“So what’s the problem then, Case?” he asked, doing his best to be dispassionate as he looked her in the eyes. “You like him, he likes you, you’ll make beautiful blue-eyed babies who grow up to run an empire of lingerie and sex toys. Sounds perfect.” He flashed her a smile so she knew he meant it. At least, he tried to mean it.
“Here’s the problem,” she began, stopping to take a drink of iced water. “I want what I want. You know, in bed. I like to be on top. I like to say what I want; I like to be direct,” she said, and his head was swimming with images now. He’d take her on top. He’d have no problem whatsoever with her riding him, wild and free, her blond hair loose and tumbling across her shoulders, her perfect breasts bouncing.
He spread the napkin further across his lap.
“But Scott didn’t like that enough. And I don’t think that’s what a man like Grant wants either. And maybe that’s my problem. Maybe that’s why I’ve had such bad luck with men.”
“Because you like to be on top?” He furrowed his brow. “You’re not even dating him yet. Why are you worried about what position he likes?”
She shot him a look that said you can’t be serious. “C’mon. We’re not in high school. If I date him, chances are we’ll get to the bedroom soon enough.”
The jealousy ran wild now, stampeding through his body. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Casey. Don’t you get it? If some guy doesn’t like who you are, you don’t need him.”
“Thank you,” she said, then lowered her voice more. “But maybe it’s time to change. I want more from this life, Nate. I want to have a chance with Grant, and maybe I’d like letting go. Maybe I should try giving up control. I mean, do you like your women submissive? Are you a dominant?”
He laughed at the fact that they were discussing this. He was fantasizing about her naked body and she wanted to know if he was dominant.
She laughed too. “See? You know I’m direct. I speak my mind. I just asked if you were a Dom!”
“Are you? Are you Mistress Casey? Is that the deep, dark secret of what you do after hours? Admit it, you’re a card-carrying member of that BDSM club you and Jack supported a couple years ago,” he said, egging her on.
“No. I swear. I mean, hey, leather is great. And I would have no objection to wielding a crop and giving orders now and then, but no. I am not a Domme, and I’m not a member of a BDSM club, and I’m not a mistress. I’m just a woman who sells sex toys and loves to be in control. And evidently, that’s my problem. I’m not wild and free enough in bed or something,” she said, slapping her palm on the table in emphasis. Her champagne glass rattled slightly, and he grabbed it before it spilled. She took it from him and downed the rest of it. “What about you?”
“You want to know if I’m dominant in bed? If I like whips and chains?” he asked, and this was a much more pleasurable direction than discussing her desires for other men. Especially when she used words like wild and free.
She nodded, an eager look in her eyes. “I do want to know. Do you like to be in control? Do you need a woman to call you Sir or Master?”
He leaned back in his chair, savoring the moment, enjoying the question. Even if they never did more than talk, this was a hell of a fun way to spend the evening together. “When it comes to women, you could say I’m an omnivore,” he said, his lips curving into a grin.
“What do you mean?”
He stretched out in the chair, gesturing widely with his arms. “I like everything. I’m equal opportunity. I like a woman on top, I like to be on top, I like a woman on all fours, I like her bent over, I like her up against the wall. I’m good with reverse cowgirl, sixty-nine, inside, outside, upside-down,” he said, and her eyes widened with each suggestive term. Oh, he was having too much fun rattling off all the things he liked, because he was being one hundred percent truthful. Everything rocked when you were into a woman. “Blow jobs, hand jobs, going downtown, spankings, ropes, scarves, handcuffs. Fingers, toys, beads, blindfolds—you name it, I’m your man. If it happens naked with a woman I want, I like it, and chances are, I’m making her cry out in pleasure,” he said, arching an eyebrow playfully at the last line. It was cocky, and he knew it, but let her have an orgasmic image in her mind.
Casey grabbed at the neckline of her tank and tugged it away from her chest. “Whew. Someone get me a fan,” she said with a wink, and he laughed.
But one thing he didn’t like hearing about was her trying to change for some guy. Because this guy didn’t deserve her if he wanted her to be someone other than herself. He was about to tell her when she moved even closer, and grasped his hands, sending electric sparks through him. God, the slightest touch from her was such a turn-on. When he was alone later in his room, he’d be thinking of all the omnivorous ways he could consume her. He’d be picturing running through every option on the list he’d just shared.
“I have a crazy idea,” she said, her blue eyes lit up with mischief.
“Is it feeding you cake? Because we tried that and it didn’t work.”
She shook her head, and bit her lower lip briefly. “Teach me,” she breathed out, and all the air swept out of his lungs. He froze, as shock spread through his body in a nanosecond.
“Teach you what?” he asked in a wobbly voice as he began to recover the power of speech.
“Teach me how to let go. Teach me how to give up control.”
He shoved a hand roughly through his hair, and swallowed. His throat was dry. He grabbed for a glass and downed the rest of his water. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. I’m not kidding. I know it sounds crazy. But maybe it’s not crazy. I’m the head of a damn sex toy company and I don’t know how to give up control. Maybe because I’m surrounded by all these toys. Because I’ve learned every detail of my own body and what I like, and how to turn up the setting higher, or adjust the vibration lower, or thrust harder, or tease more, to yield the result,” she said, laying out her pleasure-seeking clinically like it was a math problem, when to him it was a vision of sensual beauty—her on the bed, legs spread, learning the intricacies of her own body, a territory he longed to explore intimately. “And now, when I’m with a guy, and God knows it’s been a long time since that,” she said with a scoff, “it’s so hard for me to let go of the reins I’ve been holding onto for so long. But I want to learn. And we’re friends. I trust you completely, and it would never ruin our friendship because there would never be anything more.”