1
PEYTON
I did it. Finally. The dryness in my throat almost choked me, but I managed to complete the online profile and tap create before I changed my mind again.
The phone trembled in my hands, and I tightened my grip to keep from dropping it on the heavy mahogany desk where I worked.
I took a shuddering breath, then another one, and read through my profile. Intivibe was a new kind of dating app.
Built on intimacy first, it did not even have a place for its users to upload photos. Even in the messaging section of the app, it remained text only.
Of course, people could exchange phone numbers and share pictures that way if they chose to, but I’d picked this app expressly for the anonymity after years of dating apps that reduced me to nothing more than a picture for men to swipe away.
Not this time.
No sir.
The men on Intivibe would have to talk to me first. Then, only after I’d made sure they wouldn’t take one look at my curves and snarl their nose would I take the next step. I mean, what the hell was up with that?
I’d had one guy tell me my blonde hair and green eyes were wasted on a plus-sized body.
Fuck him. Right in the ass.
My face heated despite only thinking the words. I couldn’t imagine saying them out loud.
Maybe, if things worked out on this app, I could convince myself to release my frantic grip on the mask I wore. The one that turned me into a meek and pleasant woman who smiled and nodded instead of saying what I really thought.
Then again, if I did that sooner, I might not be in this place where I could only be myself on an incognito dating app.
My profile was bold, to say the least.
For once in my life, I’d gone all in with my full personality. No filtering this time. Whoever I spoke to would know from the beginning what they were getting, just not my body size or my real name.
A buzz vibrated the phone in my hands. I narrowed my eyes at the screen and tapped the notification from Intivibe.
You have one new message.
Already?
Was that normal?
Probably just a welcome message sent by some bot. I swiped it open and my lips parted.
Finally. Someone who doesn’t claim to love long walks on the beach and making love on the sand. Do you have any idea how much sand itches? And when it gets in your ass crack, it’s all kinds of uncomfortable.
I burst out laughing, then slapped a hand over my mouth to shut off the sound before my bosses heard me.
I really shouldn’t be doing any of this during working hours, but they’d been locked away in meetings all morning, and as their executive assistant, my job was to be on call for them.
Sitting at my desk making a profile on a dating app was the riskiest thing I’d ever done.
I peeked toward the closed office door.
The meeting had been running for three hours.
Every now and then, a voice pushed through. I’d learned the difference, learned their tones.
Viktor’s was always low and deliberate.