“Oh, fuck!” I swear before I explode, my legs straining wildly against the restraints.

Darren grunts his way to his climax, but my body is too busy being buffeted between waves of euphoria to notice. When I’m finally able to pull away the wand, the area between my thighs is throbbing like crazy. Little tremors still shoot through my legs haphazardly.

“You can keep the wand,” Darren says when we’ve both recovered from our orgasms. “Practice with the higher settings.”

My eyes glaze over. Higher settings?

“Then let me know how it goes.”

“I’ve got to report back to you?” I joke.

“Yes,” he replies before undoing the restraints from my ankles.

“You’re serious.”

He looks at me like I’m weird for thinking otherwise.

“And if I don’t fit in any of this ‘practice?’” I challenge.

“Then there are consequences.”

“Consequences? Like what?”

He gives me a devilish grin. “You’re welcome to find out.”

I look at the wand. I get the feeling this “gift” will prove to be a Trojan horse.

Chapter 13

DARREN

Past

“Can you believe fucking Manny Wu?” JD asks me through my speakerphone as I drive back to the city after dropping Bridget off at her apartment. It took all of me not to grab her and throw her in the backseat for a quickie before she left, but there’s a lot she feels she needs to accomplish before Phuket.

“Wants me to help him with his massage parlors, but he’s not fronting any money,” JD continues. “Not a fucking dime.”

“What’s wrong with you getting a percentage?” I ask.

“Like I’d trust the Park Street Boyz to give me the right cut. Manny swears they’re legit, but that’s Manny’s problem: he believes shit too easily. Man, he would not shut the fuck up last night. Luckily, Amy was in the restroom most of the time and too drunk to understand what was going on when she got back. I finally told him flat out I’m not doing anything for him. You know what he said?”

“No,” I reply, my mind half on the homework assignment I had given Bridget, to work up to the middle setting on the wand.

“He asked me, ‘Why the fuck not?’ So I told him the truth. That he’s a loser. He’s struck out too many times in the past, he doesn’t even belong in the Rookie league.”

“Poor Manny.”

“Someone’s got to tell him the truth. Why you gotta feel bad for Manny, anyway? The guy’s pathetic. Oh, speaking of pathetic, my sister shared an updated guest list and Joseph Mok is coming. Guess he and the groom roomed together at USC.”

Mok and I had a run-in years ago when I was hanging out with Tony Lee at a bar in Vietnam. I had started hitting on a woman I didn’t know was with Mok because she had seemed receptive of my attentions. Mok took offense. He kept glaring at me through the night as he drank beer after beer. I had one too many drinks as well, so when Mok and his friend came up to me and Tony, I didn’t even attempt diplomacy. Not sure I would have even if I wasn’t intoxicated.