Purely Professional (5 page)

Chapter Five

Max greeted her at the door with a smile, wearing dark jeans and a black T-shirt that fit snugly over his chest and arms. She hadn’t realized his arms were quite that muscular, or his jawline quite so precise, and she swallowed. Where was Confident Bridget? Smart-ass Bridget? When had they been replaced by Wussy Bridget?

“Come in.” He stood aside.

Bridget walked past him quickly, afraid she’d lose her nerve if she didn’t move ahead with it. She felt the familiar adrenaline rush that always accompanied her stupid decisions. Once inside, she looked around. Despite all his flirtatious invitations, she’d never been inside his house before. His open floor plan meant no internal walls at all, just a few support pillars. A spiral staircase off to the left connected the main level to the floors above and below. He’d sectioned off part as a living room, which managed to be cozy despite the expanse of space.

“Sit, please.” Max took a seat on the black leather armchair and gestured to the sofa. She sank down, the butter-soft leather yielding beneath her, clenched her hands on her knees, and took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Yes,” Bridget blurted out. “Please.”

“What’s your preference?”

“Alcoholic.”

Max smiled again and headed toward the kitchen. Bridget took the opportunity to take a closer look around. With paintings on the walls and tall plants near the windows, his house displayed all the trappings of someone with class. He probably purchased the paintings for a reason, not just because they were on sale at Target and sort of matched the couch, which was how she tended to purchase her wall décor. Maybe he hired an interior decorator, or maybe he just had an eye for these things. Max returned a moment later with two glasses and a wine bottle, freshly uncorked. “This is my favorite pinot noir. Have you ever had it?” He showed her the label.

Bridget shook her head, not really paying close attention to the bottle. She sipped the wine, feeling its warmth in her mouth and throat. Maybe she would feel calmer in a few sips. Or perhaps after a few more sips. It was really a lovely wine; hopefully he wasn’t offended that she was practically chugging the entire glass in front of him.

“I’m glad you like it.” Max refilled her glass, his amusement evident. Bridget cradled it between her hands, clenching her fingers to steady their nervous trembling. She sipped from it like that, as though she held a warm cup of coffee between her hands.

“Easy.” He moved to sit next to her on the couch, then reached for her glass and took it from her hands, prying it out from her clenched fingers.

“What are you doing?” She held onto the glass more tightly.

“You’re going to break the glass. Your fingers are turning white.” He took it away. “What’s going on with you?”

Bridget took the glass back from him, all the more distracted by his sudden proximity. He had a certain spicy, masculine scent that she hadn’t noticed in Starbucks but that she could easily discern now, in his house, with his knee practically touching hers. She sipped from the wineglass again. She was feeling a little better now, after the two glasses she’d had back home and the glass and a half she had just finished while sitting on his sofa. If she were drunk, she might be able to continue this conversation.

“All right.” Bridget let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “I’m in…a bit of a dilemma. No, not a dilemma. A quandary.” She paused, her face flushed after the wine, and sipped some more. “Yeah, a quandary. A dilemma would mean that I have things to choose between, and I’ve already made enough stupid choices. But now I don’t know how to live with them, so I think that’s a quandary. Right?”

Max raised his eyebrows. “Bridget, I’m an English professor and you’re out-language-geeking me right now. Tell me what’s going on.”

“All right, I’ll start over.” She took another swallow of the rich pinot noir. “My article was a hit.”

“Well, that’s a good thing. You were so worried.”

“No, no, not a good thing. Definitely
not
a good thing.” Was it warmer in there suddenly, or was she just feeling the warmth of his leg an inch from hers? She drank more wine. “I’ve been given a raise. And a new assignment. They want me to blog about my relationship with Erebos.”

“But you don’t have a relationship with Erebos.” Max leaned back to look at her more clearly.

“I
know
.” Bridget flopped back against the sofa and gestured with the wineglass. The wine sloshed a bit, so she finished it and set the glass down on the coffee table. “I know I don’t. We don’t.”

“So why would they think you do?” His brow furrowed. “Did you tell them we were intimate?”

“Nooo, Marcy presumed it from what I wrote. I wasn’t
going
for intimacy, I was trying to keep things detached, but I guess it didn’t work.” She picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. It really was an excellent pinot noir.

“So why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

“What, and lose my job?” Bridget shook her head. “I didn’t
lie
to her, but I just didn’t correct her. If she finds out I don’t know anything, and she wants to go all edgy and shit with the magazine, I’m going to be monitoring fucking
personal ads
in the back pages by the end of the month.” She sipped more wine, more like a gulp, then studied the glass so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “So I kind of told her I would do it.”

“I see. That
is
a quandary.” Max plucked the glass from her hand and set it down on the coffee table. “I think you’ve had enough of this right now, all right? I want you coherent.”

“I’m fine. It’s just really warm in here.” Bridget fanned herself with one hand.

Max just sat there, his hands resting lightly on his knees, waiting for her to continue.

“So, now I’m here. On your couch.” Bridget took a deep breath and let it out, steadying herself. “I want to learn about BDSM.”

“I told you a lot the other day, but I can get you some books if you want.”

“No.” Bridget shook her head. “I want…you…to teach me.” She couldn’t make eye contact. This was really it.

“What do you mean?” Max’s tone implied he knew
exactly
what she meant.

“I mean, I want to learn about what you do. I want to learn about dominance and submission. I want to—” she swallowed, “—to experience it for myself. I want to be able to write about it from my own perspective, not make something up. I want to know. I want you to…show me.”

Max hesitated. “Bridget, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“No, it is. I’ve been thinking about it.” She flushed again, remembering in what circumstances she’d been thinking about it. “I trust you, I mean, I know you aren’t some psychopath or something. And you could show me what it…feels like.” At last, she chanced a look up into his eyes. He was so close to her, just a few feet away, watching her with an expression she couldn’t fully understand.

“Bridget, I don’t know if this is something you’d enjoy.” Max’s voice had become quieter.

“Then if it’s not, we stop. Safe words and all that. Right?” Hopefully he would see her point.

“And you would blog about it?”

“Yes. Anonymously, of course. No one would know it was you. Or me. Either of us.”

“You know, there are a lot of erotica writers out there. If you read enough of it, you can probably imitate it.”

Bridget made a face. “Yeah, I thought about it, but Marcy wants a relationship. She wants details, and not just sex details, but details about two people in a relationship who also practice BDSM together. If I make
everything
up, and she finds out, I could lose my job.”

“So you want me to have a relationship with you?”

“No way. I don’t do relationships. I thought we could just pretend.” Bridget glanced up at him, trying to read his expression. Was he incredulous or just confused?

“Pretend a relationship?”

“Yeah. We get along okay. It wouldn’t be that hard.” She was glad she was a little drunk; it was easier to accept the fact that he didn’t seem to want to do this with her. “Besides, it might be fun to play with someone new, right? I’m fun.”

Max rubbed his chin. “I usually play with people who know what they’re getting into. I told you, it’s not fun for me to play with people who don’t enjoy it.”

“How do you know I won’t enjoy it?” she challenged. “I don’t know one way or the other.”

Max leaned in closer, his voice completely serious. “Bridget, are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into? Do you
really
understand?”

“I’m not…I’m not sure.” She felt less confident beneath his intense stare. He seemed to study her, to read the expression on her face, in her eyes, to look
into
her rather than
at
her. It was unnerving. When he looked away, she felt breathless like she’d been running. He tapped his fingers on his leg, thinking, his lips pursed in concentration. What was going through his mind? What were his reservations? As the silence stretched, she grew more uncomfortable. Maybe this wouldn’t work at all. Maybe this was a terrible, terrible idea. Just when she was about to apologize, to try to laugh it all off and make a graceful exit, Max turned back to her.

“For this to work, and I’m not saying it will, you would have to reveal everything to me. Tell me all your deepest, darkest fantasies. I want to know the secret things you don’t tell anyone.” He moved closer, one arm draped on the back of the sofa, the other hand moving to her knee, and she jumped. His touch felt like a smoldering coal even through the fabric of her jeans. “I’ll tease you, make you beg me for more, and then sometimes I won’t give it to you. This won’t be a game for me. I take my role very seriously. I’ll demand control of your entire sex life, and I’ll drive you completely crazy. You’ll be uncomfortable, nervous, aroused, exposed.” His hand slid up to the middle of her thigh, where he lingered, rubbing gently back and forth. “I’ll fuck you in ways you’ve never been fucked before.” He lifted one hand off the back of the sofa and cupped her jaw, his fingers just resting against the skin there as he brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

At his touch, Bridget pressed her hands to the sofa to steady herself, and she actually had to stop herself from moaning. There seemed to be no air in the room. She’d grown wet just from the erotic huskiness of his voice, the naughty things he murmured to her, and didn’t answer at first, trying to find words. His thumb had moved off her lip and was caressing her cheek. Unable to look away from his darkened eyes, at last she whispered, “Yes. I want that. I want all that.”

The half smile crooked his lips again as his hand dropped. Her skin tingled where he had touched it. “I can’t rush through this. I need time with you. If you do this, you’ll come to see me almost every day.”

“I only need to write two blog posts a week.”

He paused, not looking away, and shit, that was unsettling in all the right ways. “You’ll come to see me almost every day,” he repeated. “You’ll do exactly as I ask.”

Bridget looked down at his hand on her thigh, unable to think, her brain sluggish. “I’ll pay you. I’m getting a raise, so I should split it with you, since without you, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this —”

“No.” Max shook his head immediately. “That’s too much like prostitution.”

“But I wouldn’t feel right making you do this otherwise.”

He laughed, patting her leg and sitting back. “Making me? You’re
making
me do this? I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.” He smirked. “You’re right. It’s been a long time since I had someone new to play with. Especially someone as—” he looked her up and down, searching for the right adjective, “—as
fresh
as you,” he finished. “You’re practically a virgin.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. She turned to him, incredulous. “That is ridiculous. You don’t even
know
me. Are you always this arrogant?”

“It’s not arrogance. It’s confidence.”

“That’s what arrogant people say. But seriously, you won’t take my money?” It felt strange to imagine him doing all this for free, as a favor.

“No, I won’t. Think of it as a new experience for both of us.”

“And no emotional anything,” Bridget said quickly. “I mean it when I said no relationships. Purely professional.”

“All right.” Max nodded. “No entanglements, no emotions. We play, we hang out, do all the ‘relationship’ stuff you need to write about. I like you. It’ll be fine.” He grew serious again. “But you call it off if it’s not your thing. I’m not spending all this effort on a reluctant partner, no matter what you need to do for your job. Promise me.”

His intensity surprised her. “All right, I promise.” Bridget felt light-headed, whether from the wine or the decision she just made. “So what happens now?”

“I’m going to treat you like a new submissive. I’m still not sure you’ll be into this, so we’ll start slow, and if you like it, we’ll get more intense over each session.”

She swallowed. What would “more intense” look like? “All right. And…tonight?”

“Tonight I take notes.” Max retrieved the laptop from his desk and sat back down.

“How very businesslike.” Bridget settled back on the sofa, relaxing a little.

Max put on some reading glasses and suddenly became, if possible, even hotter. “Do you promise to be honest with me?”

“What are you going to ask?”

He just looked at her over the top of his glasses for a moment, incredulous. “Bridget, this type of relationship is founded on trust. It’s essential that you trust me completely. If you can’t even trust me enough to talk to me, I’m not going to continue. We can stop right here and probably both be a lot better off for it.”

“All right, all right, spare me the lecture.” She shifted a bit. Her stomach was feeling fluttery again. “Go ahead.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-one.” The banality of the question surprised her. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five, but I’m asking the questions.” Max started typing. “When’s the last time you had sex?”