“There you are,” Rebecca said. She was bright-eyed and smiling. Zane looked pleased with himself as well. Whatever they’d been up to, they’d enjoyed it.
“Here I am,” he agreed, turning toward them on the Adirondack chair.
He must have done a decent job of hiding his irritation, because Rebecca grinned.
“Well,” she said, arms slapping her sides as she exchanged yet another happy glance with Zane. “I guess I’m off to do the thing. See you in a bit.”
Trey waited until she’d walked off to explode.
“She’s off to ‘do the thing!’ Why are you doing things without me?”
Zane placed a hand on his chair back and bent to kiss him. The kiss was tonguey and very nice. To Trey’s annoyance, it did smooth out his temper. Zane drew back just as Trey was getting into it. He took consolation in Zane’s smoldering eyes revealing he’d been affected too.
“The thing she’s doing is for you,” Zane explained. “She asked me to help her with a surprise.”
“Really?” Guilt pricked Trey belatedly. “She doesn’t have to do that. This week is about seducing her into a relationship.”
Zane shook his head, amused. “You two are a pair.” He held out his hand. “Come see what we did. I predict seducing you is a step on the road to seducing her. She’s not the sort to want everyone focused on her all the time.”
When he put it that way . . . Trey grabbed Zane’s hand and rose, pleased when his friend kept it afterwards. “Is it a good surprise?” he asked, throwing him a sideways glance.
“Of course it is. I helped her pull it together.”
“Not short on confidence, are you?”
“Rarely,” Zane agreed.
Realizing they were headed toward the playroom put a skip into Trey’s pulse. “Was this your idea?” he asked as Zane worked the elevator.
“My suggestion. Rebecca brought her own ideas into the mix.”
“What ideas?”
Zane grinned. “You’ll see.”
He paused at the bank vault door, turning to rest both hands on Trey’s shoulders. Though his lips were curved, Trey sensed his friend was about to be serious.
“This game is for all of us,” Zane said. “If we all have fun, this whatever-it-is will have a better chance of lasting.”
“I want it to last.”
“I know.” Zane squeezed his shoulders. “I think . . . so do I.”
Trey’s heart really started thumping then. Knowing Zane, if he admitted that much, chances were he felt more. Zane unlocked the door with his personal key and thumbprint. He was grinning again, anticipating what lay ahead.
“God,” Trey said with a laugh. “I’m already hard and you haven’t done anything.”
Zane wagged his brows at the tent in Trey’s trousers and swung the door open.
They walked side by side along the twist in the hall. Imagination running riot, Trey held his breath and stepped into the central room. His skin tingled in reaction to the tableau he found.
In the center of the room, lit by a huge movie-style spotlight, was an old iron bedstead he’d never seen before. It wasn’t a fine antique. Any secondhand store in New England might carry a handful. The narrow—and new—mattress was dressed in crisp white sheets and a hand-stitched quilt so deeply scarlet it glowed. The pillows were fluffed, and a small weathered nightstand added hominess beside the head rail.
Less homey but certainly provocative were the four lengths of chain that hung from the ceiling through the wagon wheel chandelier. They ended in iron shackles, the sole component of the display with which Trey was familiar.
The contrasting images of safety and danger caused his cock to throb. Ripples of excitement joined the tingles on his skin. The whole arrangement was a stage set, awaiting only actors to walk on. I’m one of the actors, Trey thought. Zane—or perhaps Rebecca—understood his love of theater better than he’d realized.
“How did you pull this together?” he asked once his voice recovered.
“We rush ordered the bed last night on the Internet. It arrived in pieces and we assembled it down here. You should have seen Owens’ face when I told him Rebecca’s help was all I needed. Our driver seems to think billionaires and women are equally helpless.”
“He’s wrong there,” Rebecca said, emerging from the shadows of a niche. “I can lift hundred-pound tuna.”
She knew how to make an entrance. She wasn’t wearing a stitch: not makeup and not clothes. She was no vamp as she came toward them. Her walk was just a walk, not shy but maybe self-conscious. Her body was naturally beautiful—slim, strong, the faint cooking scars on her arms picked up by the strong spotlight. Her small rounded breasts jiggled like maracas, better to him than any centerfold’s.