Simon was frowning down at her scarlet sheets. "I should get going. I've got to go in early tomorrow."

"Okay." Leona shrugged, though she was surprised that he wanted to leave already. She supposed she didn't know what standard operating procedure was for hooking up with someone in your own house. It might be normal to leave right away, especially if you had to work the next day.

"Do you want anything before you go?" she asked. "Or...do you want to talk for a minute?"

It was still her responsibility to do after-care, wasn't it? It had to be. Even though they'd kept things pretty vanilla, she wanted to make sure he felt all right. She was sure he'd enjoyed himself once he'd warmed up to the idea of the cuffs. She hadn't imagined his lust-glazed expression, or the way his beautiful body had seized up when he'd come. But he'd seemed disconcerted at first.

He pulled on his black work pants and T-shirt, his brow furrowed. Leona studied him, curious—then concerned by the depths of his frown. Maybe he hadn't enjoyed himself after all?

"Simon?"

He ran a hand through his hair and shook himself a little. "I have to go." His tone was brusque. His cop voice. As if he couldn't wait to get away from her.

She stood, turning toward the wall, and pulled her dress back over her head. One of her long silver earrings tangled in her hair. She took a second to untangle it, wishing she knew what to say. There was a good reason why she'd stuck to private clubs and play parties her whole life. She knew what people expected from her there.

Sensing his eyes on her, she reluctantly glanced up. He was staring at her hand—her earring? His expression was intense, almost pained, and so fixated on her fingertips that it was almost as though he'd forgotten where he was.

Earlier, watching him from under her eyelashes while she'd drawn her fingers down her throat, she thought she'd seen this same expression. She supposed he was always a focused man, but this had been more than that. A bit like...

No. Not a chance—she must have been imagining it. She'd been in the lifestyle too long, that was all. That much was obvious.

She freed the earring from her hair. Their eyes met, and Simon's cheeks shaded even darker. He tore his gaze away from her.

"See you later." He walked out of her bedroom. She didn't respond, didn't follow him, just sat down on the edge of her bed and listened to him scoop up his gun belt off of her coffee table. The door to her apartment slammed shut.

#

Since Leona had the next day off, she decided to do her once-annual day of Christmas shopping. Buying presents was the only part of Christmas she actually liked, and today she was especially glad to be out, distracting herself from the lingering awkwardness of last night.

Soon enough, she found the perfect Christmas present for Paul and Mellon: a swanky granite cheese board with matching swanky knife. On the off chance that Iris actually sent Leona her new address, Leona bought her a hat, scarf, and gloves in matching teal. Wherever Iris was, it had to get chilly sometimes, and Iris wasn't the type to remember to bring something warm.

On her way back home, Leona pulled into the liquor store parking lot, telling herself she might as well finish the rest of her Christmas preparations today. Though she didn't put up any traditional decorations, she did dig a fiber optic palm tree out of her closet every year, the better to drink margaritas and watch beach-themed movies. Iris had always called it Leona's Cabana Christmas. She used to stop by in the middle of the day for a margarita and a brief respite from her family. This year, it would just be Leona, Cuervo, and Jaws 2.

As Leona paid for her tequila, her thoughts turned inexorably back to Simon. It was mid-afternoon; he was probably still at work, even if he had gone in early. She told herself that was fine; she'd see him around eventually.

She hesitated halfway to Lulu, an uncharacteristic sense of regret nagging at her.

A few times, she'd hooked up with guys who were desperate to get with her...until they came. She supposed they were ashamed of whatever they'd done—or, more likely, whatever she'd done to them.

She hadn't expected that from Simon. She didn't know why. No good reason.

Still... The way he'd held still so she could undress him, the way he'd yielded to her kiss, the pure sex in his voice when he'd said: What do you want me to do? She'd assumed he was into it, that he was enjoying himself. But she should know by now that it was wrong and just plain stupid to make assumptions when it came to kink, even kink as mild and commonplace as using a pair of handcuffs. She might have scared him, hurt him, out of her own selfish desire for him.

Leona hiked across the strip of snow bordering the liquor store parking lot and walked up Simon's driveway to his front door. Shifting her bags to one hand, she rang his doorbell. When he didn't answer, she rang it again. Nothing. He had to be at work.

After a few moments of indecision, she returned to Lulu and drove home. She walked around the ice cream shop to her front door—just as Simon stepped down from her stoop.

He was wearing jeans and a parka, with his wool hat pulled down over his forehead, but he might as well have been kneeling on her floor in his undershirt again, with the muscles in his neck and shoulders straining against the handcuffs. She couldn't remember the last time someone had affected her so much—stealing her breath even a day later.

"I was just ringing your doorbell," he said. "I don't have your number."

"There's a good reason for that," she replied, affecting calm. "I live in the Stone Age and don't have a phone."

"What? Really?"

"Well, I have a landline, but obviously nobody uses it, because nobody uses landlines anymore."

"Except you."

"Right." She smiled cautiously. "What brings you here? Want to come up?"

"No," he said, frowning at the sidewalk. "I don't trust myself in your apartment."

Ouch. She had scared him, then. That was the last thing she'd meant to do. She had wanted to help him relax—even, perhaps, to feel safe, after what he'd been through at work that night.

She had once taken a lot of pride in being a good Domme. More importantly, she hated the idea of hurting Simon.

"There's a back porch behind the ice cream shop," she said. "It's somewhat public, if you'd rather talk there."

He gave a curt nod, and she set off down the brick pathway leading behind her building. The ice cream shop's back porch overlooked a small garden, dormant for the winter, and the parking lot where Lulu lived. Since it was the off-season, the porch was empty except for a wooden swing. She perched on the edge, letting herself drift back and forth.

Simon climbed the steps onto the porch. She patted the seat beside her and he joined her, his expression still shuttered.

"I'm really sorry I scared you last night," she said. "I honestly thought it might help you feel better."

He winced. "So you were being nice? That's what every guy wants to hear."

"I don't mean—it wasn't a pity fuck, if that's what you're thinking. I obviously really wanted to sleep with you." She'd wanted it far too much. "As far as topping you was concerned...I thought if you didn't have to do too much, you'd be able to turn your brain off for once."

He leaned back on the swing and stared up at the snow glittering on the porch's trellised roof.

"What's..." He cleared his throat. "When you say topping me—"

"Dominating you," she said softly. "The 'D' in BDSM. Domination and submission."

His eyebrows creased together slightly, his frown intensifying, but he didn't look away from the glittering trellis. She studied him, her heart sinking. She'd thought he might be inexperienced, but apparently he had no kink experience at all. What had she done? Why had she thought any of this was a good idea?

She swept a hand through her hair with a tight sigh. The thing was, she had picked up on something. She'd interpreted his odd little vibe as submissiveness, but she could've been wrong. He'd given her orders the entire time he'd been cuffed. At the Italian restaurant, she'd teased him—just to get a rise out of him—about being a big, macho cop who liked to give orders, and his reaction had been so...scrambled. He'd looked offended, confused, and also...flushed. His eyes dark.

He could be a Dom, or a sub, or someone who just genuinely didn't know. She wasn't sure how someone could get to their late twenties without exploring those kind of urges, but she supposed anything was possible.

Simon cleared his throat, and Leona looked at him, still sick with concern.

"So," he said. "You're a Dominatrix?"

If she said yes, would that end this—whatever it was they were doing together?

"I like all aspects of BDSM," she said finally. "I've done plenty of both Domination and submission." She'd subbed plenty of times, especially when she was first starting out. And she did like it, sometimes. She would do it for him.

He slouched forward, his elbows on his knees. "Right," he said bitterly. "You've been with lots of guys."

"I'm not going to apologize for having a sexual past," Leona shot back. "If I was a man, you wouldn't think twice about it."

"If you were a man, I wouldn't want to sleep with you."

"And the fact that you want me makes it okay for you to judge me? I don't think so."

With a harsh exhale, he put his face in his hands. "No. Of course not. I'm just—I've never done anything like this before, and you have. It's weird for me."

"If you don't like it," she said slowly, without quite realizing what she was saying, "we could do something else. If you still wanted to." Was she truly offering him vanilla sex? What did that even involve? Missionary all the time?

Glancing at him again, she intended to take it back. But as soon as she met his eyes, she realized she didn't want to. She'd rather have boring vanilla sex with Simon than go back to the scene. The realization made her feel weird, nervous, as if her skin were too tight.

"I liked it," he said suddenly. "That's the thing."

Her body hummed. "You liked it? Was there something specific...?"

"All of it." He swallowed. "I loved watching you. You are unbelievably sexy. And...I liked the cuffs."

"You did?" Her heart raced. Had she been right all along? "But—liking the cuffs...that's a bad thing to you?"

He nodded, his expression grim.

"There's nothing shameful about submitting, Simon," she said. "Though, for the record, you were not very submissive with me last night. You were fighting me the entire time. And giving me orders."

He cast her a begrudging smile. Her heart giving a painful squeeze, Leona smiled back.

"If you want, you can tie me up next time." He ought to explore both sides, see which felt right.

"Leona..." He wrapped one of his large, callused hands around a slat in the back of the swing. His mouth opened and closed, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He shook his head. "I can't tie you up."

"Why not?" Was this some kind of hang up—good guys don't tie girls up?

Or was it something else? He was gripping the slat in the swing so hard his knuckles were white, his expression almost as intense as it had been last night, with his brow furrowed and his lips slightly parted.

Slowly, she brought her hand to the side of her neck, pretending to adjust one of her teardrop earrings the same way she'd adjusted her earring the night before. His gaze snapped to her hand. Nervous excitement fluttered low in her belly. She had to be imagining this, all of it—but there was the slightest possibility that she wasn't, and that had her completely captivated.

Unable to resist, she touched a fingertip to the side of her neck, just under her ear, and drew it slowly downward, as casually as she could. But there was nothing casual about Simon's expression. Fascinated, she slid her fingertip sideways across her throat. His gaze tracked the movement. She added her thumb, so that her hand loosely encircled her neck. Even through his jeans, she could see Simon getting hard. Her pulse quickened.

Surely not. Surely, even if he was kinky, even if he was Dominant, he couldn't be into something like this.

He jerked to his feet so abruptly that the entire swing shuddered on its chains.

"Wait," she said. "Please, let's talk about it—"

But he'd already jogged down the steps, down the pathway, and out of sight. Once again, she let him go.

******

Oh, that Simon! What do you think is going on with him?

Thank you so much for reading <3

London