Page 33 of Toy Shop

I’m in Alistair’s living room, his broad figure looming behind me, instructing me, commanding me.

Harder, faster. Come for me.

Be a good student, make me proud.

I try. I do exactly as he said, and yet… I can’t. Apprehension has nothing to do with it, though. I’m not interested in the vibrator. I have an insatiable hunger for him.

Groaning, I toss the rabbit to the floor and throw myself out of bed, going through the motions of the beginning of a new day. By the time eight a.m. comes around, my teeth are brushed, hair washed, and straightened. I’m dressed in a pale-pink T-shirt and yoga leggings, still fucking horny, but it’s not like I can do anything about it.

After filling my thermos with cinnamon mocha coffee, which I make at home, I lock my apartment, jogging two steps at a time. Even though I’m not particularly a morning person, Rhodes is a senior at Seattle U and has a class today.

I’ll do anything for this guy, happily. And besides, it could’ve been worse. People drop by Toy Shop at every hour of the day, but the mornings, at least until eleven, can be slow. Maybe I could text Alistair. Innocuous, slightly sexy messages to start both our days right.

I push the door out of the building, the fall’s wind flaps across my hair, and…

“Hey, Nola.”

My knees buckle, an inelegant gasp runs loose out my lips.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Alistair stands by the shop’s locked front door. He’s in his CEO attire, an oxford-blue tailor-made suit clinging to his fine, taut muscles, an ice-blue dress shirt stretched across his chest, his hair styled impeccably in place.

Still wired up from the orgasm I couldn’t reach by myself, my heart is palpitating at the sight. I’ve died and gone to heaven.

“That’s okay.” The words are lilt. Better than the silence my hormones suck me into while they insist I latch on, grind, and be full of Alistair.

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?” The hint of his smirk gives me flashbacks of two days ago. I swear this man came here with the intent of killing me. “Shopping.”

“Um. Okay. Okay, then.” My feet carry me to the front of the shop.

Alistair moves to allow me to unlock the door. His fresh shower scent is as intoxicating as that of his sweat. The attention he lavishes on me has the power to abolish mountains into invisible particles.

Somehow though, I persevere. The lock clicks, and I pull the door, getting inside with him behind me.

“I’ll just turn on all these lights, then I can help you.” I treat him like I would any other customer. I mean, he did say he came here to shop. “You can browse, meanwhile.”

I walk around, flipping on the switches. The room is bathed in the clinical white light, with the new products that had been shipped in yesterday put away on the shelves, thanks to my sweet Rhodes. I race toward the register, double tapping the space bar and lighting up the screen.

“Great, we can start.”

His cunning gaze pins me in place, only to be detached by the chime of my phone. I don’t answer it.

“What can I help you with?”

Alistair tilts his head sideways. “You might wanna get that.”

“It can wait, nothing to worry about.” I’m babbling. I know I’m babbling.

But I’ve come to accept that sometimes I can’t stop. The tenderness on the flesh of my butt and the moisture pooling between my legs are a constant reminder of what he’s done to me. What he still does.

“You’re the customer. My personal conversations aren’t important now.”

“They are.” He nods. “Trust me. Open it.”

My pulse quickens. I’m catching on to who the sender is. I’m slightly trembling when I fish the phone out of my jeans pocket, unlock it to see I was right.

Alistair: I know the place is recorded. Act like you would with any other client, do get something for me from the storage room. Once there grab vibrating Ben-Wa balls, and meet me in the testing room. Yell for me to come once you “find it.”

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