Wearing that peplum top, pencil skirt, hair bun, and glasses, Kathryn looks like a stately professor, like the kind who teaches at Oxford, Harvard, pick an elite university. She’s passionate enough to be one of those. Right now she’s standing in front of the council, vehemently telling them that the current state of museums is a sorry excuse for educational institutions. She’s done her homework. Even I didn’t know that the one museum in the area hasn’t had an update of any kind in the past seven years. She’ll probably try to change that too.

“This heritage museum isn’t an ego stroke for our families,” she declares, slapping her pointer against a picture on an easel. “It’s about the legacy of every family in this area, going all the way back to the first settlers in 1745. Some of those families aren’t around anymore. That’s unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean they have to be forgotten. Take, for instance, the Lovejoys, who opened the first modern post office across the street from where The Grand is now. Nobody by the name of Lovejoy exists in the area now – I know, because I checked the Census. But we all know who they were. It’s those types of people we want to immortalize in the museum that will be going in the South Wing of the newly renovated Grand.”

I’m woefully uneducated on what kind of stuff is going on in the museum part. I’ve been so consumed with the renovations and turning it back into a thriving business instead of an abandoned building. Well, with that and the fact that every time Katie looks in my direction, her pencil skirt hugging her ass and her peplum top accentuating her hips and breasts… fuck me, she’s so damned hot.

Maybe I’ve got a thing for the naughty schoolteacher. Which is funny, because I’m the kind of guy who usually doesn’t go for that. Too domineering. Then again, Kathryn is a Domme, and a damn good one from what I hear.

I suppose it’s okay to find that hot. Doesn’t mean I want her Topping me. It only means I can appreciate a woman carrying a stiff pointer and slamming it against everything around her.

Those glasses making her look so serious.

That business-like hairdo that I’ve already had the pleasure of undoing mid-coitus

Those shoes, low to the ground for comfort, but still so feminine.

That ass, begging me to hold it, squeeze it, feel it flex in my hands.

Those beautiful pink lips that kiss so good and probably give even better head.

You don’t understand. I barely understand how much I want to make her mine.

All the people around me disappear as I sit behind a table and watch the way she moves, gliding from one side of the hall to the other, her voice carrying, echoing so everyone can hear her power. Her confidence is intoxicating. I’ve seen a lot of men who were so full of themselves that you wanted to go up to them in the middle of their presentations and punch them right in the face. You don’t feel that way with Kathryn. Instead, you’re enthralled. I can now see why she steamrolled that grant and accomplished anything else she set her mind out to do.

See? I knew she had it in her.

What I didn’t see was how turned on I would be by the whole thing.

I’m not sporting anything embarrassing, but I’m getting dangerously close. Yeah, last thing I fucking need is to stand up later and have the whole community see what makes me a man sticking out and saying hello. Anyone with half a brain will know that Kathryn caused it, too. Our parents are here. I need to have some damned dignity.

If I have any left.

It’s getting harder to convince myself that I’m not insanely attracted to Kathryn Alison. I honestly thought that having sex would be like getting those emotions out of the way. All right, I did that. I now know what it’s like to feel her writhe against me. Got it out of my system. Time to move on my merry way and find the next woman I want to take for a spin.

Except both my mind and my body have other ideas.

Kathryn finishes her speech, imploring the council to consider setting up the museum first, as it can benefit the entire community. Too bad it won’t make us back our investment faster. That’s what the hotel is for. But I’m not going to say anything.

I’m too busy staring at her chest anyway.

Applause thunders in my head before I know what else is going on. I snap back to attention and see Kathryn sitting down next to me, her perfume reminding me of what it was like to bury my face in her throat. She closes her folders, trying to suppress a grin.

I should congratulate her on such a fine job. By all accounts, everyone is chatting about what the Alison museum is going to bring to the community. I feel like a philanthropist by proxy.

Well, looks like Kathryn is going to win our little bet. Too bad I’ll conveniently forget all about it and act like I don’t know what she’s talking about when she inevitably brings it up.

Nobody said that I honor my drunken promises I make without signing anything in my blood. Or even without my blood.

We shake some hands. I kiss my mother’s cheek. The Andrews commend us for a job well done. “We’ll be selling, for sure,” Lana says. “We’ll have to wait to hear about what plan to go with first.”

Who cares? Once they sell to us, they’ll be washed of it all. Then our work begins.

“You did a fine job,” Kathryn says when we have a bit of time to ourselves. The assistants are dismantling the materials and putting them away. Most of the people are filing out, but more are stopping to ask either of our fathers a few questions.

“You weren’t so bad yourself.” Her perfume is still poisoning me. The closer she gets, intending to pick up some folders off the table, the more I am tempted to look at the bend of her hips and the soft flesh poking from her skirt. I feel like Ken Andrews being taunted by his wife during his introductions. “I mean… I don’t often get to see that side of you.”

She stands, lips drawn back in a mischievous smile that starts to drive me wild. “You’ll see a lot more of it once they choose my project to start things off with.”

Shit. She does remember.

“Yeah… can I talk to you about that?” I put a hand on her arm to get her attention. Just a friendly gesture to anyone looking. But Kathryn looks down at my hand as if I’m biting her.

I could, you know.

“Don’t know if now’s the time.”

I made a grave mistake in touching her, because now everything south of the border is charged in electricity. My thighs have that familiar heat to them. Heat that says fuck this woman.

Great. Great.

Usually I don’t fall prey to my own instincts like this. Normally I’m a calm and collected man who waits until the door closes before I succumb to my basic, carnal instincts.

Usually, okay?

Yet there’s something about Kathryn that makes me sweat. Having sex with her only made things worse. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be in this situation. Sure, I would still be curious, but I doubt I would feel this driving, pulsing need to feel her all over again. I’ve tortured myself by having carnal knowledge of her. Her body begs me to take her again. Does she know that in her head? If she does, she’s not really letting on.

I’ll find out. I have to.

“Let’s find some privacy,” I say, attempting to guide her away from the fray of people.

She follows, unsure, I let go of her arm once I’m sure I have her in my web. It would look weird if I’m hauling her off to an empty room upstairs.

We have to talk. I need to talk.

Except it’s not talking I do once we’re upstairs in a hallway. It’s not a single word I utter once I find an empty room, full of overturned chairs and a table pushed against the wall.

I use my mouth a lot. But not to talk.