The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood 3)

I got how the kneeler and the item described as Catherine’s wheel worked, but what was a queening chair? The licking bench looked complicated, and I couldn’t figure out who went where or what was even being licked. His portfolio was full of gorgeous pictures of furniture, showing off his high-quality work, but having a model in some of the images would have been helpful.

My curiosity carried me back toward the order form. The price tag for the stocks he was building was seven hundred dollars. The figure didn’t surprise me.

Clay may have used math to build it, but his architecture was more like art to me.

Noir had finished exploring the rest of the room, and she cautiously prowled toward the cross, eyeing it with skepticism. She sniffed it once, slinked around one of the beams, and then stretched up, latching her claws into the leather.

“Noir, no!” I cried, scooping her up into my arms, and extracted her claws as delicately as I could. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like she’d damaged the leather; I’d gotten her just in time. From now on, I’d make sure to keep her out of here and the door to the basement closed.

She squirmed in my hold, since she was a cat and preferred her independence, and reluctantly I made my way to the stairs.

It was then that I noticed there were thick planks of wood standing upright, resting against the wall, like they’d been stained and then left there to dry. Only one of them was on the floor at a strange angle. The board must have slipped.

“That’s what fell,” I told the cat.

She didn’t care. Noir was far more interested in being released. I hurried up the stairs, closed the door, and set her down. She skittered away, temporarily annoyed with me for confining her.

My gaze drifted back to the door, and my mind wandered down to what Clay was building in his workshop. He’d made pieces of restraint and confinement, and—fuck—it was so sexy. I wouldn’t be annoyed with him if he wanted to confine me . . .

In fact, I was sure I’d be thrilled.

Saturday morning, I had a shift at the clinic, as did my best friend Cassidy Sheppard. We’d meet two years ago when she began interning, and although she was a lot younger than I was, age was simply a number when it came to her. She’d turn twenty-one in a few months, but I’d swear she was in her thirties, maturity-wise.

Cassidy was an old soul, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Her boyfriend was in his early forties.

I spent the afternoon desperately fighting back the desire to tell her what I’d found in Clay’s basement. It wasn’t that I worried she’d judge him. I mean, she got up to all kinds of shenanigans with Dr. Lowe—or Daddy, as I sometimes called him. I’d sort-of-jokingly-but-also-seriously nicknamed him that behind his back, which she hated, but then again, she was sleeping with a guy who happened to be her ex’s father.

I didn’t confess my discovery to my friend because every time I thought about it, a voice in my head would pipe up.

Clay’s a private person, it scolded.

So, I kept it a secret, no matter how much I was dying to talk about it with her. Plus, I didn’t tell her how I’d spent last night studying every piece of BDSM furniture in his portfolio. Or how this morning I’d devised a plan to broach the subject with him next time I saw him.

“What are you doing tonight?” Cassidy asked me as she finished wiping down the table in exam room two. Had she sensed the excitement I was trying to hide, or was she simply making conversation? Daddy wasn’t on-call this weekend, and that was such a rare thing, I knew she’d be occupied.

“Not sure.” I played it cool. “I might go over to Clay’s.”

She stopped what she was doing so she could stare at me like I’d just said I hated wearing heels. “You’re going to spend your Saturday night alone with your cat?”

A sly smile curled on my lips. “Hopefully not alone. Clay got back last night.”

“Oh, I see.” She grinned. “I’d say good luck, but I doubt you’ll need it.”

“Meaning?”

Cassidy tossed the paper towel in the trash can, and then made a production out of looking me over. “You asked a stranger if he wanted to own a cat with you, and he said yes. Trust me, he’s interested.”

“That’s the thing, though. I can’t tell if he is.”

She turned skeptical. “You’re super hot.”

“Thanks.” I laughed lightly. “Except I’ve been super hot for the past year, and he never noticed me before,” I mused.

She was well aware of the way I’d lusted over Clay when he first moved in, and she shrugged. “I am kind of surprised the cat made a move on him before you did.”