She’d kind of thought that the King of the Killer Whales who had his trader-certified blue check would be a stuffy dude who wore baggy suits and was pasty from staring at computer screens in the dark all day. Maybe he would have a weedy mustache or be mostly shiny-white bald. His hobbies were probably ham radio and origami.
Twist’s muscular, tattooed arm blew all those preconceptions out of her head.
Odd images assailed her. The kaleidoscopic ink on his arm flowing up and over a strong shoulder and down what must be a massive chest and deltoid muscles of his back. That arm twining around her waist, and him pulling her against his naked torso that was covered in that ink.
Her bra felt tight, and warmth rose in her face and settled lower in her body.
“There.” Twist held a small booklet open in front of the camera. Colleen fought to pay attention.
He held a passport sideways, and the letters USA flashed in iridescent ink on the paper. Ripped scraps of blue paper covered his eyes, his name except for an initial T, and his birthday except for the year, which was five years before the birthdate on Colleen’s driver’s license.
So he was twenty-eight, and there was also an M listed in the spot under the word Sex, though Colleen probably would have guessed that. M stood for Mmmmmmm, evidently. Or Mmmm-hmmmmm.
She fought to say something that wasn’t stupid. “Your passport is going to expire next year.”
And she’d failed. Awesome.
“Yes, thanks.” His dry tone sounded more amused than annoyed.
“You’re American? Your passport is American. But you don’t sound American.” Oh, hey. Now she was babbling like a dumbass and asking all sorts of forbidden questions. Neat.
“It’s a long story,” he said, “but yes, I travel under a US passport.”
That didn’t mean he was an American, and he sounded spot-on British like Henry Cavill was talking to the Queen at Wimbledon while drinking a cup of tea. “That makes it sound like you’re James Bond or something. Are you a spy?”
He chuckled. “No, but wouldn’t your ‘forum decorum’ cover this?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—forum rules. I didn’t mean to violate the forum’s rules,” she stammered out, and her babbling trailed off to an awkward silence.
Thankfully, Twist broke the silence. “And now that we’ve established we’re both adults,” his tone became low and intense, “take off your clothes.”
“But I can’t.” She touched the gossamer beige veil over her face. “The forum’s anonymity policies.”
“Valid. Take off everything except the veil. And from now on, you’ll answer everything I say with yes, please.”
It wasn’t like Twist could force Colleen to do something she didn’t want to because he was talking to her over a computer. If she didn’t like something he said, she could hang up on him. And if he didn’t like that, she could block and banhammer him from the Sherwood Forest forum.
So she said, “Yes, please.”
In a low, gravelly voice, Twist said, “Good girl.”
That dumb little throwaway phrase burst over her skin and crackled through her veins, heating her face. Then, for just a second, something inside her relaxed and blossomed with the knowledge that everything was okay.
The mild praise shouldn’t affect her, she told herself sternly.
But it did.
Twist said, “Take your clothes off, but leave the veil.”
Yeah, he had a distinctive tone in his voice that he’d been hiding when they’d been arguing about her putting his account on moderation. His deliberate, enunciated timbre made her listen, and it made her want to do what he told her to so that he would once again growl, good girl.
Colleen pushed her rolling chair back from her desk, the wheels snagging on the worn carpeting. She was careful not to catch the veil with her fingertips as she unfastened her jeans and slipped them and her panties over her hips.
“Slower.”
Yeah, she should have known he was going to say that.
She answered, “Yes, please.”
