WanttoGoPrivate

Want to Go Private?

M.A. Ellis

Obsessed with exploring the kinkiness she buried years ago,
Isabel starts to imagine that the sexy, biceps-to-drool-over bartender at her
favorite pub is dropping hints about bondage. But fantasy suddenly becomes
reality when she finds herself draped over the bar, wrists tied to the beer
tap, begging for release.

Chris has an uncanny knack for sensing when one of his
customers might be down with a little discipline and a lot of submission, and
he suspects Isabel is primed for both. When he overhears her plan to hit a new
round of dating sites, he’s forced to make his move and uses his talents as a
BDSM blogger and chat-room Dom to his full advantage.

From bar to blog to bedroom, Chris employs tricks and toys
to help Isabel recognize the undeniable truth. He’s the only Dom she’ll ever
need.

Chapter One

What were the chances? Really? With the sheer number of
single males populating the various dating sites the girls had urged her to
join, what where the chances Isabel would throw in her parameters and
he
would show up on her top-ten, most-compatible list?

She looked at his picture, a stance so relaxed it almost
bordered on cockiness, not sure whether to click on his profile or not. Was
there a chance he wouldn’t remember her? She highly doubted that. James, god
rest his soul, had paid triple to protect their anonymity. She remembered how
the man had tried to maintain a cool demeanor when her late husband had placed
the envelope of crisp hundred-dollar bills in his hand, but she had seen the
miniscule lift of his brow, the undeniable sign of surprise. No. Despite the
passage of time, he couldn’t have forgotten the weekend he had spent on the
Cape, tutoring her and fulfilling one of James’ whims.

Isabel sighed. The past three years seemed like a lifetime.
At the less-than-advanced age of thirty, she had been truly fortunate. Her
whirlwind romance, the dream wedding, the jet-setting lifestyle, the adoration
on a daily basis. It had all been wonderful until one tiny skin imperfection
had turned into something much, much worse. The weeklong getaways to exotic
locales were replaced with hours in the oncology ward coping with treatment
after treatment. Until it became quite clear the man who ruled more than a few
private worlds and whom her universe revolved around, wasn’t going to win what
he jokingly referred to as the “hostile takeover”.

He had always said she had been his rock. Not even as she’d
stood at his graveside and watched the shiny mahogany coffin lowered into the
ground had she crumpled. He had made her promise she wouldn’t grieve more than
half a year and, at the time, she readily agreed for his benefit. They’d never
been traditional in any aspect of their relationship and she thought it would
be reasonably easy to honor that request, as it had been to acquiesce to
others, but it hadn’t. With his death she’d had a sudden need to latch on to
some semblance of normalcy. To revert to the somewhat conservative manner in
which she’d been raised, convinced that was how things should be. What type of
man would actually be able to understand her periodic desires without
considering her a freak? Or worse?

After a few months navigating through a series of free
dating sites, an effort that resulted in less than a handful of winks and nods,
here she was. Considering a premier venue that one of the women on the Arts
Council had suggested, she’d expected to find an unending array of men like her
late husband. Corporate giants. Men who wanted beautiful, accomplished
hostesses on their arms and in their beds. Gentlemen with multimillion-dollar
net worths. Not that she needed that. James had left her excessively well-off.
But she needed companionship. Someone who could carry on an intelligent
conversation. Someone normal.

What she found instead was the impetus of a distant, buried
memory. A temptation of sorts. An extremely dominant male in sheep’s clothing.
Three years ago it had been Brooks Brothers. From his profile pic, today it was
Affliction.

What she hadn’t listed as one of her online “wants” was a
dominant male who wasn’t a total prick. But that one trait had been rolling
around her mind more and more often of late. She liked to chalk it up to months
without sex, but in the dead of night, when her body hummed with sexual
frustration, she knew it was more than the physical act. Watching had been
James’ turn-on, not hers. As a loving wife and grateful partner, she had played
along with his suggestion. But that weekend had shown her what she truly
craved—a short period of freedom from her responsibilities. It had forced her
to give up her control. And the man staring up at her had provided just that.

“Dear god.” She minused down the current screen in an
attempt to effectively block his image from propagating another round of
forgotten fantasies. It really was getting beyond ridiculous. She covered her
face with her hands and shook her head, heat flooding her cheeks despite the
fact she was totally alone and sitting in bed. Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe she should be at the kitchen counter scoping out her online options, not
lying between two layers of eighteen-hundred-count, Egyptian-cotton sheets. The
kind that felt way too good when a girl shimmied out of her tank top and panties
and tossed them to the floor, the top sheet offering just the right amount of
softness and friction as she snaked her hand between her thighs and gently
brushed her clit. “Shit! The kitchen it is,” Isabel groaned. She moved her
laptop, tossed back the sheet, swung her feet to the floor and headed toward
the door. She should just forget about the “kink factor” as James had called
it. She told herself it was the stereotypical masked bad-boy image that
beckoned her, that had sparked the embers of remembrance, but it wasn’t that.
It had been the feelings that she was struggling to keep locked away that had
her thinking he could make all her desires a reality once again. And when he
was through, she could turn her attention back to an average man.

But you don’t want an average man. An average man isn’t
going to satisfy you in the long run, Izzi.

The prudent thing to do would be to block him from her
online profile. If he had been interested, he would have contacted her. And she
wasn’t about to chase him. Her once-low self-esteem had risen to a level that
would never allow that.

But was a simple email considered pursuit? Her mind was
telling her it most definitely was but the little pulses between her thighs
made it hard to ignore her baser instincts. She could ask the girls…if she
wanted them and everyone else they would immediately text to know exactly whom
she lusted after. There would be absolutely no chance at a nonchalant inquiry.
Her friends were way too sharp for that. And one of them, only one of them, knew
not only her secret, but how to read Isabel like a book.

Maybe it was time for a male perspective. Not on the whole
bondage thing but the manly point of view where first contact was concerned.
She picked up her phone and checked the time. Two hours before she was to meet
her two best guy friends at On The Left to watch what would hopefully be a
victorious game four for her hockey team. She could grab a shower now and be
there super-early to snag their favorite seats at the bar. The guys undoubtedly
expected that anyhow. They both possessed the propensity toward fashionable
lateness, which most people found a giant pain in the ass. But Isabel had
learned tolerance. Oh, she’d definitely bust their balls. Then she’d swear them
to online-dating secrecy and pick their collective brains.

She was fairly certain they wouldn’t be proponents of her
succumbing to what might be construed as begging for a date, no matter how much
they thought she really needed to get laid. And there would be the usual cougar
comments, although she was pretty certain a difference of three years didn’t
warrant that moniker. But since her husband’s death, she did tend to be drawn
to younger men. The girls found it completely acceptable. Sam and Stanley, not
so much. Isabel believed their attitudes had something to do with brotherly
instincts. Both had come from families with no daughters and loved the idea of
having a surrogate sister. They all but glowed when she asked for a male
opinion and swore it proved she wasn’t a total brainiac.

She smiled and headed for the bathroom. Despite all the
obstacles and unknowns that had been thrown her way over the past few years, of
all the things that had tested her strength and resolve, one thing was quite
certain—she was a smart woman. If they thought she should go for him, she
would. Smart women could always manage to have things on their own terms. At
the end of the day she wouldn’t settle nor would she be used. At the end of the
day, she’d find the man of her dreams.

* * * * *

Chris Greene’s sonofabitch of a day suddenly became brighter
as a familiar scent drifted across the bar and wound its way downward to where
he was wrestling with a hex nut in the sink. He usually hated the way the
overhead fans forced the amalgamated aromas of sweat, cologne, hair product and
perfume his way. But every now and again he got a little reprieve from the
horrific blend. As he did now.

He heard the scrape of wood against tile, not having to
think too hard to imagine the way Isabel’s pert breasts would be giggling, just
a little, as she situated her body on the barstool. Let the other guys drool
over the DDs or bigger. Give him just a handful of all-natural boobage and he
was a happy man.

“Hey, Chris. How goes the battle?”

He grinned at her tone. She was undoubtedly in guys-night-out
mode. She was more relaxed, less classy…but not in a morally lax sort of way.
Gone was the higher pitch to her voice that was generally present when she was
listening then imparting advice to her girlfriends’ tales of woe. Body language
was one thing, but it was his experience that voice idiosyncrasies were way
more telling.

Deciding it was past time to call the owner of the bar and
let him get in touch with a real plumber, Chris stood and met her gaze,
returning her wide smile.

“How’d you know it was me, Izzi?” Had she been with her
girls, he knew she would have responded with some tasteful comment about how
fine he looked bent over. He’d caught on to her various personas months ago and
he honestly enjoyed all three of them. The one she used when she was out with
her friends and was expected to be mildly flirtatious, the one she adopted
around her guy pals and the one he’d been privy to only once. The one he had
fixated on. The one where her guard was dropped and her true emotions were
right there in her pale-green eyes for anyone who cared enough to notice. And
by his account, few of her friends really took the time for that. They liked
her, no doubt about that. Some even loved her. But he doubted that any of them
could sense just how conflicted the woman truly was.

Then again, none of them had spent years behind a bar
learning to read people like the open books most of them were.

“Shoulders every guy would die for and a butt any woman
would covet. Who else
but
you, Atlas?”

He laughed and leaned forward to facilitate her now standard
kiss on the cheek. She’d come up with her pet name for him during the last
Super Bowl when he was trying to maneuver through the line of women waiting in
the narrow hallway for the restroom.

Holy shit! Atlas has nothing on you!
she’d said, eyes
wide as they darted from his arms to the keg he carried on his shoulder then
back to his eyes. He’d offered her a quick wink, something else that had been
standard on his part, but was now reserved for her. Part of him wanted to fuck
her that day, but getting to know her on a friendly level from across the bar
had made her so much more appealing. And sexy. So had the fact she never came
in with anyone except her girls or her two guy friends.

“You here for the game? Meeting up with Siegfried &
Roy?”

“You’re so bad,” she replied, leaning to one side to hook
her purse under the bar. Clothed in her lucky long-sleeve T-shirt, it was a
cleavage-free night but that didn’t quash her sex appeal. He’d seen enough
nipple slips and beaver shots to last a lifetime. What he fantasized about
these days was the woman who was once again upright, and perusing the bar menu
as if she hadn’t read it hundreds of times before. She looked at him over the
upper edge, all but her eyes hidden from view, and a stab of desire rocked him.
He cleared his throat, trying to push the image of her on her knees, staring up
at him with exactly that expression, to the recesses of his mind. And if she
were just on her knees, his cock a millimeter away from her mouth, that would
be fine. But in his mind, she wasn’t just kneeling there with her hands resting
on his knees for balance. No, her hands weren’t free. Not by a long shot.

“Do you have a sore throat?” she asked in a genuinely
concerned voice. “This back-and-forth change in the weather is really wreaking
havoc with people.”

“I’m fine. What’re you in the mood for?” he asked in an
unintentionally husky tone.

She dropped the menu and gave him a puzzled look. He waited,
forcing himself not to shift his feet or offer up one of his teasing winks.

“I…um.” A slight tint crept up her neck and into her cheeks.
“I don’t know. Good judgment, maybe. A little profound advice. The ability not
to take my friend’s innocuous words as innuendo?”

She forced a laugh and Chris shook his head, not ready to
let her off the hook just yet. He liked the way she looked with a little more
color in her cheeks. She was apparently a bit more tightly strung than he had
realized if an innocent enough comment made her think naughty things. He wasn’t
averse to her mind taking that path.

“What makes you think they weren’t intended as you took
them? Maybe for once, I’m in a flirting mood.”

“Men like you don’t flirt,” she offered, reaching for the
menu again. “Not with women like me.”

“Don’t we?” Chris replied, opening his hand wide and forcing
the menu she’d been studying flat against the top of the bar.

“No,” she quickly replied, sitting up straighter as she
stared at his splayed fingers before looking him square in the eye.

He didn’t miss the way her pupils enlarged, or the slight
hitch in her breathing, but the rest of her features remained completely
controlled. Which was so fucking hot he wanted to wrap his hand in her hair and
force her head backward.

“Then tell me. What do we do?” He shifted forward and held
her gaze, knowing full well she’d be the first to look away. Women usually did.

“You guys kick ass and take names,” she said.

“So, we like a little control. Is that a bad thing, Isabel?”
He waited to see her response. To both the “control” comment and the use of her
real name. He’d suspected for quite some time she was the perfect candidate for
engaging in a little D/s experimentation, but as the saying went, he never shit
where he ate. And while he’d love to get her alone and see if his suspicions were
based in fact and not a figment of his kink-ridden imagination, he wasn’t about
to break his personal rule of patron-to-partner initiation. That wouldn’t end
well from an employment standpoint. But he had some other irons in the fire,
ones he thought were going to pay off if the rest of the free world would just
admit they liked a little “slap my ass” after they shut off their Fox News.