Three Hard Lessons (Blindfold Club 2)

“And you find tormenting me helpful?” His dark, annoyed tone was sexy.

“I do. I like watching you like this.”

“Like what?”

I searched for the word, and found it. “Frustrated.”

The aqua shifted into a stormy blue and his jaw set. “I’m going to teach you a lesson when we get to my place.”

I scoffed. “A lesson?”

“Yeah, a lesson in frustration. I’ll teach you all about it, Payton.”

This time it was me who exhaled loudly. He’d gone a year without sex. I might be about to endure a lesson from a master.

Dominic let me dig into his backstory while we rocketed down the runway and sailed into the air. He went to the University of Wisconsin and was Logan’s roommate freshman year. The girl Dominic had dated and who cheated on him, her name was Brook, and they’d met at work his second year at Chase Sports, the massive sports apparel company he still worked for.

He painted a picture of a person sort of like me. Even though he’d done everything to follow a normal life plan—college, a nine-to-five, a steady relationship—he drifted and was restless. Unlike him, I’d embraced my wild side, believing that would solve my restlessness, but I realized working at the club was just a distraction. A temporary fix. Something else was the problem, or missing.

Soon after the fasten seatbelt light went off, the Asian man across the aisle from Dominic was clearly having difficulty getting his monitor to work – I didn’t think he realized it was a touch-screen because he kept hitting the buttons on the armrest.

“Osoreirimasu,” Dominic said. Then showed the man by leaning over and tapping his screen. I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised, the man or me, to hear Japanese come from Dominic’s mouth. The man nodded a thank you.

“What?” Dominic seemed puzzled by my reaction.

Obviously he spoke Japanese. I just hadn’t thought about it. “It caught me off guard, that’s all.” And the language was a weird fit on him. “How much Japanese do you know?”

“I’m not too bad. It’s hard to learn, but I’ve been studying it for a few years now. You speak any other languages?”

“Nope. I only learned a few phrases in Dutch while I was in Amsterdam. Everyone speaks English there.”

We lapsed into silence, and now that I was calm, I guessed Dominic wanted to try to scratch the surface of Payton McCreary again.

“You never answered my question about how you started working at the club.”

“I hit on Joseph one night when I was out with friends. He recruited me.”

“Joseph. Your . . . manager.”

I nodded and picked at my nails. I knew what he wanted. An explanation about why I was the way I was, but how could I give him one when deep down I had no fucking clue myself? “I like sex. Surely that’s not a surprise.”

“No, it’s not,” he gave an amused smile, “and don’t call me Shirley.” The Airplane callback.

“Before, I worked as a customer service rep for a media company. I goddamn hated it. At the club, I got paid to do something I like.”

“How long did you work for Joseph?”

“A little less than a year.”

He fidgeted in his seat, snapping and unsnapping the cover of his iPad.

“Ask it, Dominic.”

He still hesitated. Not wanting to know and yet desperate to. “How many guys have you been with?”

“I don’t keep count. You want the ballpark?” He broke off eye contact. I didn’t know why I cared what he thought. It never bothered me before. I’d dealt with slut-shaming since high school. “I saw one client a night, every Friday and Saturday. I didn’t work every weekend, but most, but sometimes I couldn’t reach a deal with a client. I had some regulars too.”

Dominic’s shoulders tightened. “Less than a hundred.”