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“Okay. I give in. Take away this grilled
and good-for-me salmon and give me my fork!”

“Ah, ah, ah, cherries first,” Beth
commanded, lifting one of the red fruits in a toast. Sarah followed suit and
Lauren picked up the remaining cherry.

“To Lauren, who has just lost her BDSM
cherry!”

“To Lauren!”

Blushing and ducking her head, Lauren
added, “To me!” They clinked the fruits together then popped them into their
mouths. Both Lauren and Beth pulled the stem off and dropped it onto the plate,
but Sarah’s mouth worked a moment, then she opened it to show a perfectly
formed knot in the stem.

“Show-off.”

Lauren loved these women—their foibles,
their helpful empathy, their friendship. Lifting her forkful of chocolate
brownie, she toasted them. “To friends.”

“To friends!”

* * * * *

John strolled through the lot of a used-car
dealer, listening to Will find fault with every truck they examined.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” he kept
saying, stubbornly refusing several perfectly good trucks.

“There must be a really good reason you
don’t want to give up that truck.” John shook his head as they headed back to
the rust bucket.

“He’s never told you the story?”

John turned at the voice behind him and
grinned. “Phillip, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re looking for a
new winter rat?” Phillip drove a beautiful sports car in the summer and stored
it for the winter so the salt on the roads wouldn’t destroy the paint—or the
frame.

Phillip shook his head as he took John’s
proffered hand. “Nope. Was driving by and couldn’t believe I saw that deathtrap
sitting there. Gave me hope Will had come to his senses and was doing some
serious shopping.”

“Yeah, well, John-boy here keeps
pestering.”

“You have a hole in the floor.”

“Details, details.” Will waved his hand dismissively.
“It still runs good.”

With an air of long-suffering, Will climbed
into his truck. “I’ll look at one more dealership and if I don’t find anything
there I like, you have to agree to stop nagging me to get a new truck.”

John leaned on the open window of the
passenger door. “Could be a deal if I knew the story behind why this one is so
special to you.”

Phillip came up to lean with him. “If you
don’t tell him, I will.”

Surrendering, Will blurted it out. “I like
to take Jill for a ride in the bed of this truck, all right?”

John turned to glance back at the truck
bed. The metal showed through the paint where scratches and dents gave evidence
of some hard hauling. A large black, plastic toolbox stretched the width just
under the window to the cab and John noted the rings evenly placed along the
side rails used to tie down a tarp to keep the bed dry. Nothing unusual for a
truck bed. He shrugged, clearly not getting Will’s meaning.

“Naked,” Will muttered.

Narrowing his eyes, John leaned over and
flicked up the catch on the toolbox. The inside had been divided into two
compartments. One side held the normal tools one might expect from a handyman—a
circular saw, a sander, a drill case and a smaller toolbox that John was sure
would be filled with hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches and other small hand
tools.

But the side farthest from him and closest
to the driver held more interesting items. Several coils of strong, scratchy
rope, a roll of duct tape, a bag of cable ties and one leather hood—the kind
that laced up the back. The kind with a built-in gag and no eye-holes.
Suppressing a grin, John let the top slam shut.

“Seems to me a man of your…interests…might
want a more dependable truck,” John told his friend, his voice dry and droll.

“Seems to me a man’s
wife
might want
a truck more dependable. Wouldn’t want to see the bed fall off the truck while
she was back there.” Phillip’s tone matched John’s as they drove their point
home.

Will leaned back and whined, “But we’ve had
such good times there.”

The two men laughed and Phillip gave John’s
arm a playful hit. “I’ll meet you at Bonner’s. Forget used. He needs something
brand-new and sturdy.”

“Deal.”

“Then lunch on me if he buys a new truck.”

John grinned at Phillip. “Bribery?”

Phillip shrugged. “Something’s gotta work.”

With Will shaking his head in defeat, John
climbed in beside his friend as Phillip went back to his sports car. “Think of
it this way, buddy. Jill will want to try out the new truck and put it through
its paces as soon as possible.”

At that thought, Will cheered up. “She
would, at that. We could…” His eyes twinkled with mischief.

As Will plotted out scenes with a new truck
and his wife, John thought of Lauren. Would she ever consent to such a public
display? He doubted it. But then again, he doubted he’d have the balls to drive
around with a naked, hooded woman tied in the back of his truck either. Too
many things could go wrong and while living on the edge obviously appealed to
some—he glanced at Will’s beaming face—he preferred his sex to be just a little
less dangerous.

No, he would tie Lauren again, if he hadn’t
frightened her off, and judging by last night’s reaction, he felt pretty sure
he hadn’t. But for the foreseeable future they’d keep their kink in the bedroom
or at least inside the house.

Chapter Ten

Lauren positively buzzed with excitement.
Not only had Beth and Sarah convinced her that bondage was “normal” they had
talked her into stopping at a lingerie shop to purchase a little something on
the kinky side. She glanced at the plain white bag as she drove home, her
cheeks turning pink at what she hoped would be John’s reaction.

Her machine’s light blinked “1” when she
got home so she hit the button as she went through her mail, sending most of it
right into the small recycling box she kept under the table beside the door.
John’s sexy voice came through the speaker and Lauren paused, a half smile on
her face as she listened to his recording.

“Lauren, I wanted you to know I enjoyed
last night. I hope you did too. If you’re willing, I thought perhaps we could
get together tomorrow afternoon and I could show you a few more of my,” there
was a pause and Lauren felt a thrill all the way to her pussy, “toys,” he
finished and the machine clicked off.

“Oh I bet you have some nice toys,” she
purred. “And when you see what I bought today…”

But why had he called her home number? Why
not her cell phone? She’d given him both numbers just in case. Pulling the
small phone from her jeans pocket, she shook her head. “Someday they’re going
to invent one of you little guys that doesn’t need its batteries recharged all
the time.” With a sigh she plugged the phone into its charger and picked up her
land line to return his call.

Ten minutes later she had a date for the
following afternoon with Big John at his house. Hanging up the phone, she
smiled as she considered the possibilities. Kinky sex with John would never be
dull, that was for certain. He’d told her to look up on the Web and see what
she could find about TPE—Total Power Exchange. Something told her she wouldn’t
find sites on a new form of electrical energy. Intrigued, she headed for her
computer. By the time she clicked it off, the room had grown dark and she’d
missed dinner entirely.

Oh yes. Sex with John would never be dull.

* * * * *

John surveyed his bedroom the next morning,
shaking his head and sighing. Lauren would be here in a few hours and he wanted
everything set before she came. A good scene built, each event moving the
tension forward increments at a time until achieving the climax. If he built it
right, there would be chapters within the scene where small climaxes kept her
coming back for more.

Of course, he’d started the scene with the
phone call. The message teased, hooked her in. With their conversation later
he’d given her more of a hint, like reading the first few pages of a book to
see if you wanted to continue.

“Last night I bound you with scarves,” he’d
told her. “Tomorrow I will take movement from you entirely.”

He’d heard her sudden intake of breath over
the phone and knew he’d gotten her. The exposition was done. Now to introduce
the conflict.

Opening the chest behind the door, he
surveyed its contents. He had bondage gear of all types. Under Will and
Phillip’s tutelage, he’d acquired skills that he’d honed through several
liaisons when home on leave.

None of those relationships had lasted
longer than the leave, however. John didn’t mind. Going off to war was hard
enough without leaving someone behind.

Lauren, however, was not a woman to be so
easily set aside. John paused in the act of picking up a particularly heavy
flogger as he considered that thought. Lauren wouldn’t be a quick and simple
relationship with both of them going in their own directions after the buzz of
newness wore off. He’d only known her a week so saying he’d fallen in love
might be a bit premature, but he suddenly realized that he was not ruling it
out. He picked up the flogger and ran the thongs through his opposite hand.

“How far do I want to push her? How far do
I want to push me?” He spoke to the flogger, deep in thought. After a moment,
he swished the thongs through the air, listening to the deep
woof
as the
air protested his assault on it. “She knows a flogging can massage and arouse.
First lesson learned.” Turning, he swung the flogger downward at the footboard
of the bed. The leather ends cracked in the silence.

Standing straight once more, John held the
flogger to his face, inhaling the musky leather scent. “Lesson two—submission
has rewards.”

* * * * *

She’d dressed carefully that noon. Freshly
showered, lotioned and shaved, the red lace bra and matching thong went on
first. He damn well better appreciate these. For such a small amount of
material they had sure cost enough. But she liked the way the bra gave her real
cleavage and, when she slid another long, peasant-type skirt over her hips, she
liked the way the material caressed her bare ass. A simple short-sleeve blouse
finished it off. Checking herself in the mirror, Lauren grinned and unbuttoned
the top button, flaring out the collar to show a little of that cleavage she’d
paid so much for. With a waggle of eyebrows at the sight, she headed out the
door.

Lauren pulled into his driveway, seeing the
house in the daylight for the first time. The houses to either side were
typical one-family homes built just after World War II. Small porches, lots of
windows, big gables. By contrast, John’s small bungalow seemed tiny. How could
such a large man live in such a tiny space?

She realized she was dawdling. Putting off
the moment where she walked along the flagstone path and rang the doorbell. He
hadn’t peeked out to see who had pulled into his driveway. At least, she didn’t
think he had. She could still drive away.

“Stop being foolish. He’s not going to hurt
you.” Scolding herself, she turned off the engine and quickly opened the door
before she chickened out. Trust took time to build, she’d said on their first
date—or had it been him who said it? Didn’t matter. Each step she took along
the path meant a step of trust in John’s good nature and dependability.

Her hand reached for the bell even as the
door opened. John stood there, looking totally at ease and not the least bit
nervous while her stomach did a little flip. It wasn’t fair.

He wore black pants and a crisp white shirt
this afternoon, the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons undone. With that
wonderful goatee encircling lips she knew would taunt her, he looked every inch
the modern romantic pirate.

“Welcome to my lair,” he teased and bowed
her inside as Lauren had a momentary vision of herself bound and naked over a
cannon.

The butterflies in her stomach fluttered.
Ignoring them, she stepped over the threshold with a coquettish smile and a
flirt. “You look very dashing today.”

“It’s on purpose, you know.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Is
everything you do on purpose?”

He shrugged and led her along the corridor
into the kitchen. “Pretty much.”

“Don’t you ever do things without thinking
them through?”

John chuckled. “Sometimes.”

A café-style, rectangular wooden table
served as his kitchen table, one end butted against the wall with two tall
chairs on either side of the long sides. John pulled a chair out for her on the
near side toward the wall. “Just not today.”

Confused, Lauren sat. She knew exactly why
he’d invited her over today. Hell, she hadn’t been able to think of anything
else since talking with him so briefly yesterday. How could he, with so few
words, get so many wonderful fantasies swirling through her imagination? Would
he tie her with rope this time? Chains? Leather? Between her thoughts and the
internet surfing she’d done, she was primed for anything.

“Coffee?” he offered.

“No thanks, I’m good.”