Their eyes met and the connection between them intensified.
“Okay. I’ll tell you.” She held out her pinky.
He wrapped his around her delicate one and squeezed. “Don’t make me say it.”
With a smile, she shrugged.
“I pinky promise to keep your secret forever.”
More silence as a shadow fell over her eyes. Then, she squared her shoulders. “There are times when my sexual needs are a little extreme.”
That much he’d figured out on his own, so he stayed quiet.
“In college, my fantasies started changing. I imagined others watching while I had sex. I fantasized about sex with strangers, but I never acted on that one. Picking up a guy wasn’t my thing.”
He shifted in the seat. “I see.”
“I thought something was wrong with me, so I ended up repressing my fantasies further, which only made things worse. Turns out, that while I love vanilla sex, I also have exhibitionist tendencies, something I came to understand after doing my own research. A couple of years ago, I was at my lowest point, sexually. A friend told me about Uninhibited, so I went with her. I had no idea Sinclair owned the club. When I found out, I decided I wouldn’t return. That same friend encouraged me to talk to him, so I did. He helped me navigate the club. But that was it. I love him like a brother, but there’s no chemistry. Not like how I feel about—”
He waited, silently begging her to finish that sentence, but Carly had clammed up.
“Feel about who?”
“No one.” Her attention stayed glued to the highway.
Does she mean me?
“Anyway.” She breathed deep. “Sin introduced me to a few people he thought would be helpful and also safe. That group grew to about thirty. We get together every few months. I wear the wig and call myself Natasha. And that’s where you enter the story.”
“You’ve had boyfriends. Are they into kink, too?”
“I don’t date men in the scene. I’m into guys who like vanilla sex. I’ve never found the right person where I could blend my fetish into the relationship.” She glanced over at him. “It sounds complicated, but it works for me.”
“Thank you for confiding in me.”
“We’ve been friends pretty much our entire lives. I would miss you if you weren’t in my life. I don’t want this to come between us.”
“Neither do I.”
“So, are you good?” At the same time she glanced over at him, she ran her tongue over her lower lip.
He paused, mesmerized by her seductive action. “Totally. I’ll forget about it and we can go back to the way things were.” His guts twisted. He hated lying to her. He couldn’t get beyond it because he wanted her to unleash her dark fantasies on him.
And only him.
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T H E P A I N A ND T H E F U R Y
C arly was pissed. Ash was lying. He was struggling with her story, but she didn’t know what troubled him. Was it that she was sexually active? Was it that she had a fetish? Was it that she’d kept it from him? Whatever his issues, if he wouldn’t talk about them, she couldn’t fix the problem.
But now wasn’t the time to bust his chops. He was going to have to deal with death and a family in mourning. He’d shove down his loss in order to help them with theirs. And she’d push aside her own feelings to be strong for him, because that’s what he needed from her…her friendship.
A light rain dotted the windshield as she drove into the Rijados’ neighborhood of well-kept brick homes. Cars packed the street, so she parked around the corner. Ashton slipped into his suit jacket and, as they walked toward the house, he draped his arm around her shoulder.
“Thanks for being here with me.”
“Always.”
