“Why kink now, Aud? Why him? Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m curious.” She invoked the word that had sent her to medical school and fueled her through two PhDs.
“Then God help poor Calvin Davis.”
She hadn’t known she wanted her brother’s blessing until he gave it. “Thanks, Jake.”
“Don’t forget to text me.”
“Who’s the pervert now?” She ended the call with his chuckle in her ear. Before she dropped her phone back in her purse, she glanced at the display. “It’s nine o’clock. Where do you live?”
Her nerves sizzled as he pressed a hand to her lower back, guiding her toward the parking lot down the street. “Niagara Falls.”
“So how many talented people are there in Hudson?” Her question seemed to catch him off guard. Abruptly, the current cut off between them and she took her first easy breath in an hour.
“Your brother doesn’t tell you about his friends?”
She shook her head. “Jake has always been very protective of me since I don’t have a gift.” Calvin gave her that disbelieving look again, but she ignored it to ask, “Are you all, um, kinky?”
His fingers caressed her spine. The current returned, making her feel energized. “Not the girls. Our friend Truman keeps trying to turn them on to kink, but they won’t even let us watch. We find it very irritating.”
She snorted and hit the button to unlock her car. He opened the door for her, waiting until she buckled her seat belt to shut it. She had all of ten seconds to indulge in a silent scream to settle her nerves before he opened the passenger door and slid into the car. The smell of leather filled the vehicle.
The click of his seatbelt was loud. “Communication is essential to any power exchange, and it works both ways. Let’s wait until we reach my home to negotiate, but I want to give you something to think about while you drive.” He kept his fists in his lap. “I’ve never scened with anyone who knew about my talent, so this is a first for me too.”
As a doctor, she was used to knowing things and feeling like she was in charge. With him, she definitely felt disadvantaged, and she respected that he wasn’t power-tripping on that. Instead, he was sharing information to put her at ease. “How did you keep your power a secret from your partners? You glow. An occasional little shock can be explained, but that zap before was intense.”
He shrugged. “Blindfolds. Hoods. Like I said, my electricity can be sharply focused like a whip. I can also divide the current so that it feels like a flogger…or a feather. No one ever actually saw what I was doing to them. And since I’m a Dominant, I insisted they never touch me.”
“Oh.” That was disappointing. Her eyes lingered on the swell of his massive shoulders beneath the leather, the taut plane of his stomach beneath his white shirt, the columns of his thighs under his smooth leather pants. She felt like she was saying goodbye.
Two could play this honesty game. “I’d like to touch you.”
His breath hissed through his teeth. “We’ll see.” He straightened his body in the seat and stared out over the hood. “Take the one-ninety.”
Across the parking lot, she saw the silhouette of an enormous black and chrome motorcycle. “Is that yours?”
He nodded.
“Will it be all right down here?”
“It has a security system that’s the equivalent of a high voltage fence and no one can drive it but me.” He grinned. “It’s electric.”
“That’s incredible.”
“You should see my hovercraft.”
“Seriously?” She pulled out of the parking lot. There was no other traffic, and it was a straight shot onto the highway.
“I’m bragging, but yes. I do bioelectric research. I’ve come up with all sorts of gadgets trying to reverse engineer my abilities, but so far no one can run them but me. That’s what I’m working on now—a bioelectric enhancer. The human body runs on electrical impulses. Every thought, every movement, every bodily function depends on electricity created by energy in cells, but it’s not powerful enough to do any work. I’m researching ways to boost the electrical output of the human body from millivolts to thousands of volts of pure green energy.” He paused. “Shit, I’m boring you, aren’t I?”
She gave him a sideways smile. “Not at all. I’m a science geek, too, although I have to say, you hide it better than I do.”
“Don’t let the leather fool you. It’s just my way of making the world a safer place. People get a little pissed when you accidentally stun them.”