Not at first. At first he had too much crap to deal with. There were police reports to be filed and explanations given of how a killer had almost gotten away with pinning his crimes on Will. There was Starr, who had used him for months when all she was really doing was getting close so her boyfriend could kill Karina and collect on an insurance policy. He could still see her, her normally placid face screwed up in disgust.
You’re a pervert. The things you made me do. You’re the one who should be going to jail. Not me.
He shook off that particular humiliation. He didn’t like to think about the fact that her trial would be coming up soon.
It had been a motherfuck of a few months. Hence the need to start over.
And to shake off the past and embrace who he really was. He was a Dom and he needed this kind of play. He wasn’t going to hide it anymore. He’d spent the last several years making sure no one at the hospital knew he liked to visit clubs. He’d gone so far as to live in Dallas and work in Fort Worth so he wouldn’t run into anyone who knew him. He’d told lies about his profession.
He was still the kid who didn’t want anyone to know he lived in a trailer and his mom was a meth head.
No. He didn’t hide now and he wasn’t going to hide his interest in Bridget. His sisters even teased him about her because he tended to trip or miss steps when she walked by.
“What makes you think she’s afraid and not simply uninterested?” Mitch asked. There was no way Will could miss the speculative look in his friend’s eyes. Mitch was a lawyer, a shark of the highest order. He was always assessing, always plotting.
Wishful thinking? “She watches me when she thinks I’m not looking.”
Lila had been the one to inform him of that interesting nugget, though she was known for being ridiculously over positive at times. All three of his sisters tended to take a super-positive, the-world is-still-great view of life, which considering how they’d grown up was a miracle.
Mitch’s big shoulder shrugged. “She could be worried you’re stalking her. Which you are. I’ve found women have excellent prey instincts. They get antsy when the big bad predator keeps licking his chops around her.”
“I’m not drooling over her, damn it.” At least he hoped he wasn’t. He had to admit he thought about those tits all the time. Real. Soft. Big. He was pretty sure he couldn’t hold her breasts completely in the palm of his hand. They would overflow. She would never fit into the designer clothes the women at work dreamed about. She was too curvy, too womanly. Soft breasts flowed into curvy hips and that ass. “I’m interested. She’s a gorgeous woman.”
And now he understood that she was a woman with a problem. Yeah, his brain was chewing on that information. Aloha and all that.
“I didn’t think she was your type.”
“I have a type?”
Mitch rolled his dark eyes. “Dude, you’ve screwed every super sub here. You do know that she’s only here for research, right? From what I understand, she’s not looking for a Dom. I’ve worked with her a couple of times and she’s very closed off. There’s not a lot of trust there for anyone except her two sub friends. She wants to ask her questions and do some light impact play, but I don’t think any of it really moves her. I’ve heard she writes romance books. What the hell does D/s have to do with fluffy romance books?”
Ah, the lawyer hadn’t kept up with pop culture. “Didn’t you know Doms are the new cowboys?” He’d heard Bridget and her friends laughing about some blog proclaiming that fact. They’d been of the firm opinion that cowboys were still cool. And Bridget had immediately started talking about a cowboy Dom as the coolest thing ever. “Bridget writes smutty books. Sex books. She’s looking for new fetishes to write about. And she needs a Dom. There’s a lost little sub under all that brattiness.”
Not that he would be her Dom. No. He wasn’t looking to be anyone’s Dom. Not on a permanent basis. He simply wanted to play with her, spend some mutually pleasurable time inside that hot body of hers. Bridget wasn’t the type of woman he would settle down with for more than a few nights. Weeks, maybe. A month tops.
They would kill each other—but they would likely be spectacular in bed, and damn, but he could use that.
“Smutty books?” Mitch huffed. “I don’t see it. She’s a romantic at heart. If she’s writing books, I would bet my life they’re about romantic fantasies.”
Which only proved he hadn’t spent a lot of time studying Bridget. Will had checked out her covers. They were super salacious, with naked bodies and titles like Her Billionaire Masters. Yep, in the plural. Somehow, he couldn’t see that book being about love and commitment. No. Bridget had some interesting fantasies, and he was the man to make a couple of them come true.
Though not the ménage one. When he got in her bed—for however long he was there—he would be the only one there. He didn’t share and he would make sure she understood that he could take care of her every need without a partner.
If he could only pin her down.
“She needs a date to her sister’s wedding,” he explained, his eyes on the locker room. He was waiting to see her one last time. He had it so damn bad.
“Interesting. I’m not sure how that will help you. If she’s reluctant, I doubt that a couple of hours with bad champagne and a cover band are really going to help you plead your case.”
He felt his lips curl up. The whole time she’d been talking, he’d had a scenario playing through his head. A scenario that ended with him on top of her. “Do you know who her father is?”
“Haven’t had the pleasure.”
Will doubted there was any pleasure involved. “George Slaten.”
Mitchell whistled. “Are you telling me that Bratty Bridget is the heir to Slaten Industries?”
It had shocked the hell out of him, too. It was obvious she was doing well financially. She lived in a nice building in a good part of town. She drove a nice but not over-the-top car, but she’d come from a billion dollar world. Poor little rich girl. Will had known more than one of those, and it was one more reason to not be attracted to her.
His dick wasn’t listening. His dick didn’t care that she came from an overprivileged background. His dick didn’t give a damn that she wasn’t a woman who would bring him peace or even pretend to need him for anything but an orgasm. His dick just wanted her.