And his clothes were impeccable—not obnoxiously so, but in an understated way. That didn’t mean his sky blue dress shirt didn’t catch on his defined biceps or beautifully delineate his broad shoulders, they did—deliciously so.

Since Tommy, unless it was one of the rare occasions where I was in a certain mood and went out to find a man to assuage that mood, it was unusual for me to have a reaction to a male. Not any of them. It was too dangerous.

No-strings-attached and usually no-names-exchanged fucking was one thing.

But I’d learned my lesson.

Three glances and Nick Sebring drew me. In fact, even sitting still I was finding it physically exhausting fighting the urge to look his way. And I was finding it utterly impossible to get him out of my mind.

Thankfully, a noise pierced this thought and my unfocused gaze focused on the scene being played out in the window in front of me.

The whipping post had been set up.

Such was the attraction of Nick Sebring—the whipping post and I hadn’t noticed.

If done well, that was my favorite scene.

I reached to my drink and took a sip, forcing myself to take in the players.

The man had the whip. Cat o’ nine tails, a beautiful set in braided chocolate and burgundy leather with expanded curved tips, not knots, beads or frayed.

He was in jeans, nothing else, and had a large, muscular body that was most appealing.

A woman was tied to the post. She was also in jeans and nothing else. I saw the red marks on her back and knew she’d taken more than one lash during my inattention.

And when I watched what the man did next, I automatically crossed my legs, feeling my lips part and Nick Sebring flew from my mind.

He ran his lips along the marks on her back.

One. Another. The next. And the next. Slowly. Tenderly.

A devotion.

Once done, he ran the handle of the whip along her hip.

Again slowly, he stepped back, raised his arm and let loose.

The slap of leather against flesh filled the chamber as her head flew back, her quiet moan sweet and short, her back arched.

He moved in and tenderly ran the tails of the whip along her skin. As he did, she relaxed for him. He then worked her neck with his mouth and pressed his bulging crotch into her behind before he again stepped back and let loose with the whip.

And again.

Then he moved back to her.

I’d seen many such scenarios but not one as slow, as drawn out, as tender, loving, sensual as the one before me. A scene where he mixed pleasure and adulation with her pain like they had an entire week for him to bring her to climax and not the length of their scene at a sex club.