“He steps back and sits in the chair in the corner. His grin is smug and cocky. He sits with his legs spread, like before."Undress." He watches me.I take a deep breath and pull my shirt off, dropping it to the floor next to my jacket.”

“He leans back casually in his chair as I watch the corner of his mouth pull up just a fraction. "And what sort of conversation is it that you think you've missed?"I take a deep breath and put the DVD's onto the floor. "The one about us.”

“Jack jumped off the couch, pulling his shirt back on. "Next time,if you'd like, I'll just come without one," he said,grinning at me.”

“He sits next to me and puts his arm on the back of my chair, leaning close. I don't stare back -- I refuse to stare back.I stare back.”

“This one, I guess," he says. I look over at the counter, he is looking back at me. He is holding a riding crop: "I'd like to try it out." There is a peculiar shift: from one second to the next I have become disoriented, I am on alien territory, in a foreign century. He walks a few steps to where I am half sitting on the desk, one foot on the floor, the other dangling. He pulls my skirt up my left leg, which is resting on the desk, steps back and strikes me across the inner thigh.The searing pain is an inextricable part of a wave of excitement; every cell in my body is awash with lust.It is silent in the small, dusty room. The clerks behind the counter have frozen.He slowly smooths down my skirt and turns to the older man, who is wearing a suit and still looks like an accountant, though a deep flush is spreading upward from his shirt collar."This one will do.”

“His lips were like a caress as he brushed them across mine; slow and soft. He lingered, breathing in deeply as if he couldn't breathe without me. Eventually, he moved on to plant a tender kiss on my bottom lip, before pilling back and looking at me. His cocky grin was gone, replaced with something tender and nervous. His thumb ran over my lip once, before he let go, and smiled. -Loc 1471 ARC”