Three Hard Lessons (Blindfold Club 2)

The train’s light leaped into view and focused as it barreled at us. It slowed to a stop, the doors peeled open, and there was a surge from behind, propelling us forward. I gasped as we compressed with the line of people in front of us, mobbing onto the car where it was already standing room only.

I pivoted in my spot, only to shuffle backward as the wall of people continued to push and thicken. I was pressed up against Dominic, but also the Japanese salarymen around me. Jesus, when were the people going to stop trying to get on? I was crushed against the people around me. At the doors, a pair of conductors pushed at the body parts sticking through the doorway until the doors could finally close.

I could feel the man behind me breathing, I was that tight against him. I looked at the other human sardines around me. No one cared. They stood in total silence. No one on cell phones. No one moved, not that they could, I assumed out of respect. Dominic was right. This was wild. We stood chest to chest and I lifted my gaze to connect with his.

I smiled, wanting him to know I was enjoying this.

He was tired. He’d only gotten three hours of sleep last night. But when he returned the smile, the exhaustion faded from his eyes.

It was a fifteen minute train ride and it delivered us close to the harbor. The salty smell and seabirds announced which way to go, but I put my hand in his anyway. Fuck my rules about getting intimate. It was futile. I was attached, and going to stay attached as long as possible.

There was a small building no larger than a trailer sand

wiched between a seemingly endless maze of different colored containers, some towers stacked six high. I ascended the metal stairs behind Dominic while he unlocked the door and pulled the clipboard from the box attached to it.

His office was organized, but also like stepping back into the 1980s. A massive desktop computer. Fax machine. Filing cabinets. Stacks and stacks of paper. The window on one side of the narrow office faced the cranes that loomed over the water’s edge.

I stared at the sad looking office, and I got angry.

“You spend all day here?”

“When I’m not counting inventory.” He scanned the clipboard and set it on the desk.

“This place sucks.”

He laughed. “Yeah, it’s not great. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

We walked through the rows of containers as he described his system for receiving the inventory through customs . . . basically it was a lot of paperwork. It wasn’t the most boring job in the world, but close.

I followed him as we wound deeper and deeper into the container maze. “Where are we going?”

He pulled me to a stop, his eyes shifting left, then right. Hands closed on my hips and urged me around the corner until metal was hard against my back. We were in the shadow of a tall tower, stacked very close to another. Secluded and hidden, but not out of the realm of possibility that someone could wander by. As we’d worked our way to this spot, we’d passed a dock worker, and I could hear forklifts running in the distance.

My pulse quickened when he tugged loose the belt on my wool jacket as if desperate to get inside. His hot mouth claimed mine as he continued to undo the buttons and flung the jacket open. His fingers were under my shirt instantly, gliding over my belly and sliding upward.

“Your hands are freezing!”

He chuckled. “It’s warm in here.”

The cup of my bra was tugged out of his way, and his icy hand closed over my breast, pressing me back into the metal wall.

“Is someone going to catch us?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” His mouth roved over mine. “If someone came around the corner and saw me fucking you?”

My body burst into flames with desire. “You’re going to fuck me here?”

The heat of his body left as he pulled back and the expression on his face was immoral. “Only if you’re good. And quiet.” His hands balled fistfuls of the maxi skirt I was wearing. “Can you be quiet, Payton?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know if I believe you. Let’s find out.”

He tugged off his outer coat and dropped it to the ground, leaving him in his suit and tie that was like the male equivalent of lingerie. Then, hands pushed up my skirt as he sank to his knees, kneeling on his coat. Cold air hit my knees and thighs where my boots stopped, and I held the skirt for him. He liked having use of his hands, after all.

His fingers hooked under one side of my thong. Dominic used both hands on it, gripping and pulling hard until the elastic stretched beyond capacity and the destroyed underwear fell to my ankles. I stepped out of it eagerly, lust making my knees weak.

I moaned softly as his fingers parted me. I bit my bottom lip when he leaned forward and licked me.