Gray didn’t move from his spot pretending to be a coat rack. Which was fine by me. I needed a minute to figure out how to tell him off without pissing him off too.

“I thought we agreed that you’d wait on your Dominatrix idea for six months while I initiated you into the lifestyle.”

“I changed my mind. I’m a woman. I get to do that.” Roar.

All my muscles tensed ready and waiting for him to pounce on me again. He didn’t move. Except to rub the rag across his fingers some more. His face flashed a moment of disappointment, and then a weird little smile tugged that away.

I wanted to analyze that like the girl that I was. A thousand questions flew through my mind about why he might be disappointed and about what. And what in the world was that smile?

“You told me to do something productive with my time and I chose to work on my future.”

The smile transformed into one that said he knew I wouldn’t stick with the training. “It’s your life, Angel.”

Normally, a smile from Gray was a thing to behold. Not today. This one made my insides sink like the Lusitania. “I don’t understand you.”

The smile fell from his lips. “I know.”

“No manches.” I pivoted on one foot and walked the hell away from that conversation.

Gray was no help at all. Who else did I know that had the inside track on the ins and outs, and back ins and outs, of sexual domination?

I couldn’t for the life of me find the card of the actual Dominatrix I’d met at the club and had a sneaking suspicion it had gone the way of wherever Gray had hidden Hawk’s card from me too.

Maybe I should take a class. Or I could hire a consultant. Hmm...both.

Finding a class wasn’t that easy. It’s not like the city colleges had tons of them BDSM 101.

Who needed a big bad Dom anyway? Not me.

Liar, liar, pants up in flames. The little bit of submission and domination I’d experienced had taken sex from boring to fireworks and rockets and atomic explosions.

My panties were still wet from that encounter with Gray in the garage, and our little tiff in the hall certainly didn’t dry them up.

I went to my room to change clothes. As worked up as I was, nothing looked comfortable, so I plopped down on my chaise longue naked, something I never used to do.

Amazing what having some great sex did for a women’s body confidence. I still had a very round bottom, a tummy, a bit of sag under my arms, and more chins than I liked, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t learned to embrace my curves. I still had doubts and days where I didn’t love what I saw in the mirror, but they weren’t every day and definitely not every night.

Not that I’d be comfortable walking around in my birthday suit, a collar and chain like the girls I’d seen at The Asylum.

Eureka. That was it.

I knew who to ask for advice from. I needed somebody inside the biz.

He might scare the hell out of me, but why not go straight to the source?

I grabbed my phone and had Siri do my bidding. “Siri, find me the number for The Asylum.”

“OK, here’s what I found.”

There were three search results, but only one was a sex club in the warehouse district. I clicked on the number and waited while it rang. Would anyone even answer during the day?

“Angelina. What are you doing calling me?” His voice dripped with power and knowledge like a professor who knows you’ve been a bad girl.

I shivered and snuggled into the pillows on my chaise. This was the weirdest start to a conversation I’d ever had, and I was thus far silent. Not the right way to show my new and improved womanly confidence. But, A, why was Foster Bennett answering the phone? Didn’t he have, servants or sex slaves or something for that? And B, caller ID creeped me out when people answered the phone with my name. I needed to remember to block my number.

If he could lay it on this thick, so could I. I imagined we were old friends and I was calling in a favor. “I’m hoping you can help me, Foster.”

“Isn’t that what Gray is for?”

“Uh...” I had so many responses to that I didn’t know where to start.

“Oh, ho ho. You aren’t supposed to be talking to me, are you? I see how it is. You’re a brat. I bet Gray just loves that.”

“I am not a brat. I’m trying to exert a little bit of independence in my life. I don’t need men telling me what to do all the time.”

“Of course, you don’t need it. You like it though.”

Did I? “I do not.”

“We’ll see. When’s the last time you came?”

Oh my cajones. “That is none of your business.”

“It’s exactly my business. How do you think I make my money?”

Obtuse bastard. He was worse than Gray. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’d like to—”

“Not until you tell me how long since you came.”

I crossed my legs and looked around for a bathrobe or a towel or anything that I could cover myself up with. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t. I’m more interested in how insane you’re driving Gray. So, how long?”

Okay, that’s a game I could play. “Three days.”

“That’s all?”

I scoffed. “It’s pretty much forever.”

“So, Gray’s testing your orgasm denial limits, is he? Typical. I’ll bet he’s got you all riled up too. Are you wet right now?”

This conversation was not going how I wanted it to. “Do you think about anything other than sex?”

“No. It’s why I’m so successful. I have a real passion for my business. What are you wearing?”

What was this a 900 sex line? “You really do have a one-track mind.”

“No, it has a couple of tracks, but the one it’s on right now is imagining you on my lap, naked.”

The last time I saw a naked woman on his lap was the one and only time Gray had taken me to The Asylum. Foster had made a woman come choking her...while she sat on his lap.

He was trying to intimidate me with that reminder of his dominance and what he could do to a woman like me. Well, I could play that game. “Funny, because I happen to be naked.”

“No, you aren’t, little brat.”

“I’ll show you if you’ll help me get in contact with the Dominatrix that was at your club last week.”

He laughed. Hard. I wasn’t sure if I should be irritated or flattered I was so entertaining to him.

“I’d take you up on that if I thought for one minute you’d actually go through with it.”

I texted him a picture of my outstretched legs.

“Very nice, but that doesn’t prove a thing. You could be wearing shorts or panties or a bathrobe. Send me a picture of your pussy and we’ll talk names and numbers.”

“Pervert.”

“Indeed I am.”

No way I was taking a dirty picture and sending it to him. I was about to try something I’d only ever heard women used as a bargaining tool. I was holding out.

“Well, that’s all you’re going to get, for now. Tell me what I want to know, and we’ll see if another trip to your club can’t be arranged.” Whoo. I sounded like a badass.

“You’re wet, aren’t you, Angelina? Have you been touching yourself or has Gray?”

“Neither. Now is she the only Dominatrix you know, or are there others?”

I may not have any real experience in negotiations, but years of listening to my father and the boys club conduct business at the country club over a round of golf or dinner had soaked into my brain.

“I said we’d talk names and numbers. I didn’t say whose.”

“What? No. You’re a cheat.” No wonder Gray didn’t like this guy.

“I’m not the one who only sent me a picture of her bare legs.”

“Foster.” Wait. He wasn’t going to respond to whining, which was exactly what I was about to do. He was into power exchange. I needed to offer him something to get anything from him. Whatever I proposed was going to have to be more than a simple picture.

But what did I have to entice the king of the forbidden?