Page 58 of The Pleasure Contract

Az laughs lightly and steers me toward a different display. “This one was an earlier, simpler model.”

The piece of furniture in front of us still looks opulent to me, just without all the high-tech gadgets added on. The main ‘body’ of it looks almost like a plush, plumped-up sun-lounger – well, except for the bottom half where your legs should go. Instead, two padded rests are offered that I’m guessing you’re meant to hook your knee over – splayed, of course. And there, sectioning off the top half to the ‘business-end’ is a golden frame with a lush burgundy curtain draped from it.

“Wha-” I tilt my head, looking at the thing before it all clicks.

The female Xaviann would sit back in the chair, her legs parted by the rests beneath her knees. Then the curtain drapes across her body, effectively cutting off the sight of her from the hips up.

“But… wouldn’t the sight of-” I make a vague gesture to the lower half of my body before swallowing thickly, “-you know… what’s going on on this side of the curtain still excite the male?”

My throat has gone dry when I think of being laid out on that thing, everything below the hips exposed and parted, not being able to see when you’re about to be touched – when you’re about to be fucked. I can only imagine it would heighten the other senses – touch and sound.

Az is talking, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. I’d been too busy imagining, anticipating his next move from behind that heavy curtain. “Huh?” I ask, dumbly.

He does a little double-take before repeating himself. “I was saying how this is an early model before they moved on to different designs.”

I hear his words this time, but I can tell that while he’s saying them, he’s trying to figure out what I’m thinking. The problem is, what I’m thinking is making me blush like a teen buying condoms for the first time.

“Do you…” I try, my voice a little hoarse before I clear it and start again. “Do you think you’d be able to control yourself if we used something like that?”

Az goes very still as he looks at me, and I watch as his pupils dilate with understanding.

Without taking his intense gaze from mine, he makes a short, sharp whistle that startles me. “Lazzy!” he calls, his chest rising and falling with each breath as he waits for the museum guide to come bustling over.

“Yes, Prince A-”

“Dismiss the room.”

My breath hitches. There’s a beat of silence, and I swear I can practically hear my heartbeat.

“Wha- But-”

Az interrupts Lazzy’s sputtering, his words repeated slowly in a lowered tone that causes a wave of goosebumps to sprinkle across the back of my neck. “Dismiss. The. Room.”

26

Lois

The doors to the exhibit room close with a thud – a thud that seems so loud in this deafening silence.

“Did you-” I shake my head up at Az, not quite believing what’s happening right now. “Did you kick everyone out of this room so we could fuck?”

“Mm-hm,” he agrees, his hands behind his back as he slowly starts to walk, circling me. “On that,” he says, jerking his horns toward the antique breeding bench we’d been discussing. He then opens his arms wide, gesturing to the rest of the room. “Or any of the others. Whatever you want – we’ll try it.”

My mouth goes dry.

But other parts of me definitely do not.

Okay. So this is happening.

This is definitely happening.

“Alright,” I say, trying to sound nonplussed and not like a cat in heat right about now.

I walk up to the strange piece of apparatus – the older one with the curtain that stops us from seeing each other. I guess it will kind of be like being blindfolded and tied down.

Which I’m also not opposed to.

Eying the bench, I realize that I’m going to be forced to ask Az to lift me up onto the thing, since everything is Xaviann-sized, and especially with this being on an exhibit platform-