He asked, “You coming, Alex?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Once I have a chat with my raging boner about the fact that we can’t have her.

I looked at Elena accusingly. “You still owe me a question.”

She cocked an eyebrow playfully. “I’ll have Ophelia add it to our contract.”

6

Elena

I stopped at the bathroom to reapply my lipstick. I needed a dose of Wicked Queen right about now.

The electric chemistry I’d just discovered with Alex Chase made me nervous. He was just so irresistibly masculine, between the chiseled muscles and his scruffy beard. Being that close to him shouldn’t have done anything to me if I didn’t want it to, and yet there I was, practically melting with lust.

I was so fascinated by human sexuality that I’d started breaking down the trends I noticed into core sexual archetypes I saw repeated over and over again in people. Before working in the dungeon, I’d thought that sexual power preferences were pretty binary—subs or doms. Even when the term switch was used, it was understood that you could be both a sub and a dom, but usually only one at a time. The reality of human sexuality was far from binary.

I understood the needs of people more deeply once I’d pinned their archetype, which could be anything from the nurturing Mother to the fearsome Disciplinarian to the tender Lover. My core sexual archetype was the Amazon, which meant that despite primarily being a submissive, I wanted my partners to prove themselves worthy of me.

Though I had one, I didn’t need a degree in psychology to figure out that the basis for that need was likely rooted in every significant figure in my formative years letting me down, but now was hardly the time to go down that mental rabbit hole. The point was, in constantly rising to meet my challenge, Alex Chase was both pissing me off and turning me on.

I couldn’t put my finger on his core archetype, which was both intriguing and perplexing. On first impression, I thought his was going to be straightforward to pin, but there were depths to him I hadn’t expected. He was a puzzle I needed to solve and it felt like I didn’t have all the pieces yet.

Could I stay in control with him? Would I kill him? Or worse, hook up with him?

I took a deep breath.

He was just another client.

I could do this. I would keep him at arm’s length going forward.

When I sat back down in the main conference room, Ophelia explained the changes they’d agreed to. I was only half listening until I caught the phrase, “PDA as necessary.” I turned slowly to look at Ophelia.

She spread her hands and said, “We’ve all agreed a relationship won’t be convincing or compelling without a little harmless PDA.”

“Define PDA,” I snapped. I refused to meet Alex Chase’s eyes even though I could feel him watching me.