Living in Shadow(10)
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is? It’s not like you’re going to marry the guy, right?”
She let out a breath, annoyed. Kahu had a way of making the most problematic issue seem like not that much of a big deal. “I’m not sleeping with him, Kahu. Anyway, the power dynamic is just so wrong.”
He looked at her from underneath ridiculously long, thick lashes. “Which is what makes it so delicious,” he purred.
“Oh stop it.”
“I’m serious. Forbidden sex is the best kind of sex there is.”
And he would know. He’d spent the better part of ten years sleeping with most of the female population of Auckland, not to mention various other countries. And probably some of the male too, though he’d never admitted to anything explicitly.
“It could lose me my job,” she pointed out.
“It could be worth it.”
“What? Five minutes of pleasure, compared to losing my livelihood?”
He frowned at her. “Five minutes? I’d be asking for my money back if all I got was five minutes.”
“The point, Kahu, is that—”
“The point, Eleanor,” he interrupted gently, “is that you haven’t seen a naked penis in nearly three years.”
His words fell neatly into a small lull in the conversation of the room. She didn’t turn around in her seat at the bar, but she knew every damn eye was on her.
She glared at Kahu, promising unspoken retribution. He gave her a wicked grin, not unlike the grin that Luc had given her back in the lecture theatre, now that she thought about it.
Fucking playboys.
“Yes,” she said steadily, after she’d waited for the rest of the bar to recover from the shock of hearing the word penis spoken in the middle of the day, along with their lunch, “and look how well that turned out?” A nice man, like the nice man before him. Intellectuals with lots of respect for her and her personal space. Polite, decent guys who had nevertheless left her feeling…as if something was lacking.
What do you mean something? You know what.
Yeah, unfortunately she did. The fact that they were polite, decent guys, for a start. Because she’d never wanted polite and decent. She wanted dominance. She wanted to be told what to do and when to do it. To not think, only surrender.
It had been something that Piers had tapped into when she’d gotten involved with him and he’d shown her how powerful submission could be. How much pleasure she could get from it. And in the end, he’d shown her how badly it could go wrong.
She never wanted to go back to that again.
“I know,” Kahu said, his grin becoming more wicked. “They just didn’t measure up to me.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”
He didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “No, spare me your honesty. And don’t tell me that that put you off, otherwise I shall go into a decline.”
Unfortunately it kind of had. Not because Kahu had been a terrible lover but because she’d been with him for the wrong reasons—to try and recover from Piers. And she’d been scared. Too scared to ask for what she’d really wanted, and Kahu had been too worried about her to insist.
She shook her head, not wanting to hurt him, but knowing lying wouldn’t help either. “We talked about it, remember? It wasn’t you.”
“It kind of was.”
“Yes, but not in a bad way. We were better friends, you know that.”
He frowned. “What do you mean ‘were’?”
She grinned at that. “Okay, are.”
“That’s better.” Kahu turned and looked out over the room, the décor wood paneled, with bookshelves and club chairs, echoing the gentlemen’s club it had once been. His gaze settled on a lovely blonde in one corner typing furiously into a mobile phone. “I still think you should fuck him.”
“Haven’t we been over this already?”
“What? You came here to tell me all about him and ask for my advice. What did you expect me to say?”
Good point. Kahu was all about living in the moment, taking what you could from life before it vanished, not being bound by the rules. Doing what you pleased. Of course he’d suggest the opposite of what she knew she should do.
You wanted him to. That’s why you told him.
Eleanor shifted on her barstool. “I don’t know,” she said. “Something intelligent?”
“Fuck intelligent. You’ve been living like a nun for three years, Eleanor. What’s wrong with wanting to break out?”
Eleanor picked up her wineglass and took a sip. The rosé was cool and delicious against her tongue. “You should watch yourself,” she said, savoring the taste. “You’re starting to sound a little too like my sassy, gay best friend.”