“Don’t tell Ellie though, I get to!” Kate demanded, pointing a demanding finger at him as her bouncing momentarily stopped. “I’m going to call her first thing tomorrow morning. And don’t let her pick up her phone from anyone else. Hide it from her if you have to.”

Michael held up his hands in surrender. “I promise, I won’t tell her and I will keep her far too busy to even think about her phone.” He grinned as he made the promise.

Twenty minutes later - which was far longer than it should have taken since Kate had insisted on putting on real clothes and accompanying them out to the shed, which had taken about twice the time since Andrew had been in the bedroom with her while she dressed since he needed a shirt and the couple apparently couldn’t go more than thirty seconds without cooing at each other - Michael was back on the road and headed to his apartment with a gorgeously finished, custom-made piece of equipment in his trunk. Well, half in his trunk. He’d had to put down the back seats to make some of the longer pieces fit entirely.

Fortunately, he’d be able to get it up to his apartment by himself since it was in pieces and Andrew had shown him how to put it together. Ellie was going to be in for a surprise tonight.

21

Michael had invited Ellie over for dinner before they headed to Stronghold, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the secretive smile on his lips when he opened the door and the fact that all of his furniture had been moved out of the way for what looked like a spanking bench sitting in the middle of his living room. The couch and coffee table (which had all sorts of toys laying out on it) had been pushed back against the walls, almost framing the bench, so there was no way she could miss it.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing, even though the answer to her question was pretty self-evident. She was just thrown by its sudden appearance, anticipation and apprehension spiking inside of her since Michael hadn’t even hinted that tonight was going to be anything other than going to the club and hanging out with their friends. In other words, nothing different than what they’d been doing for the past few weeks, acting like a vanilla couple.

That bench said something different though, and her body was already fizzing with hopeful excitement.

Strong hands slid over her shoulders, pulling open the front of her coat and tugging it off to reveal the deep red PVC dress she was wearing underneath. Ellie didn’t have to look down to know her nipples were already poking through the fabric, indicating her arousal. All it took was just a hint of possible kinky things to come and she was all revved up.