CHAPTER SIX

Great. He had me down as a science project. I could feel the beginnings of a headache buzzing between my eyes and wondered if I’d remembered to put some aspirin in my bag.

“What do you do for a living?”

On second thought, aspirin probably wasn’t going to cut it. I wondered if I had any of that oxycodone left from my last prescription. I might need that.

“Doctor, lawyer, stockbroker, ballet dancer, footballer?” He regarded me thoughtfully as he slowly drawled each choice.

The man had a unique way of putting me off my guard, but I’d had far too many years of practise in subterfuge to fall for such tactics. “I work in advertising.”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled lazily at me. “For whom?” By his sceptical look, it was clear he didn’t believe me.

“Activity Advertising.” The lie slipped from my tongue far too easily, and I said it with conviction.

“And where are they located?”

Obviously the lie wasn’t quite as good as I thought it was. The next question was usually what position I held there. Keeping my face carefully neutral, I said, “Our offices are on Silver Street in Enfield.”

As my knowledge of Activity Advertising was limited, I hoped there wouldn’t be too many more questions headed my way. If there were, I would have to improvise, and that tended to get messy.

“Who’s your boss?” James had now put his elbow on the table and his chin rested upon his hand.

He looked at me idly, but I wasn’t fooled for a second. Somehow, the infernal man knew I was lying. But how? This was the second time he’d seen through my façade, and I was beginning to worry my standards were slipping.

When he pulled a fancy-looking smartphone from his pocket and started punching some keys around, I knew I was in trouble.

“Richard Mullane, although I fail to see why you’d want to know a detail like that.” I was on the defensive, and I couldn’t help a petulant frown.

“And how old is Mr. Mullane, exactly?” James sucked upon his bottom lip in an effort to contain his laughter, but his eyes were alight with mirth. I wanted to throttle him. “I’m guessing he’s in his forties, but I’m not very good with ages.”

I had absolutely no idea how old Richard Mullane was, and there’d been no accompanying photo of him on the company’s website. I could have researched the man further but hadn’t thought it would be necessary. Clearly I had been wrong.

“Oh, I think you’re exceptionally good at everything, Ms. Reeves. Too good normally, I suspect.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his neck, and for a moment I thought I was off the hook. “Okay, I admit age can be tricky. Let’s go for hair colour. What colour is his hair?”

“I refuse to answer any more questions along this ridiculous vein,” I remonstrated, desperately hoping that the chefs of the Barracuda would hurry up and pull their fingers out. I needed James Leverett distracted and quickly.

“It’s my last question. I promise I’ll stop after this one.” He smiled at me, and in reply I shook my head mutinously.

“How hard can it be? You work with the man. Does he have blond, brown, black, red, or grey hair? You’ve got a twenty percent chance of getting it right, Lois. Or I could just reel all sorts of questions off about Activity Advertising for the next half hour or so.” His eyes saw right through me in that instant and I shivered.

“Which I could refuse to answer,” I bit out.

“Then you might as well go home now, because we will not be meeting tomorrow. Just answer the damn question, Lois.” Those eyes did not leave my face, and inwardly they made me squirm.

“So, it’s Lois now, is it? What happened to Ms. Reeves?” I was clutching at straws and he nailed me immediately.

“Don’t even think of trying to divert the conversation. Answer the question, Lois, or we’re done here.”

“Rubbish. You’re going to walk out on king scallops and lobster? I don’t think so.”

“Want to put that theory to the test? Because not only will I be walking out on my meal, I’ll be walking out on you.” James put his cell phone back in his pocket, and the sound of his chair legs scraping across the wooden floor made me wince.

“Grey.” It was a calculated guess. The law of averages said that anyone who’d risen to managerial status in a firm was probably in their forties or fifties, and there was a good chance that a male might have grey hair at that age.

James pushed his chair back under the table and smiled at me. “Okay, it’s your turn now. If your scene goes ahead tomorrow, do you have any burning questions about what might happen?” He raised an eyebrow.

Taking a deep breath, I considered his words. Having a sudden urge to play with the cutlery, I carefully placed both hands in my lap. What did I want to know? Everything. Nothing. Where on earth did I start?

“Do you get pleasure from hurting people?” That little gem had been at the back of my mind for some time. I didn’t feel guilty for asking it. It was his turn to squirm.

He rubbed the pad of his thumb across his lip as he considered his response, but it was clear my question entertained him. “This is why I was concerned enough to bring you here tonight.” His index finger pointed to the table in front of him.

“You don’t understand the concept of BDSM at all, do you?” Shaking his head, he sighed.

“It’s not about the pain. You watch too much TV. Most people who practise BDSM hardly touch upon the pain side of things. Sometimes, as the relationship progresses, a little pain can

be introduced, but that’s a personal preference. BDSM is all about pleasure. That’s what I do. In a session, I’ll give a submissive anywhere from three to fifteen orgasms. My job is finding out what makes her tick, what turns her on, and then using that information to the best of my ability.”

I couldn’t help but frown. “So, what’s all this spanking, caning, and cropping business then? Pleasure?” My look was disbelieving. I’d read a few books and seen a couple of movies. I almost knew what I was talking about.

“Yes,” he hissed at me. “Pleasure.” I noted that his pale blue eyes looked even sexier when they were fired up.

“The sting of the crop will ignite a thousand nerve endings that you never knew you had, and the residual burn will set flame to a thousand more. A little pain will flood endorphins and adrenaline all through your body, heightening your awareness to such a degree that a whisper of air upon your flesh will feel like a hurricane. It can also delay an impending orgasm, intensifying your climax tenfold when you finally manage to fight past the delicious burn that is consuming you. It’s all about pleasure.”

James had started to wave his arms about and was looking very animated. He was obviously very passionate about his work. I looked unconvinced, but I wasn’t going to contradict him.

This was his thing, after all, but I couldn’t resist adding, “And control.” He rolled his eyes at me, but he inclined his head in agreement.

“Yes. That’s exactly it - pleasure and control. Many people find a great deal of relief in giving up the latter.”

I knew those eyes were assessing whether I would be one of them. He’d already formed his own opinion of me, and I debated for several seconds before asking the next question, but in the end it seemed to escape of its own accord.

“Do you think I will?”

He turned his head away from me and looked into space for a moment. I could almost hear the cogs of his brain turning.

The resulting silence burned me. This was important. I was almost willing him to say “yes,” but I’d rather have an honest opinion. Without doubt, that’s exactly what I was going to get, and my body unconsciously clenched in response. There was a lot riding on this.

“You’re a difficult case,” he said eventually, and these were not the words I wanted to hear.

“Normally, I can give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ with little more than a quick chat and glance, but where you are concerned, I have an inkling I’m not working with the full picture.” Annoyingly, the food chose that moment to arrive, and I had to wait several agonising seconds before our conversation could continue.

Watching fractiously as our waiter fussed with the positioning of our plates and condiments, I had to take a moment to tell myself to calm down.

This was all Mr. Attractive’s fault, and his presence was starting to have an adverse effect on my emotional wellbeing. Still, he would only be in my life for one more day. Hopefully