Page 36 of Enthrall Climax

“I’m flattered. Truly.”

He glanced down at himself self-consciously. “I wasn’t expecting to see you. Not naked, anyway.”

“I get it. You didn’t want to make me uncomfortable by letting me know you’d joined Dionysus. If I can’t indulge then neither can you?”

“I thought that was the party line.”

“What time’s your appointment?”

He twisted his watch like he hadn’t checked it a second ago. “In twenty minutes.”

“I told you this was what you needed,” I reassured him. “To explore your—”

“Don’t call me gay.”

“You’re bi, Shay. It’s perfectly acceptable. And being gay is perfectly normal. So you can shut that shit down right now.”

“Really, ’cause last time I checked I’m an ex-SEAL whose brand is being a hardass?”

“Which is why I hired you.”

He leaned his head back. “Fucking reception staff.”

“It’s me, Shay. Nothing gets past me.”

His gaze held mine. “You’ve had access to every man in your clubs and you’ve never experimented.”

“Was that a question?”

He rubbed his eyes. “How fucking embarrassing…but, yeah.”

I let out a long sigh. “What you said isn’t strictly true.”

He snapped his gaze to mine. “Richard?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

I raised my hand in a gesture of sincerity. “This isn’t some tale of regret. This is me sharing something sacred with you.”

“You were with a man?”

I turned to face him. “I was staying with him in France and he dragged me along to one of his parties.”

“Danton?” He looked surprised. “The guy who died of a brain tumor?”

He knew Danton as an old lover of Scarlet Winters, Chrysalis’s senior dominatrix back on the West Coast, but that was all. In fact, this was a private matter only Scarlet and Richard knew about.

“You were together?” he asked.

“He was the best…a Dom who had the talent for keeping his subs on the edge for hours. Sometimes days.”

“You were a sub?”

“Not strictly, more of an equal that savored the play. I refused to surrender. He refused to relent. I was never going to kneel.”

Shay looked stunned.