I grinned. That was sweet of him, but fuck no. “No, I’ll handle him.”
“Figures,” he mumbled into his cup. Then he grimaced and put it down again.
“The offer’s on the table,” I said. “We just had our monthly munch, where we usually welcome new members but not always. I can talk to Reese and get you in to our Halloween party next weekend.”
At that, he shook his head. “Oh no, it’s much too soon, and—I…I haven’t even decided if I want to join.”
Ha! No, he had.
“Besides, I’m moving next weekend,” he finished.
That was a solid reason to change the topic. “How’s everything going? I was fucking stunned when you told me you’d asked her for a divorce. You told me in a text, Franklin. That’s unlike you.”
He preferred to call.
“I’ve been doing a lot that’s unlike me lately,” he muttered. True. Divorce, talking about kink… A whole new Franklin. “By the way, you didn’t show me the third floor.”
Huh? Oh. The virtual tour. “It’s mostly bedrooms.” I didn’t feel the need to open my phone again. “Guest rooms for sleepovers and group-play rooms.” We had one of the interrogation rooms up there too.
“Group play,” he echoed and looked at me. “As in group sex. You mentioned group play last month—I remember it vividly. You misspoke, I believe. You hadn’t planned on sharing that much.”
I nodded slowly, the memory coming back. Yeah, it’d been too soon to share that detail, but I’d been so upset. He’d obviously asked me to elaborate, and that was how I’d explained a bit more about my relationship with Lee—that it’d been open and that we sometimes played with others.
“The fantasy is a lot hotter than reality.” I’d been a fucking idiot to think I could jump into bed with several others in an attempt to forget Lee for a moment. I’d lasted five or ten minutes, and then I had hidden out in one of the guest rooms until people had left.
“Sounds tantalizing to me,” Franklin admitted quietly. “I can’t imagine. So many bodies…”
I smiled at him. “You gotta explore kink, Franklin. It clearly calls to you.”
“Maybe.” He shifted in his seat and flushed. “I came across one thing in my research that was confusing. If I were to…explore kink, as you put it—what is nonsexual play, and how do I avoid it?”
I barked out a laugh, unable to help it, and gave his neck a squeeze. “You’re too funny sometimes.”
How do I avoid nonsexual play?
I laughed again. What a sweetheart.
“I’m glad I amuse you,” he retorted wryly.
I withdrew my hand and smirked. “Nonsexual play can be pretty much anything. It can be sexual to others, or to nobody. It can be a demo where you’re teaching others about a fetish, and you take away the sexual component so it’s easier to concentrate.” I shrugged a little. “Shay, for instance—I helped his Owners with a scene shortly after they got together. Shay was tied up. Reese was beating him. River was feeding him lines through a pair of headphones Shay was wearing. And I stood in front of Shay with a FleshJack.”
Franklin knitted his brows together. “I don’t know what that is.”
“You ever hear of a Fleshlight?”
Yeah, he had. The blush made a swift return.
“Same thing but marketed toward gay men.”
“Oh. That sounds sexual.”
“To Shay, it definitely was.” It’d been hot as hell for me too, kinda like watching porn. “But I didn’t participate for myself. There was nothing in it for me other than helping out. I’m too hung up on Kingsley to get involved with anyone else right now.” I saw Franklin tilting his head, but I wasn’t done. “It boils down to boundaries in the end. Even though I have problems with the open arrangement I had for six years, I’m still a lot more open than…some others.” Colt, Lucas, and Kit came to mind. I knew Colt, in particular, was conservative with his sharing. He could whip just about anyone, take part in punishments, and turn an ass red with his bare hands. What I couldn’t picture was him doing anything intimate, say, if it involved getting someone hard or whatever. That was reserved for his partners.
I wanted a sliver of that.
Thinking about that reminded me of something else too. “When you decide to join my community…” I waggled my eyebrows like a dork, to which Franklin laughed. “You’ll meet Colt and Lucas too. Before they met their boy, they had nonsexual on-and-off arrangements with a female sub. It was so that the Daddies in them would get some satisfaction. Being able to care for someone, nurture, all that. The lifestyle side of BDSM is far from all sex and orgasms. Kingsley and I were Master/sub nearly twenty-four seven.” Although, rules were kind of lax at home. It was crazy to think about. We’d almost melted into a D/s dynamic that suited us perfectly. It came so naturally.