“He managed, but he wasn’t enjoying himself the way he could have.” Lisa gave Olivia one of her own Domme looks, all the more effective because deep down Olivia knew the other woman was right. Dammit. “Whenever you came around he found it easier to relax and submit, and even start to like it, but when you weren’t right there he was struggling with me and not in the good way.”

“He just doesn’t know you yet,” Olivia argued, even though she’d noticed the same thing. It was why she’d made so many stops at his scene. That and her own inability to stay away, which was becoming harder and harder to resist, especially after having to watch him with Lisa. They hadn’t done anything more than a light flogging but...

Olivia had wanted to be the one holding the flogger. To see his skin turning pink and rub her hand over the sensitized surface. To pull a groan from his lips. To make his cock hard.

She didn’t know if Lisa had aroused him. She hadn’t wanted to know.

This whole situation sucked monkey butt, as Sharon would say. The whole, ‘he’s technically my boss’ thing was getting harder to justify.

Luke didn’t act like her boss. He didn’t seem to want to act like her boss in any way. Even when Marquis had come up during their conversation this afternoon, he hadn’t talked about it like a business investor, he’d talked about it like an excited patron or just someone with a personal interest in its success. An excitement and interest Olivia shared.

The man was working his way under her skin and into her head and it was getting harder to justify resisting just giving in and seeing what happened. Luke didn’t seem like the kind of guy to turn into a douche at the club if things didn’t work out between them. Then again, some men could hide that kind of thing pretty well, but from everything she’d seen Luke was a bit of a brat but also a pleaser. Her favorite kind of submissive, of course. He wanted to give, but he also wanted to make his dominant work for his submission.

Lisa’s amused expression didn’t help either. Olivia knew that expression. She’d used it on all of her friends when they were making their own lives needlessly complicated.

But this was different dammit. It actually was complicated.

Wasn’t it?

At least a little?

“You keep telling yourself that, hun,” Lisa said, patting Olivia’s shoulder in a way that made her want to huff. “I’ll see you on Tuesday where you can spend more time pretending you don’t care I’m the one scening with Mr. Evans.”