Three and a Half Weeks(5)

“Do you understand now?” He prodded me, not allowing me to sink into my own reveries. “I’d like to enter into an arrangement with you, Ms. Strong.”

I gulped and nodded. Since he’d shared such intimate details of his life, I had to ‘fess up about my being a complete sexual neophyte—a virgin, in more simple vernacular. It might have ended there… but it didn’t. I think he saw it as a challenge. Or perhaps he saw me as one?

“I’m really not sure I’m up for this kind of thing, Mr. Blackmon.”

Now a smirk danced on those luscious red lips as I stared at his face, knowing the moment of truth had arrived. “What gives you pause… specifically?”

I didn’t answer right away, mulling over how to proceed.

“I asked you a question, Ariel,” his satin voice broke into my self-distraction.

“Oh… um, I, uh, I’m new to all of it. Not to BDSM,” I quickly added. “I mean, I am new to BDSM, too, brand new, in fact… but I’m also new to sex.” I became a blithering idiot.

“You’re new…” His words dropped off and the look of first confusion and then astonishment that descended over his face was priceless and nearly comical. “How new?”

Cheeks flaming, I nonetheless grinned, trying to keep the moment light. “Very?”

He was incredulous. “To clarify: are you actually telling me you’re a virgin?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

Poker face. He tapped his lips in thought, keeping his cards close to the vest. Seriously close: I couldn’t read his expression. He began to speak again after a minute or so. “At twenty-one, nearly twenty-two…” a look of horror hijacked his face and his voice dropped in volume, “…you are twenty-one or so, right?”

“Oh, yes. I’m nearly twenty-two.”

Relief eased his tense features. “And you’re still a virgin?”

“Is it a problem?”

“No, no problem, but…”

And now I saw the fire in his eyes.

“…you didn’t see fit to mention it before I invited you to join me in my chamber of sin?”

“You didn’t see fit to tell me your real name is Dorian,” I countered, trying to make him smile. His birth name was on the contract I’d signed. Right now, though, he didn’t have names on his mind—or humor. His light eyes pierced through any armor I might have worn and I couldn’t identify what was going on in his head.

He was genuinely freaking me out. Was this really all about sex or was there more to it? I felt drops of perspiration sliding down the back of my neck. I’d be willing to bet folding money that Frosty didn’t sweat buckets like I was doing right now and certainly Ian didn’t either. Clearly I was out of my element. ‘“Mr. Blackmon,” I said, my hands reaching for my hair and, twisting it up, secured it with a pencil I’d filched from the low table between us, “I think it’s time I took my leave. It’s been an… interesting… afternoon.” I stood up.

“Women?”

“What?” I frowned in confusion.

“Do you prefer women?”

“Oh… no.”

His eerie eyes held me captive—they looked as if they were backlit from inside his skull. They were trained on me as if I were an exotic specimen of something, or maybe even that fish out of water, with the bulging eyes. Without responding to my intended farewell, he stood up lightning fast, strode over to me, and grasped my shoulders, peering into my eyes and possibly my soul. “Beautiful Ariel, was there no one who ever made you hot and bothered enough to pull up your dress?”

There was now, I wanted to tell him. Was it the insanely personal topic of conversation between strangers or his close proximity that was like a heady drug? I felt myself swoon a bit. “No. I’m always more annoyed than hot and bothered.” I gasped the words out since I had very recently run out of breath. He was so close I could hardly draw in oxygen.

His eyelids dropped to half-mast. “Perhaps you’ll allow me to introduce you to the pleasures of the flesh, then?”

“Perhaps,” my word huffed out on a current of hoarded breath.

“Tonight?”

I could see the glint of excitement in his eyes at the prospect. It made me excited, too. “Tonight,” I agreed and immediately began to question my sanity.



Our so-called date that evening had begun with a very romantic ride in his catamaran at dusk. I watched him at the helm, the briny breeze blowing through his dark hair while his eyes remained focused on the horizon ahead and the task at hand. While I gaped at his perfect profile, his lips curved into a small smile as he rode the waves. I suspected he liked the thrill of speed and wondered if he was an adrenaline junkie in disguise as a suit.