We’re so close to kissing. His hand is on my thigh. My hand is searching for his. The bartender comes up and then quickly turns around when he sees us. We’re lucky the bar is so empty now.

“I was thinking of something a bit different,” I say with a different grin. “How about I tie you to a chair and slam my pussy in your lap?”

Chuckling, Ian picks up my empty glass and licks the rim. “Tie me up, huh? I’m not into that. I’d much rather tie you up and bite those pink nipples of yours. Oh yeah. I remember what color they are.” Before I can admonish him, he breathes into my ear, his voice deliciously deep. “I want to bring you to the brink of orgasm so many times that you beg me… beg me… to finish you off, your screams echoing off my bedroom wall while I completely lose myself in you.”

I shiver. It almost sounds good. Minus the tying me up part. “Ian…” I sober up a bit, but not enough to save me from my oncoming folly. “I’m not sure that would work.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” He’s serious. Too serious. “We’re both Doms. It wouldn’t work out, Katie.”

He takes a tentative drink and puts his glass back down. His hand is still on my thigh, and it tightens there, invigorating my lust but not satisfying my heart. “Not even for a little while?”

I don’t know what’s come over me. I really shouldn’t be lusting over Ian like this. Wanting him to hold me, to kiss me, to give me a hard time both in and out of bed. I feel like my high school friends swooning over him. Are any of my high school friends here with him like this right now? No. It’s all Kathryn Alison.

Domme.

I can’t ignore who I am. Ian isn’t going to submit to me, and I’m not going to submit to him. It would make us both too uncomfortable. We want completely different things from the other person. We really should end things here. Maybe we’ll hook up a few more times… why couldn’t tonight be one of those nights?

I ask him as much, and watch his brows furrow.

“Because I won’t be happy with just sex, Katie.” His voice is soft, but I can hear a Dom’s sternness in it. Already he’s talking to me like a sub, and I don’t care much for it. “If we make this a regular thing, then I want to dominate the fuck out of you.”

I bristle.

His tongue coddles my earlobe, and I feel myself turning into mud all over him. No. I have to resist. I have to push away from his inviting embrace. “I want to slowly strip you and bite every part of your body. I want to make you suck my cock until you choke on everything I give you.” Okay, man… okay… “I want to spank your pretty ass until it’s so pink you can’t sit for a week. And then I want to bend you down, listening to you shriek in ecstasy into my pillow as I fuck you bareback, your tight cunt growing tighter until you draw me in so deep that I can’t help but be siphoned by every muscle in your body. And then I want to watch my cum drip out of you and onto my bed. Then make you clean it up while you call me sir.”

My brain is gone. I don’t even know what the fuck to say.

“Does that sound good, Katie?”

He knows my answer. He knew it before he started describing that shit. Even though my body is shivering at the images, at the way his voice spills into me and fills my chest with nerves, I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “I don’t think I’d like that.” It sounds suffocating. Demeaning. Also, I don’t do bareback.

“No? Then I guess it can’t happen. I’m not going to do anything you’re thinking of right now. Let me guess. Cock rings and calling me a bad boy?”

He’s not making fun of me. He knows how a Domme like me rolls. I don’t really do humiliation, but I can be a harsh Mistress depending on the sub’s wants. Ian wouldn’t want that. If he were a sub, he’d want me to make him worship me. That’s what I want, anyway.

To feel like a queen.

A goddess.

Not a slave. The one without the real power.

Lots of women love that shit. That’s fine. I get it on a superficial level. But it’s not me. I get off hardest and feel freest when I’m the one calling all the shots. The thought of a man, even one like Ian, holding me down and pounding me until I scream a safe word makes me nervous, not exhilarated.

Even so, I want him. I want to feel his mouth on my body, his arms wrapped around me and filling me with that same warmth from before. It shouldn’t be too much to ask…

Maybe…

In my drunken haze, I suggest something that I will come to regret in due time. Yet right now it sounds so sound that why the fuck wouldn’t I suggest it?

“Let’s have a friendly wager,” I say, stroking his thigh with my fingertips. He’s getting hard. I want his cock in my mouth, but only if I get to tie his hands behind his chair. “About the presentation on Friday.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. One of us will definitely lose… but if one of us wins? Then we get something from the other person.”

“Go on.”

I open my mouth and seal my fate. “The loser has to submit to the other person for one night. Whatever the other person wants. Safe word for only extreme shit.”

Ian considers me for a long time. “You would submit to me?” He sounds genuinely surprised. And intrigued. His hand is dangerously close to my slit.

“Would you submit to me if you lose?”

His smile is ridiculous. It reminds me of Lana’s when she thinks she’s already won. Not so fast, buddy. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Ian picks up one of his empty glasses, ice not yet melted. “Deal.”

I hold up another glass. “Deal.”

The glasses clink together.

I have no idea what I’ve done.

Chapter 16

IAN

The woman is insane. Absolutely, unequivocally insane.

Who? Oh, no, not Kathryn. She was drunk, not insane.

No, I’m talking about Lana Andrews, who has informed Kathryn and me that if we woo the council, “we’ll” be forking over $80,000,000 to buy The Grand.

Ha.

Hahahaha!

Who the fuck do she and Ken think they are? The Grand is worth half that, at best. No, it’s not a cheap piece of hot property. And I know they expect us to bargain them down, but from such an astronomical high? This whole charade gets more and more ridiculous as time goes by.

At least it’s Friday and we’re about to get this over with. As soon as Lana shares this bullshit, I turn to Valerie and have her go over everything she brought. I see Kathryn doing the same thing with her assistant. At least this time I saw for myself the nice pictures Kathryn brought. Her father is also with her this time. Probably to make sure she doesn’t fuck up.

Katie is not going to fuck up. She’s got this. I believe in her, and most of all, she believes in herself. I watched her rehearse. I critiqued her and she critiqued me. We both had good ideas for the other person that are sure to make it into our respective presentations.

It’s funny. We would probably make good business partners. We would make awful long-term lovers.

I’m still laughing. I woke up Thursday morning with a headache and a hard-on. I dreamed all night that Katie was on her stomach, on her back, bent over and sucking my cock. Doing whatever I told her to do. Lapping up whatever I offered and puffing out little “sirs” that made me feel like the biggest king in the world. What? She put those ideas in my head Wednesday night, when she made that ridiculous bet.

God, what a dumb bet. Like she would ever submit to me.

Let alone me submitting to her! The idea is so absurd. Regardless of the outcome today, I assume we forget what we promised when we were drunk. She was so blitzed off her drinks that I doubt she even remembers.

Katie – no, I should probably stop calling her that – looks at me before stepping into the council hall. I think there’s a smile on her face.