I take her to a small independent coffee shop and order her a caramel mocha. I get myself a black coffee. I had intended to come clean right away, to tell her I was the man from the club. I wanted to tell her why I left so suddenly. I wanted to explain I had conflicting feelings from the mess my ex wife made and how it complicates things for me. Most of all, I realized I want to move things forward with her the right way. I don’t want it to be cheap and anonymous. I want her to know who I am, and I want to make sure the terms are clear and open from the beginning. No lies. No confusion. Just pleasure.

I’ve already found myself pushing beyond the point of comfort. Revealing the truth now would be a betrayal. It would be ugly, and it might jeopardize our already fragile bond. I’m surprised by how unwilling I am to take that risk yet, even though I know the damage caused by withholding the truth will only get worse the longer I let this go on.

I smirk over my coffee as I watch her talk about her business.

Her eyes are slightly wide while she talks. I recognize the look. Whether it’s cars, computers, sports, or movies, everybody has a passion. Hers is her business, and I fucking love that about her already.

“I had to try, you know?” she asks.

She must not drink coffee regularly, because the caffeine seems to be having a profound effect on her, both opening her up and relaxing her.

“I do,” I say. “I leveraged everything I had to build my businesses starting capital. At the time it seemed like an impossibly reckless decision, but I stood by it because--”

“Because the alternative would have been worse,” she interrupts. Her voice is a little hushed, almost thoughtful like she’s thinking aloud. She gasps a little and covers her mouth, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry. I just interrupted you.” She sits up straighter and gestures like she’s zipping up her lips and throwing away the key.

I smirk. “You had better unzip those.” My words hang, the rasp in my voice betraying more of my internal thoughts than I intended. The flush in her cheeks shows me she didn’t miss any of my meaning, either. “Because you were making an interesting point.”

She clears her throat and looks down, running her finger through the water-ring left by her cup. “I was going to say most people don’t understand. They don’t get how you could risk everything for the business because they imagine how devastating it would be to fail. But they don’t realize it would be worse to let the idea die. Sometimes I think I’d rather lose everything than watch the possibility of what my business could be slip by.” She shakes her head. “Sorry. I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“You’re making perfect sense. I feel the same way myself.” The drive she has turns me on like she can’t imagine. She reminds me of myself. She lives and breathes ambition, and the passion obvious in her voice and gestures is clear, but she’s also holding something back. Whatever she’s hiding is in the silences and the movement of her eyes when she talks about how quickly the company has grown. I can only guess, but if she’s working at Club Crave, she must be having some kind of money trouble.

“My company has a number of branches and divisions. One of our branches is a fashion line,” I say. “We have a retailer that deals in baby clothing. I’d be interested to see some samples of yours. Maybe it would be a good fit for our store.” I’m offering her an easy out. A business partnership with my company would mean resources like she can’t imagine. She would have all the capital she could handle to expand and grow.

Her eyes bulge and she leans forward. My gaze drops to her slightly parted lips and the hint of her pink tongue glistening between her teeth. I want to lean across the table and pull her into a kiss. I push down the desire and watch her expression, enjoying how plainly she wears herself in her features. In my line of work, most men and women have learned to betray nothing in their faces. I could be working alongside someone who plans to stab me in the back and have no idea. It’s refreshing seeing someone so open.

Something dark settles over her features and she shakes her head. “I can’t take your offer. I appreciate it, but I can’t.”

I nod my head, expecting as much. “You want to make it on your own or it won’t matter,” I say.

Her eyes flick up to mine, surprised.

“We’re not so different,” I say. “I expected you would refuse my offer. It’s part of what draws me to you. You can’t be bought.”

I watch something pass over her face. Doubt. Guilt. Shame. She’s thinking about Club Crave.

“I don’t think I’m the person you seem to think I am,” she says, standing abruptly.

I stand too, gripping her forearm. “Sit,” I say with more force than I intend. The Dom in me came out in that moment. Something crackles between us. Sexual energy. Recognition. Heat.

We slowly sit back down, eyes locked. I see recognition finally settle into her eyes. “You?” she asks. Her cheeks blossom with red. “You’re the one from the club. Oh my God,” she covers her face with her small hands.

I gently pull them away, forcing her to look at me. “I should have said something sooner,” I say.

She shakes her head. “Why did you leave?”

No bullshit. She cuts straight to what’s on her mind. I admire that. “I wanted this,” I say, gesturing to the table and to us. “I wanted it to be real. And if I was going to have you, I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted it my way.”

Her breath catches and her chest heaves in that way I’ve already come to love and crave. “Your way?” she asks quietly.

“Complete control,” I say. “I have particular tastes and expectations. If we were to become involved it would be… less than ordinary.”

She laughs a little nervously, shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”

I’m not the type to hesitate, but I do now. The danger of pushing too far and losing her is at the front of my mind. Losing her? The thought makes me want to laugh. She’s not mine. Not yet, at least. “I want to continue where we left off at Club Crave. This weekend. Will you be there?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Good,” I say, standing. A thought occurs to me and I step closer to her, leaning down until her hair tickles my nose. “You will wear white cotton panties. Do you understand?”

She nods her head, almost imperceptibly, eyes still staring forward and slightly wide.

I leave her sitting in stunned silence. It feels odd, blurring the line between a traditional relationship and a dominant submissive relationship. But I have to keep the line clear. I came today to get a sense of who she is. It’s important to me before I can enjoy exploring her sexuality. I have to know she’s a stable minded person. With that out of the way though, I need to close off that side of myself to her. Things can get complicated in all the wrong ways if I let this get too personal. Like I did with Lana.

I step into my car, thinking about the way she agreed to wear the panties I requested without question. She is perfect. No question, no hesitation. She just agreed. I fucking love the way she submits to me. For the first time in years, I feel alive again, really alive.

I blink the exhaustion from my eyes, only now realizing I’ve been buried in my laptop for several hours. It seems like forever ago that I met with Emmaline for coffee, even though it was only last night. Today’s Tuesday, and I have to wait until the weekend to see her again. Fuck. I don’t know if I’ll last that long. Every time I close my eyes, I see the way goosebumps rippled across her perfectly round ass. I see the way the sharp red circle appeared after I paddled her. She loved it. It was her first time submitting to a man, I could tell, and she fucking loved every second of it. She was probably wet from the moment I confronted her.

I shift, adjusting my hardening cock. I might not be able to wait until the weekend to see her again.

There’s a soft knock at my door before Lacey sticks her head in my office. “Logan--”

“Mr. Steel,” I correct.

She clears her throat. “Of course. Sorry. Mr. Steel. Your sister is-”

My tall, athletic sister shoulders her way past Lacey. Her brunette hair is pulled back and slightly dented from the visor she was likely wearing all day. Olivia played tennis through college on a scholarship and now she owns her own tennis academy. As usual, she’s wearing a tennis dress and smells like sunscreen. She flashes me a white-toothed smile, ignoring the look of offense on Lacey’s face. Olivia raises a large brown bag and sets it on my desk.

“I brought you Chinese. My sister senses were tingling and I figured you could use a little nourishment.”

I grin. “So you brought Chinese?”

“I said my sister senses were tingling. I didn’t say I was a fucking nutritionist.”

I chuckle, already feeling some of the stress this week has put on me lifting. “Thanks.” I reach inside the bag and find the crab rangoons I know she’ll have bought. Well, it’s more like imitation-crab rangoons, but there’s a unique satisfaction in eating filthy, processed food that no amount of money can ever completely overcome.

Olivia tilts her head slightly, narrowing her eyes. “You met someone.”

I nearly choke on the bite of rangoon in my mouth. “What?” I ask.

She nods knowingly as she digs into some lo mein. “You’re glowing like a fucking pregnant woman.”

“Well, you’re only half-right. I met someone, yes. But I’m not pregnant. I’m sorry, you still don’t get to be an aunt.” The joke rings hollow after it comes out just reminds me of the son I lost because of Lana’s bullshit. Thankfully, Olivia doesn’t know that part of the story. No one else does. No one else ever will.

She snorts, all the hardness in her face vanishing as she laughs like it always does.

“What about you?” I ask. “It’s been nearly a year since you even talked about going on a date. I know it’s not easy, but you can’t let what happened with Derek hang over you forever.” He helped her start the academy, but he turned out to be a pervert and cheated on her with a student of his who was barely eighteen.

She takes a particularly aggressive bite of her lo mein, barely chewing before she swallows the whole mouthful. “Yeah, well you’re one to talk.”

“Fair enough. But the point still stands.”

“I’m fine. I have the academy. I have my students. And I have tennis. What else do I need?”

I give her a level look, but say nothing. Olivia and I have had an unspoken agreement ever since we were kids. We’ll call each other on our bullshit, and we’ll pry, but we never press. It makes for a kind of comfort around her I have never quite found with anyone else in my family. I can talk about anything with her.

“Can I at least get her name?” asks Olivia after a little time has passed and I’ve moved onto the teriyaki beef on sticks.

“Emmaline,” I say, unable to stop the corner of my mouth from curling up in a grin as I say it.

“She must be something. You say her name differently. Delicately, and you’re not exactly the delicate type.”

I scowl at her. “New topic.”

She laughs. “Fine. What’s going on with the company? I saw something in the papers about an insider leaking sensitive information about Mr. Steel. What’s going on?”

“What paper?” I ask, heart suddenly pounding. “What paper did you see that in?”

Olivia leans back a little at my intensity. “The Tribune, I think. I’m not sure.”

“Fuck. It could be Lana. No, it must be her. She’s either trying to ramp the pressure up on me or she’s just going to go through with it. Maybe she thinks she’ll get more money if she leaks her fabricated story to one of my competitors.”

“I mean, other than embarrassment, what’s the big deal? So you’re a kinky fucker who likes to play with leather masks and dildos, what does that have to do with your ability to run a company?”

I laugh, despite my annoyance. “You think I play with dildos?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I never put much thought into it.” She holds up a hand to stop me from saying more. “And I don’t plan to. No dildos. Got it.”

“To answer your question,” I say, “the big deal is even though the company isn’t public, I rely on investors to continue to grow the business. I’m in the middle of a ten year plan for growth, and if that growth stops, it could be catastrophic.”

“So if your investors think you play with dildos they might be less willing to give you the fifty quadrillion you need to build another skyscraper, and then you end up penniless and sleeping on my couch?”

I sigh. “Sure. If that makes sense to you.”

Olivia and I finish our meal without touching on any other topics more serious than the new way she found to add extra kick on her serve or the two students she caught hooking up in the equipment shed. After she leaves and Lacey leaves for the night, my mind immediately returns to Emmaline. My kitten. I love the quiet dignity to her that barely masks her playfulness. I can’t stop thinking about how, like a kitten, I know one wrong word or move could scare her off for good, but if I treat her right, she will never leave my side.

It doesn’t seem to matter how much is going on with the business right now. I’ll figure that out, I always have. Maybe Lana wants to leak shit about me to the public. It will be a fucking headache and a lot of time in court, but I’ll handle that. Right now, all I really care about is Emmaline, and making it to the next time I get to see her again.

The excitement and anticipation that comes from thinking about her is mingled with an old dread that comes from deep in my chest. There’s a sense of foreboding, of a road better left untraveled. And there’s the memory of the silent vow I made to never let myself get close to another woman again. I trusted Lana with too much, and she showed me what a fool I was for that. What frightens me is after only three encounters with Emmaline, I can already feel myself becoming consumed by her. I feel the danger of wanting more than just her submission in the bedroom. Hearing her laughter in the morning from the kitchen or taking her somewhere on my arm so everyone can see she’s mine… those thoughts feel far, far too good.

Letting the relationship develop outside the bedroom would be dangerous. I’d be giving another woman the keys to my life and trusting her not to fuck me over.

The sex will have to be enough, whether I like it or not. Too much rides on me keeping the company together. Thousands of people have jobs because of my business. Tens of thousands benefit from the work we do throughout every branch of the company. I huff a humorless laugh. Look at me pretending my real concern is the wellbeing of everyone else. The heart of it is that I don’t want to fail. I can’t stand the fucking thought of failure. I’ve built my identity around success for so long, anything else is unacceptable.

But wouldn’t letting Emmaline slip away be a failure too?