“Julie... let me take you out sometime.”
These were the words she’d fantasized coming out of his mouth as cool spring had turned into the fire of summer, and then all throughout fall.
“My boss doesn’t like me to date customers.”
“Fuck that. They don’t own you. Come out with me. When do you get a night off?”
Julie’s heart hammered in her chest.
“Jules! Where’s my beer?”
“It’s destroying your liver, Hank, hold on! I’m making a love connection over here!” She turned back to Gabe. “I’m off tomorrow. W-what time? Where will we go?”
“Seven-thirty, and leave that up to me.”
“Julieeee!” Hank sing-songed from the other end of the bar.
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Go, take care of him, but when you come back, I want you to write down your address and phone number for me so I can find you tomorrow.”
Another thrill of electricity went through her, this time down her spine. She’d imagined going out on a date with Gabe Griffin since he’d first stepped inside the bar. She didn’t reply. Instead, she went to the other end of the bar to get Hank another beer. But when she returned, she dutifully wrote down the information he’d requested.
He winked at her. “Your life is about to get very interesting.” With that cryptic line, he got up off the stool and sauntered out of the bar.
Danika came out from the back. “Did he just ask you out?”
Julie didn’t have to answer. The crimson of her cheeks was enough.
“You know how I feel about my employees dating customers. It’ll be nothing but drama.”
“Then fire me.”
Danika’s eyes narrowed. “You know I wouldn’t do that. Just don’t let it get in the way of your work. And be careful. We get some shady characters in here.”
Yes. She’d heard the speech about Dani’s sometimes unsavory clientele about a thousand times, and she’d seen enough of them first hand to know it wasn’t just a cautionary tale. But Gabe didn’t ping her radar like that.
“I know... but... he’s been coming here forever. I wouldn’t accept an offer like that from any random stranger off the street.”
Danika shook her head and smiled. “If he looked like Gabe Griffin, you might.”
Julie didn’t bother denying it. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if Gabe had asked her out sooner. She’d like to think she’d have the good sense to say no and not throw caution to the wind for a pretty face and even prettier body. But she wasn’t sure.
The bigger mystery, however, was why now? Why tonight? He’d chatted and flirted with her for eight months. It had gotten to the point where she was sure he must be married—maybe to someone he no longer loved—and was looking for a cheap ego boost in the form of the worshipful looks she gave him each time he glanced her way.
She’d convinced herself it was never going past casual flirtation. She’d convinced herself that was better. The fantasy could never be broken and spoiled that way. She could always keep and protect it if nothing real ever happened between them.
And yet tonight, for whatever reason, he’d wasted no time securing her ready acceptance to his proposal of a night out. She hoped Danika was wrong about the drama.
It was an unseasonably warm night. Gabe had been sitting in a red Honda Civic in front of Julie’s apartment with the windows rolled down for the past half hour. She wasn’t late; he was early. She still had five minutes before she’d be late, but he was about ready to pull away from the curb and disappear from her life forever.
This was a stupid fucking idea. A nice girl like her didn’t need to be getting mixed up with him. It was possible that his radar was wrong, but barring any eleventh hour blushing confessions, this girl was about as vanilla as God could have ever hoped to make one. She was sweet and a bit demure, and something in her screamed to something inside him. But the things he was into would scare her. She’d never go for it. That much he was sure of.
It wasn’t as if he planned to break out the whips and chains on date one. He had no intentions of sleeping with her tonight. No, tonight was an interview, though he already knew she wasn’t the right fit for the position he wanted her in. Clearly he had the thinnest ribbon of masochism blended with his sadism or he wouldn’t be bothering with this. He was already bargaining with himself.
Along with a few friends, he ran a large secret, very illicit house that trained young kinky women into slaves for wealthy men who were similarly wired. A lot of money exchanged hands for this unorthodox service. As one of the partners, Gabe spent a lot of time naked with equally naked beautiful submissive women who ached to please him.
Surely that was enough to scratch his itches. Julie didn’t have to actually belong to him. Couldn’t he have some nice vanilla thing with her and get his needs met at the house? Of course, he couldn’t imagine this girl would actually go along with any of that. It would be cheating to her. No doubt she expected a nice, decent man who only had eyes for her and who liked to cuddle. Well, at least she could get one of those things. Gabe liked to cuddle. Never let it be said he was all growl and no purr.
But if things went forward with her, he’d have to keep his work a secret. He hated lying. Why did he have to want this woman so much? Typically vanillas did nothing for him. He might notice one was attractive. He might appreciate that beauty from a distance, but there was no urge to get closer... to know her. Because it couldn’t go anywhere. And what excited him most wasn’t how a woman looked, it was how she submitted under his hand and begged for the opportunity to obey his commands.
Yet, for the past eight months, he’d been torturing himself going to Dani’s to flirt with the bartender who looked far too sweet and pure to ever work in such a dive. He wanted to rescue her and whisk her away to the house. He wanted her to be like him so it would be some dream come true rather than something that would elicit horror, as he was sure it would in reality.
Whenever he’d visited the bar and flirted with her, every bit of kinky innuendo had sailed right over her adorable head. But despite all these realities, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, dreaming about her, experiencing phantom scents of her perfume only to turn and find her not there. Finding her not there would stir an irrational anger in him that kept him going back to see her, to smell her in real life, to pretend this could be something.
So here he was... for an interview Julie didn’t know was an interview for a position he already knew she wasn’t equipped to fill and wouldn’t want to. There was no way this woman would ever willingly kneel at his feet and call him master. Never in a million years.
Julie came out of her apartment then, wearing jeans and a dark red V-neck sweater. Her auburn hair was gently curled and hanging freely down her back, something he never got to see at the bar. Around her throat was a gold choker-type necklace. It looked way too much like a collar.
Gabe gripped the steering wheel and took a long, deep breath. He had to remind himself she wasn’t doing it to taunt him. She had no idea what seeing her like that did to him or what a band of metal like that around a girl’s neck meant in his world.
When she reached the passenger side door, she leaned down, her long loose curls falling into the car in a cascade. “Hey, you okay?”