“You running from something?” One of his hands lingers at my shoulder. I know the second his eyes catch sight of my tattoo, following the thorny stem’s progress from my sleeve, down my biceps and forearm to disappear around my wrist. “Wow. That’s beautiful work.”
I smile automatically. “Thanks.”
“What’s your name?” Masked guy sounds casual, but there’s something a little intense about his interest.
I eye him. Creepy, not particularly. Interested, yes.
Unlike the stranger who licked me to orgasm and left me alone to get dressed.
“Grace,” I say, my chin lifting with what feels like childish defiance.
“I’m Zed.” He puts out a hand and I shake it, feeling not a single callus on his perfectly soft, dry skin. It’s disappointing.
“You here with someone?”
“Max. You know her?”
“Mad Max? Sure. Yeah. She’s amazing. She your partner?” He bends forward as if sharing a secret. “Or one of ’em?”
I shake my head, purposely not thinking of my stranger in the woods. “I’m unattached.”
“Nice.” He smiles wider, his eyes skimming my wrist for a sign of what I’m into. “Newbie, huh?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yeah. But you’re also wearing a first year bracelet.” His head cants. “So, what’s your poison?”
“Huh?”
“What would you write on your Kink Camp profile, Grace of the beautiful, sad eyes?”
My pulse picks up. A compliment will do that, I guess. Although, sad?“I’m…”Say it! Own it!
Dammit, I want to, but I came here thinking it would be one and done, not the start of a new existence. Am I an actual practicing kinkster now? Is that something I’ll need to add to the old resumé?
“Curious? Open?”
“Yeah,” I reply, relieved. “Just figuring it out, I guess.” I let my eyes wander back to the original denim guy by the bench. He’s fucking the woman now and the sight hits me in the solar plexus. It’s the way he pulls out, then presses back in, his face absolutely stoic, his body stiff, almost unmoving, while she writhes as much as she can with her legs shackled open. They’re less than ten feet away. I almost can’t believe I’m a part of this.
It’s suddenly overwhelming in here—the sights and sounds, but also the too-intimate smells of sex and sweat and latex and the weight of Zed’s attention.
“I’d better, uh…” I turn and scan the room, hoping I’ll find Max and she won’t be in the middle of getting strung up and beaten and whatever other blissful activities she’s got lined up for tonight.
Zed’s knowing gaze flicks over me lingering at the glaring scrapes on my knees. “You here all week?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Fair enough. You mind if I come by and say hi sometime?”
Excitement flickers in my chest. “Sure. I’m staying with Max. At the Thunderdome.”
“That’s one of the glamping sites, right?”
At my nod, he opens his mouth as if to say something else, but apparently catches sight of someone behind me and stops.
I turn and see the third denim-clad guy that I bumped into, wearing his ratty T-shirt, his longish hair tousled and dusty-looking. He’s surveying the room from a spot just out of the fray, at the edge of the shadows, his thick arms crossed over a massive, heavily-muscled chest.
Watching him, something stirs deeper inside me—in my brain or my body—it comes and goes so fast, I can’t begin to explain it. Do I know him from someplace?
