Page 8 of Salt Kiss
“In the evenings,” Mark says, lifting his jacket off the desk and shrugging it on, “if I’m not traveling or having dinner in the city, I’ll generally eat in the club and then make my presence known after. I’ll take meetings there too, more informally. Unless I’m in a private room or I explicitly dismiss you, I’ll expect you to be close.”
He tugs at the cuffs of his jacket sleeves with crisp efficiency. I see that silver watch again and think of how it would glitter through the trees or from the window of an abandoned building. I was able to return fire at someone in a dark alley once because they were wearing a watch just like that.
How strange life is now, that wearing something that can reflect light feels unbearably and ostentatiously reckless. Mark’s hand drops to the folder on his desk, his fingertips skimming the front. “You emailed over your consent to what you might witness at the club and your limits.”
My eyes drop to the folder. He gave me the folio filled with terms and explanations. He sees stuff every day I can’t even imagine; what’s more, hefacilitatesit. It should not feel like such a private thing to share, what I can withstand watching in a professional setting.
“No waterworks or scat,” says Mark, not flipping open the folder, as if he already has the salient points of its contents memorized. “That’s quite all right, as we don’t do that here at Lyonesse. You seem comfortable potentially witnessing everything else, which I’d expect from someone with your record overseas. Watching someone happily being caned is certainly better than watching someone’s fingers get blown off because they lit a cigarette after dusk. Although...”
I know what’s coming. When I’d walked in, I’d automatically shifted into a parade rest position, my feet planted and my hands behind my back, and now I feel the tiniest impulse to fidget, to rub my thumbs together. I resist.
“You’ve annotatedwax playhere,” continues Mark. “Not as a hard limit but as something you would find hard to watch.”
His blue eyes lift to mine, and I feel the penetrating force of his gaze.
“Normally, I wouldn’t interrogate someone on limits, but we’re in a special circumstance and wax play is exceptionally common. And”—a small tilt of his head—“rather initiatory-level stuff when it comes to kink. So I admit I’m curious. And for work purposes, I do need to know if this is a mild aversion or if it’s something more painful than that.”
“No,” I say before I can think about how I want to phrase my explanation. “Not painful. And not an...aversion.” And then I flush. Embarrassingly, humiliatingly.
I’m twenty-nine and I’m hot-cheeked about wax.
A beat passes as Mark studies me. “I see,” he says. “And so the other thing you’ve marked here—breeding kinks—”
I have to look down at the floor. “Also not an aversion,” I manage to say. My jaw is tight, my face is on fire. “I just wanted to tag that I might struggle to stay professional if we were watching something. Like that.”
I hear footsteps; when I’m able to force my eyes up, Mark is in front of me. He’s shaved since I saw him last, and his face without stubble is like something from a magazine. Too handsome, too striking, too entrancing to be hidden under a helmet and protective eyewear. No wonder the CIA poached him and sent him out to woo and lie and kill.
“Breeding,” he murmurs. The word on his lips is sinful.
“Sir.”
“Is it about pregnancy? Procreation?”
I want to die. “It’s not about pregnancy.”
I have to dredge the words out of my chest. It’s the first time I’ve ever spoken about this. Ever. “I like...I like the closeness,” I add with some difficulty. “The idea of leaving part of yourself inside someone.”
“So it’s about the fluid itself. Like a creampie kink.”
“Yes, but—” I’m struggling. It’s so much easier to typebreedinginto a porn site and let the search engine do the work than frame this in words spoken out loud. In front of my boss. “It’s more than unprotected sex.”
It’s the ownership, the claiming. The idea of using someone...or being used myself.
“It’s not about actually making babies,” I repeat, just to make it extremely clear. “I, um. The breeding kink is for me too. Not just for what I’d like to do to someone else.”
Mark’s expression doesn’t change, but his pupils do.
They bloom.
“Good to know,” he says after a minute. “In that case, rest assured that I don’t expect you to be made of stone when it comes to the things that happen at Lyonesse. In fact, I’d be rather disappointed if you were.”
“Sir,” I say. It takes more willpower than I’m proud of to hold that sharp, perceptive gaze.
The corner of his mouth indents. “Well, with that settled, I have a meeting in the city. You may as well come and begin getting acquainted with the little chores that make up my day.”
Four
“They will be curious about you,”Mark says later that night as we take the elevator up to the central hall of the club.
