Abby looked at herself in the mirror and cringed. What do you wear to go and see the owner of a sex club? Was it like a job interview? Should she wear the one and only business suit she owned or would they be expecting her to be in something more… sex-club-ish? Abby didn’t own any leather - no leather skirt, no leather pants or shorts or even a leather jacket - she didn’t think they made anything in her size.

Abby wasn’t all that self conscious about her size, she wasn’t too big and she wasn’t a waif, she was somewhere in the comfortable middle. Her curves were soft, her boobs were a decent D-cup and she had a booty, and none of that mattered when she wore her loose-fitting dresses. She’d had a pair of jeans once upon a time, but her aunt had kicked up such a fuss about them, that she’d never worn them beyond that one time and hadn’t bought another pair since. The closest she came to wearing anything tight-fitting were her leggings, which she always wore with an over-size sweater that reached her knees (so was practically a dress). She was strictly in the camp of ‘leggings-are-not-pants’.

But none of that rambling helped her to decide what to wear to her interview at ‘Fetish’. When she’d rung to make the appointment, it had all been very professional, almost like she was making an appointment for her dentist or a lawyer. So maybe the suit was the way to go?

She pulled the dove-grey pinstripe skirt and vest from her closet along with the matching crisp white shirt. They looked practically brand new, which was a testament to how little she wore them. With a shrug of her shoulders, Abby decided to do the whole makeover thing. She dug through her drawers to find her best lacy underwear, again looking brand new because she was always saving it for ‘special’ occasions, and a pair of fine denier thigh high stockings that were still in their packet.

She dressed carefully, paranoid about putting a hole in her stockings. She tried the vest without the shirt, thinking maybe she could be edgy since she was going to a sex club, but it looked weird and she felt uncomfortable, so she settled for opening the buttons of her shirt to give her a hint of cleavage - the lacy pushup bra helping in the cleavage department. She pulled her long hair back into a slick pony-tail, a change from the messy top-knot she usually wore and swapped out her oversize glasses for ones with a slimmer frame. Abby even did her makeup and as she pawed through her meagre supply she realised that she should probably buy some new stuff because what she had was so old it had to be out of date. She did find the red lipstick she had bought on a whim, but had never worn - that seemed to be the story of her life - and smoothed it on, giving herself a crimson pout that Angelina Jolie would be proud of. Slipping into black pumps, she wobbled a bit as she got her balance on the four inch heels, and then she stood in front of the mirror and looked herself over.

The skirt and vest were tighter than she remembered and they skimmed her curves a little more closely than she was comfortable with, but that was what today was all about, getting out of her comfort zone. Abby had to admit that her legs looked kind of hot in their sheer stockings and heels and she did like the way that the tightness of the vest nipped her waist in giving her an hourglass figure. She was so used to seeing herself in shapeless dresses that she had forgotten that she actually had a shapely body and a waist. She turned to and fro to check out her arse and smiled, she had a booty, but so did Jennifer Lopez and everyone thought that she was sexy, so Abby felt that she could think hers was sexy too.

There was an odd freedom to dressing differently and it filtered along Abby’s veins as she finished getting ready. She spent so much of her time trying to be anonymous that she forgot the power of being present and just changing the way she was dressed changed something in the way she perceived herself. No longer was she the timid mouse who hid from the world, the woman looking back at her from the mirror was a successful, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. A woman with money and power and a cult following of fans who ravenously read the words that she wrote.

It was heady stuff and something Abby had never stopped to consider before. She had been too afraid of people finding out the truth about who she was to ever actually revel in her success. Sure, when she was behind her keyboard interacting with fans on Facebook or through email, she behaved confident and self-assured, but it was a persona she put on like a fancy dress costume. When she was behind her keyboard she was A.A. Abernathy, successful, bestselling author adored by her fans. It didn’t matter that most of her fans thought she was a man, it was why she’d used an androgynous pen name, all that mattered was that they liked her and what she wrote. But in her everyday life, when she was slogging away at her manuscript, she was just plain old Abby Sutherland, orphan, recluse and painfully shy introvert. The clothing she wore was her skin, it defined her as someone nondescript and immaterial.

Abby stood tall and shook off the melancholy of her thoughts. Today she was not that person, today she was someone else, someone smart and witty and confident. She was going to a sex club to be interviewed by the owner so that she could start a torrid affair with a Dom that she had only met a couple of times online. Little Abby Sutherland wouldn’t do something like that, so for today, she would be someone else - anyone else. In fact she could be whoever she wanted to be. Abby smiled. Today she would be Abigail, a name she hadn’t used since her parents had died and she’d gone to live with her aunt. It felt like a small rebellion, it felt like the breaking of a single link in the chain that had been keeping her confined for all these years. It felt like freedom.

Mason stepped out of his front door and stopped, his mouth dropping open in shock as he saw Abby leaving her own apartment. Well, he thought it was Abby anyway. She looked up and saw him and smiled and his cock hardened almost instantly as he took in her appearance. He had been drawn to her from the start, even in her dowdy, shapeless dresses, but seeing her like this, seeing the sexy way she filled out her business suit and the length of bare leg on display made his mouth go dry.

“Oh, hey Mason,” she said.

He was mesmerised by those red lips and he couldn’t help but imagine them wrapped around his cock as she looked up at him with those big brown eyes of hers. He cleared his throat, trying to fight through the fog of lust that clouded his brain.

“Abby,” he said, his voice gruff. “Going somewhere special?” She looked down at herself and he noticed her cheeks blush and felt bad that he might have embarrassed her. “Because you look great and if I didn’t have somewhere to be, I would insist that you go out with me.” Now he was babbling and he clamped down on his tongue to stop any more words from leaping out of his mouth and making this situation more awkward than it already was.

She looked up at him and smiled, causing his breath to stick in his chest. “I have an appointment, actually,” she said, her voice low and sexy, “But thanks for the confidence boost.” She stepped close to him and without any part of her body touching his, she brushed a soft kiss on his cheek.

He stood, stunned, and watched the sway of her hips as she walked away. He swallowed hard and took a moment to get his bearings. Where was he again? What had he been doing? He heard the elevator ding and it galvanised him into action.

“Hold the lift!” he called as he took the stairs two at a time.

Abby stood in the car of the elevator and looked up at him through lowered lids. The little minx! She knew exactly what she was doing to him and she was enjoying it. This was a different side of her to what he’d seen before and if he’d found her shyness attractive, seeing this sex kitten routine made him want her even more.

The elevator doors closed and they rode to the lobby in silence. He stepped out with her, despite needing to go down another level to the parking garage and reached out to take her elbow before she could walk away from him.

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” he asked, “I’m heading over the river—” She smiled at him again and he stopped mid-sentence. He wanted to prolong their contact, he wanted her in his car. He wanted to see if her skirt would ride up as she sat in his passenger seat and he wanted to see the satiny skin of her thighs and maybe even run his hand over them in between changing gears.

“Thanks, Mason, but I’m heading in the other direction—”

He stepped close to her, finally taking hold of his body and his reactions to her. “I don’t mind taking you wherever you need to go,” he said, not sure whether he was still talking about giving her a ride.

She looked up at him uncertainly and bit the corner of her lip, causing him to bite back a groan on longing. “Okay,” she breathed and he caught himself as he swayed towards her.

They turned back to the elevator and he took them down to the parking garage before leading her over to where his car was parked. Mason beeped the sports car unlocked and opened the door for Abby, watching as she lowered herself into the leather seat and glimpsing a hint of lace at the top of her stockings.

Fuck. This was a bad idea. He should be running far, far away from her, not manipulating things so that he could spend more time with her.

He closed her door and took a breath, chastising himself. Why didn’t he just let her go? Why did he insist on driving her to wherever she was headed. Now he would be late, not that it really mattered because he didn’t need to be at his office at any specific time, it was just that he had planned to be there for the morning meeting, not that they were expecting him, and now he would miss it all because he couldn’t keep his libido in check.

Fuck.

He strode around the car and got in behind the wheel. He started the engine and revved it a little and noticed a shiver go through Abby beside him. Okay this was bad. Was she turned on by his car? He couldn’t think about it because it just might erode the last shred of control he was barely holding on to. He ground his teeth together and put the car in gear, the tires squealing as he exited the parking garage.

“Where to?” he asked, sounding gruffer than he’d meant.

“Barkly Square, in Brunswick” she replied her voice breathy.

It was only about twenty minutes away, but it was in the opposite direction to where he was heading. He turned on to Nicholson St and dared a quick glance over at her. Shit, she looked good in his car. The temptation to run his hand along the newly revealed skin of her thigh was almost overwhelming and he gripped the steering wheel harder and forced his eyes back to the road. He just didn’t understand what it was about this woman that had him so fucking turned on. He was behaving like a bloody teenager who’d just discovered boobs.

Fucking dammit! Why did he have to think of boobs with hers just sitting there like that, perfect little mounds of soft flesh that he’d like to bury his face in? She must be wearing a different bra because although he’d admired her nice rack in the past he didn’t remember it being quite so tempting as it was now. The way her shirt was unbuttoned to reveal the deep crease of her cleavage and the way her vest hugged her breasts like a lover’s hands made his cock harden like steel and then he realised he was staring at them. He wrenched his eyes away and back to the road, grinding his teeth to dust in an attempt to concentrate on getting them to their destination safely.

They hadn’t spoken a word since she had told him where she needed to go, but for the life of him he couldn’t pull any words from his scattered brain to form them on his tongue. She had bewitched him with her red lips, creamy décolletage and silky legs and he had no idea how he was going to function for the rest of the day. He needed a cold shower and some quality time with his left hand in order to clear his dopamine soaked brain so he could actually go to work and behave like a normal human being instead of this neanderthal that he had become.