With that settled, once he got to work, even before he turned on his computer, he texted her.
How about Italian? Sigalo’s is good.
* * * *
Skye nearly choked on the swallow of coffee she’d been in the process of downing when she read his text. Cali had told her that a group of them usually met at Sigalo’s every Saturday night.
A kinky group of them.
She laughed, wondering if this was yet another sign, or merely coincidental.
Sure. That sounds great.
Pick you up?
She considered that and decided why the hell not? Wasn’t like she was a kid.
What were her parents going to do, ground her for dating a boy?
Yes, but please don’t hold my parents against me. Dad’s reverting back to a 15 YO boy now that he’s retired.
He responded a few minutes later.
:) 7 okay?
She took a deep breath.
Perfect.
With that she had to get back to work and set her cell phone aside. It’d be too damn easy to sit there texting with him all day, and she could not afford to lose this job.
At lunch, she finally sated her urge to text him again.
I had a lot of fun last night.
She wasn’t expecting it when her phone went off with a text alert before she could even set it down.
Me too. I hope you keep gaming with us.
Was he just being nice? Or was there more to it?
Or was she driving herself crazy and twisting innocent comments completely out of context?
I’d like that.
* * * *
Axel stared at his phone. He struggled not to work himself into a panic attack. He didn’t want to come on too strong if she was simply being nice, friendly.
He also didn’t want to come off sounding too nonchalant if she meant more by what she said.
Why is it that I’m forty-one fucking years old and still feel like a goddamned teenager in the bad ways?
Hopefully he didn’t lose his sanity.
They texted off and on the rest of Wednesday, and when Thursday came, Axel actually left work early so he could stop and get his car washed and vacuumed and have time to go home and take a shower before their date.
Then came the struggle to find something to wear. A business suit would be too…weird. Shorts and a T-shirt were right out. Jeans and a button-up shirt, then, maybe. Right?
With his stomach wound into a huge knot, he headed over to Skye’s place and arrived five minutes early.
He barely remembered her parents, thought he’d met them at least once but wasn’t sure. The man who answered the door had Skye’s red hair and green eyes and fair complexion and wore a dark and angry look that nearly turned Axel around and sent him running for his car.
“Um, hi, Mr. Bauer. Axel Lewis. I don’t know if, uh, you remember—”
“Moon! Get my gun, there’s a boy here for our daugh—”
“Howard, I will kill you myself if you screw this up for her!” an older woman yelled at him. “Getcher ass back in this house right now.”
The man grinned. “Hey, son.” He invited him in, shaking hands. “Come on in. Skye’s getting ready. Which means I probably have a two-minute head start before she comes out and kills me for that.”
Now he remembered her dad having a good sense of humor. “I’ll tie her up for you.”
“Ooh, good. She’ll like that. You’re into that, too?” He led the way into the living room, which was a good thing because Axel was still trying to figure out if the man was kidding or not and trying to process how to answer that question.
Or what, exactly, he was asking Axel was into.
Mrs. Bauer sat on the sofa with two dogs and a very angry looking long-haired cat. “Hello, Axel. Long time, no see.” She smiled, holding out a hand to shake with him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I think you’re old enough to call us Moon and Howard,” she kindly said, although she shot Howard a glare. “I’m going to lock you out of the bedroom tonight, mister. You can take your chances with Skye killing you in your sleep for that stunt.”
He grinned as he waved her comment away. “Naw, he didn’t run. That’s a good sign, right?”
Moon shook her head and offered Axel another smile. “Apologies for my husband. I wish I could blame it on dementia…but that’s just him.”
Axel heard a bedroom door fly open somewhere down a hallway. “Mom? Was that the doorbell?”
“Yes, and yes, I already threatened your father. Don’t worry, Axel’s not a runner.”
A growl echoed down the hallway, making both dogs cringe against Moon.
“Would you like a drink or something, dear?” Moon asked.
“Or a tranquilizer?” Howard snarked.
“I’ll take a spare Xanax, if you have one.”
Howard started laughing. “This one’s funny, Skye,” he called out. “Why did you break up with him?”
Another horrified shriek echoed down the hall.
* * * *
Skye had nearly emptied her closet and dresser all over her bed while trying to decide what to wear. Now she was frantically pulling on clothes and trying to find two damn matching shoes to get the hell out there.
I.
Will.
Fucking.
Kill.
Him.
Her father sometimes didn’t know when to stop with the jokes. Not that he was ever mean-spirited, because he wasn’t. But she didn’t want anything messing up this date with Axel, even if they weren’t officially calling it a date.
She was.
And that told her a lot.
Maybe he’s secretly kinky and Rusty and the others don’t know about it.
Or even open-minded. She could work with that, too.
But tonight was absolutely not the night to get too far into that. Maybe a little. She wanted to spend the night alone with him, reconnecting, relaxing, and trying to get rid of the terrifying jitters coursing through her system right now.
She yanked her bedroom door open so hard it bounced off a stray shoe that had landed behind it and it smacked her in the head on the rebound.
“Ow! Sonofabitch!”
Her father appeared at the end of the hallway. “Honey? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a minute.” Shit! She didn’t think it’d caught her hard enough to give her a black eye, but wouldn’t that just be a hoot and a half?
Can’t I catch one fucking break? Just one!
She remembered to grab her purse and cell phone and headed down the hall, praying she didn’t trip and break her neck or something horrifically mortifying like that.
Axel looked casually nommy, jeans and loafers and a button-up shirt. “Hey,” she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, just an attack door trying to kill me. Ready?” She blew a stray strand of hair out of her face that had landed in front of her eyes.
Good luck trying to do anything with her hair. Up…or down. Or pigtails. That was about it. Curly wasn’t conducive to much else. So tonight it was down and loose.
“Have fun,” her dad called out, maybe sensing he’d already pushed her to her limit tonight.
“Sorry about the inquisition,” she muttered as they headed to Axel’s car. “Noooobody expects it.”
He laughed. “It’s fine. Your dad’s a hoot.”
“That’s one word for it.”
He held the passenger door open for her. “He’s funny. He said he might have a two-minute head start on you to get away, and I offered to tie you up. He said you might like that.”
She wasn’t sure if her face had turned red or white, but whatever color it had turned, it was apparently drastic enough that even in the twilight Axel spotted it.
“Skye? Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes.
I.
Will.
Fucking.
Kill.
/>
Him.
“Yeah,” she finally managed. “I’m good.” She forced a smile. “We’re going to have an interesting chat tonight.”
This is why I can’t have nice things.
“Um, okay.” He closed the door and rounded the car to get behind the wheel. “By interesting, you mean…good, I hope?”
“I hope so, too.”
She opted to back up and not assume her father had said more than what he might have actually said. “So what did my dad say? Exactly.”
“Well, pretty much what I said, except he asked if I was into that, too. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, though.”
Of course it couldn’t have been that easy.
Her head drooped and she decided to hit this head-on rather than deflecting it and later look like she was trying to hide something.
“Um… Okay. So, here’s the thing. I’m…kinky. I’m into BDSM. Not the Fifty Shades version, either. In real life.”
“Oh. Like Rusty and Grant and them.”
Her mouth snapped shut with an audible click. “Say whut?”
“Oops, sorry. Um, please forget I said that.”
“Wait, Rusty said you didn’t know.”
“What? Of course I know. I’ve known the guy since high school. They don’t talk about it in front of Kyle, obviously. And I think Milo and John are pretty vanilla. But yeah, I know all about that. Did you know there’s a club here in town?”
“Uh…yeah.” She laughed. “I’m one of their newest volunteers as of Monday night.”
He snapped his fingers. “Oookay, so that dinner where you ran into them Sunday was one of those brunches.”
“Munches, yeah.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t want to ask, because I didn’t want to find out I was suddenly being ostracized from the group or something.”
“No. No! No, nothing like that. It was their Suncoast Society munch.”
“That makes sense.”
Maybe all was not lost.
“Are you…” She left the question hanging open-ended in the air.
“I’m open-minded. I’m not against that, but I don’t want my ass smacked, sorry.”
Skye tentatively breathed a sigh of relief. “No, I prefer to be the smackee, not the smacker.”
Well, I’m here, might as well dive on into the deep, cold end of it.
“How do you feel about that?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You’re an adult. As long as you’re not being abused, it’s not my business.”
She swallowed hard. Maybe his interest in her was only as a friend after all.
* * * *
Axel was still trying to process everything. At least now he didn’t feel bad anymore over being excluded from the Sunday dinner.
“They assume I’m straight when I’m not.”
“You’re gay?”
Shit. That wasn’t the impression he wanted her to have of him, either. Not when he hoped to maybe keep the door open for more.
“No, I didn’t mean straight-straight. I meant straight-laced, sorry. They think I’m a monk or something.” He thought about it. “Then again, I haven’t dated anyone in over two years. I guess I am sort of a monk by default.”
She reached over and patted his thigh. “Sorry.”
“It is what it is. Just no interest in looking, especially after Baker died.”
“Baker?”
“My dog. He was my buddy. He was fifteen. Named him after Tom Baker.”
She smiled. “Your favorite Doctor.”
“Yeah.” He had to regroup for a second. He couldn’t believe she still remembered that. “Between the emotional beating I took with the divorce, and then that, I just…gave up looking and focused on work and that was pretty much it.”
She seemed to need a moment, so he didn’t try to fill the space with nervous chatter.
“Can I ask you something and get an honest answer, no matter what?” she finally asked.
“Sure.”
“Would you be interested in trying to date me?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know anything about…that stuff. I mean, I’m willing to experiment and be open-minded. But…I have a rule.”
“Okay?”
“No cheating, no sleeping with other people.”
“Ditto.” More comfortable quiet before she spoke again. “If you couldn’t play with me, would you be okay with me playing with other people if it’s non-sexual play?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to explain to me what that means.”
“I’m a really heavy masochist. I like heavy impact play. It’s very common for people who aren’t sadists to let their partner play with a sadist, within whatever rules they set up. That way, the partner who isn’t a sadist doesn’t feel obligated to try to do something they don’t want to do, and the masochist gets what they need. I mean, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the simplistic version.”
She waited for him to answer, and he needed a few minutes. “Wow, this first date has really gotten deep fast,” he tried to joke. He laid his hand over hers on his thigh.
“I know,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go there tonight. Thanks, Dad.”
“I take it they know about this?”
“Yeah. I told them in college. I didn’t want them calling the cops on anyone I was dating.”
“That means your ex…”
“Yeah. He was my Master. ’Til I caught the rat bastard cheating on me.”
Axel didn’t want to get his heart broken. But he also didn’t want to toss this chance away without fully exploring it first.
At the next red light, he looked over at her. “Let’s talk about it over dinner. I don’t think it’s right for me to tell you that you can’t do something when we’re going to our first dinner. I mean, I prefer you don’t sleep with anyone, but…” He shrugged. “I mean, okay.”
“How about this—for now, unless or until we decide we’re not going to date, we don’t have sex or sexy play with anyone but each other?”
“I haven’t even had sexy play with myself in forever.” His face reddened as he realized he’d said that out loud.
She giggled. “Maybe we can talk more about me taking care of that for you, then.”
Chapter Eight
Skye wasn’t sure if this was the best or most disastrous date she’d ever had in her life.
It kept bouncing back and forth between the two extremes, and they’d only reached the goddamned restaurant.
Before they headed inside, they sat in his running car in the parking lot and talked.
She didn’t want to try to hammer out this negotiation, since they were basically negotiating, with a family of kids seated at the table next to them and overhearing everything.
“Did you want to come to the club this weekend? I’ll be volunteering, but you can hang out and see what happens.”
“Not this weekend. Not that I don’t want to, but I’d rather go on a weekend that you won’t be working.” He offered her a smile. “Wouldn’t want you to get in trouble on your first weekend there.”
“There’s going to be a private party at Cali’s house the next weekend. She said I could bring someone. She knows Rusty and Grant and Mike and all of them, so I know they’d vouch for you.”
“Sure.” He winced. “No, wait, I won’t be here. I have a conference up in Jacksonville. I’m going to be up there all weekend, from Thursday night until Sunday late. It’s a work thing.”
“Oh.”
He patted her hand. “Hey, don’t feel bad. I’m sure there will be other opportunities. And we can still see each other.”
“Cali said there would be a couple of guys at the private party who are service Tops. That means they’ll play with other people. Would you be okay with me doing that?”
“Sure. As long as it’s what you said it is and not sex.” He squeezed her hand. “I know Rusty and Eliza are happy. They’ve been together over twenty years. And I know Grant, Darryl, and Susie are happy.
So are Mike and Jenny.” He shrugged. “I’m not going to be a douche and ask them to spy on you or anything, but I’m hoping I’m not wrong that since you were a victim of cheating you won’t be a cheater.”
He couldn’t have said a more perfect answer if he’d tried. “Thank you for trusting me.”
He stared down at their hands. “Fair warning, I don’t trust easily. So please don’t give me a reason not to trust you. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. I won’t give second chances this time.”
“And that goes both ways.”
His gaze rose to meet hers. “Yeah. Absolutely.”
* * * *
Part of him wanted to say no, please don’t play with anyone.
And he knew that’d be the douchey answer, and one issued out of fear, not facts. Until he knew more, or until they actually had a “relationship,” he wasn’t going to ask more of her than he already had. Especially when in a few weeks they might decide they were better off as friends.
At least he had a ready-made group of experts he knew he could trust and approach to talk to about all of this.
If he could find the nerve to ask them.
They headed inside for dinner and fortunately they were seated at a table off in a corner that allowed them a little privacy.
Once their drink orders were placed, and Axel knew what he wanted to order, he closed his menu and stared at her. He couldn’t believe she was sitting in front of him.
How funny life’s twists and turns proved to be.
She smiled. “What?”
“Thanks for having dinner with me tonight.”
“Thanks for not turning around and running from my dad.”
He shrugged. “I lost my dad a few years back, so it’s fine. It’d take more than that to scare me away.”
“I’m sorry. How’s your mom?”
“Remarried. She lives in Texas.” He lightly drummed his fingers on the table, nervous, trying to find the strength to say it. “If this isn’t working for you, please do me a favor and tell me sooner rather than later. Don’t think you have to spare my feelings. I can take it.”