josh wasn’t a bad guy. Right then, though, I was conveniently putting that knowledge aside. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

He shrugged, testing the paddle’s weight. “Never much cared what people think.”

*Oh, I’ll bet you don’t, not when it’s something like this.* I didn’t need to say it; he read the thought from my expression.

“And you’re behaving like a petulant brat,” he said matter-of-factly. “But there isn’t anything I can do about that until you ask me for it.”

“I will *never* ask you for it.” I meant it, too. Part of me regretted it, but I was too riled up to back down now, not when he was acting like my eventual submission was a foregone conclusion.

Instead of giving me the cocky bullshit I was expecting, he just shot me an impassive sideways glance. “Shame. I think it’d be interesting… for both of us.”

What was I meant to say to that? If he’d tried to make it all about my pleasure, then I could at least have called him an egotist. But he seemed genuinely regretful that he’d never know what it was like to top me, and it was really hot.

No, not hot. *Irritating.*

He set down the paddle he’d been examining, and I changed the subject. “Not buying?”

“I make my own paddles,” he told me, and damn it, that was even hotter.

*I mean, more irritating.*

Oh, who was I kidding? I wanted him. A lot. But I couldn’t back down now, not a couple of minutes after telling him I’d never play with him. “How?”

“Out of wood. With hand tools. In my garage.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to resist asking him what else he had in his garage. I had an image of an entire handmade dungeon—St. Andrew’s cross, vault horse, rack… But I didn’t need to know. Didn’t even want to. Nuh-uh.

“You make anything vanilla, or do you just have the tools on hand in case a kinky urge strikes you?”

Rolling his eyes, he motioned for me to follow him toward the bar. “Just the occasional DIY project.”

At his enquiring glance, I ordered a vodka Red Bull from the bartender, and Josh followed it with a request for a shot of neat bourbon, paying for both.

“Like putting up shelves?” I asked.

“And making them.”

“You must be good with your hands.”

Wait. Why had I just said that?