Mostly, I was just impatient because I was beyond curious to meet Aaron and Will. We’d been chatting via Kinkbook’s instant messenger app, and they seemed like good guys so far. Will was pretty casual in his chats, not always bothering to capitalize and generally assuming that if he made a typo, I still knew what he meant, which I did. Aaron was one of those people who spelled and punctuated like he was going to get graded by a super strict English teacher. He wasn’t pretentious about it, and he didn’t say anything if I missed a letter or left off a comma, but he struck me as the type who would break out in hives if he had a momentary brain fart and used the wrong “there.”
They were both friendly and chatty. Each was chill with a good sense of humor. We weren’t getting into deep topics or personal histories, but I could have actual conversations with them that involved more than nudes and emojis.
Not that I’d have objected to nudes from either of them. Or any additional photos at all besides what was on their profile. From their pictures, they were both impossibly hot, and admittedly, that had me nervous tonight. I didn’t want to get my hopes up that I was about to meet the guys in those images, because let’s face it—most guys posted their absolute best pics on hookup profiles. Which…obviously. I did the same thing. No one was getting my hungover face or seeing what fluorescent lights did to my already pasty complexion.
But sometimes the pictures guys put up were, shall we say, not the best representation of how they looked now. I’d been with plenty of guys who weren’t conventionally flawless. Beards, bellies, baldness—whatever a guy had on offer, they were perfectly sexy to me as long as we clicked and they weren’t assholes. There was more to life than six-packs and perfect teeth, and guys who expected gym-perfect bodies were missing the hell out of some seriously hot dudes. Which was fine by me—their loss was my gain whenever I was getting my world rocked by the same guy they’d turned up their noses at.
The problem was when a photo created an expectation, and the reality didn’t quite match. Like bro, show me what you have. It’s all good. But don’t show me some Photoshopped, airbrushed, professional shot with trick lighting and flattering angles that you took ten years ago, and then expect me not to be disappointed when reality doesn’t match.
So the question was…would Aaron and Will match their photos? Because right now those photos seemed way too good to be true. It was just not possible for two men to be that intelligent, friendly, kinky, articulate, and hot.
I was definitely curious. And excited. And nervous. By the time I turned the corner onto their street—oh my God, finally—I’d conjured up every possible worst-case scenario. Their pictures were from twenty years ago. They hadn’t been entirely honest about what they wanted in terms of kink. The words “we respect your hard limits” were just lip service and they really would want all kinds of things that would make me nope on out of there.
I just couldn’t make myself believe that the two men I was meeting tonight were everything they’d presented themselves to be so far.
At my GPS’s instruction, I pulled into the short driveway of a two-story colonial-style house with neat landscaping and a tall oak in the front yard. I parked in front of the closed garage doors, shut off the car, and took a deep breath. Okay. I was here. This was it.
The butterflies of nerves and excitement were fluttering wildly as I walked up to their front porch. There, I took another deep breath in a failed attempt to pull myself together, and rang the doorbell.
Over my pounding heart, I caught the sound of footsteps approaching on the other side. This was it. No turning back. Not that I wanted to, but how exactly was I supposed to stay rational when I was about to meet a couple who actually wanted someone like me? I hadn’t run into many people who wanted a sadist who was also a submissive, and these two had specifically come looking for one, so—
The deadbolt clicked.
The door opened.
Oh, hello.
He was white—they both were—and maybe five-nine, five-ten, with the most stunning hazel eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses. His hair was short and neat with flecks of gray along the edges and sides. From the angle of his jaw—which I recognized from his profile—and the absence of a collar, not to mention the way he looked right in my eyes, I suspected this was Will, the Dom half of the couple.
And so far, they were batting a thousand on matching their profile pictures, because goddamn, he was hot.
He grinned, which made my knees wobble. “You must be Kelly.”
I extended my hand. “Yeah. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. I’m Will.” He shook my hand, then gestured for me to come inside.
As I stepped into the house, he shamelessly and conspicuously raked his eyes over me, raising goose bumps under my clothes as if he were dragging his fingers over my skin instead of just ogling me. Was his gaze really that intense? Or was I just on a hair trigger tonight because of everything we might end up doing? Whatever. I liked it. I’d been in his house all of three seconds and already felt hotter than I had in I didn’t know how long.
“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” Will asked as he shut the door behind us.
“No, no.” With a nervous laugh, I gestured toward my car. “GPS got me right to your door. Didn’t even need the directions you gave me.”
“They must have finally updated their software, then,” he grumbled. “Took them long enough.”
“GPS used to get confused?”
“All the time. Ugh.” He rolled his eyes. “We’ve had so many people end up two streets over, wondering how to get back here.” Motioning down the road, he added, “There’s a road a couple of blocks that way that only connected like three years ago after a new development was put in. Everyone’s GPS fritzed out over it.”
I chuckled. “Well, it got me here this time.”
“Yeah, it did.” He grinned and gave me another look. One of those looks. Holy fuck, this man was going to melt me without ever laying a hand on me.
Another set of footsteps came down the hall, and I turned to see that, oh yes, this couple really believed in truth in advertising. He was maybe an inch taller than Will with quite a bit more gray in his hair, which was slightly longer than his husband’s, and I could have stared at those full lips and blue eyes all night long. And he was definitely the sub—the leather collar sitting just above his white Henley was a spectacularly sexy dead giveaway.
Will put a hand on his husband’s lower back. “Kelly, this is my husband and sub, Aaron. Aaron, Kelly.”
Aaron and I shook hands. Oh God, that smile. The down-up look. The way that smile turned to a grin.
Jesus fuck, when do we take off our pants?
Except I was getting ahead of myself. They’d made it clear this was just a meet-and-greet. Playing wasn’t necessarily off the table, but in the interest of not pressuring anyone, the assumption was that tonight would be strictly platonic. Which, I mean, that was cool too. I could totally enjoy the view of these two with their clothes on.
“Can we get you anything to drink?” Will asked. “Coffee? Water? Coke?”
Now that he mentioned it, I should probably drink something before my mouth went so dry I started croaking. “Sure. Yeah. Water is fine, thank you.”