4 Lindsey
Lindsey
MY BODY BUZZES WITH laughter and alcohol. I don’t think I’ve been this drunk or had this much fun in years. The last two hours have been filled with jokes, stories of Morgan and Fox’s interesting life, and even me blabbing a bit about my asshole ex.
Maybe I should let people in more often.
I might regret opening up tomorrow when I’m hungover and looping what I said on repeat, but for now, I’m enjoying the moment.
The moment that is currently occupied by Morgan sharing a recent obsession: people who don’t show their faces online but use their voices and bodies to make the internet go wild.
Right now, she’s showing me a masked man—a shirtless masked man, I might add—in a Scream mask on her phone. He’s ripped and leaning back on a couch, eight-pack glistening with what looks like baby oil.
“I didn’t know you had a thing for men in masks,” Nathan says curiously, eyes moving from her phone to his fiancée’s glassy eyes.
He’s sitting next to me after getting another pitcher of beer, and Fox and Morgan are sitting with each other, Morgan leaning against his broad shoulder.
She’s drunk, like me, and so is Nathan. The only one who isn’t is Fox.
He stopped a while ago so he can drive us all home later.
She waggles her eyebrows. “You know I don’t go online much, but a friend of ours asked me for an opinion on a video of his, and I went down a rabbit hole.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Is that your friend?” Nathan points at the man in the mask, his short video looping on Morgan’s phone.
Morgan shakes her head. “He doesn’t do the mask thing.
He films videos from the mouth down, and, on a rare occasion, from the back.
He’s a professional Dominant who offers online services like helping people develop routines and discipline through consensual control.
His Loopr videos get him a ton of clients. ”
“What?” Nathan sits up straighter. “That’s a thing?”
I sit up straighter, too, because I didn’t know it was a thing, either, and now I’m curious. I do know a bit about kink and BDSM. I’m an avid reader if I can find the time, and it’s a common theme in romance novels.
“I don’t know how many people have set up his type of business model, but yes. Pro Domming is a thing,” Fox says.
“Fox and I have known him awhile,” Morgan adds. “He worked for us, and now he’s a friend.”
“Does that mean he lives here?” Nathan asks, his tone curious.
Morgan goes to answer, but Fox cuts her off. “He likes to keep his privacy as much as possible, so we won’t be answering that.”
Morgan’s cheeks flush as she makes a motion of zipping her lips before turning her gaze to me.
“You’re quiet over there, Linds. What about you, do you like men in masks?”
Nathan groans. “Fox, baby, I’m going to the bathroom. Come with me so they can chat. I don’t need to hear this.”
A second later, Nathan and Fox are walking off, leaving Morgan alone with me.
She moves to my side of the booth and bumps my shoulder. “So do you have a thing for men in masks?”
I shrug. “I’ve never thought about it. I’m not really on social media much.”
“Me, either, but I see the appeal. Especially with these faceless videos. Not knowing who someone is, especially if you imagine them chasing you. There’s something fun about anonymity, you know?
” she says. “I think that’s why my friend’s business does so well.
While it sounds counterintuitive to trust a Dominant you’ve never seen or met, sometimes that makes it easier to be yourself. ”
I think about what she’s saying. “I guess I could see that.”
Morgan scrolls away from the masked man, and the next video is of a man chopping wood. The shot is close, so I can only see his body and not his face. He’s shirtless, sweat glistening from his muscles as he effortlessly slices through a massive log as if it’s butter.
I shift in my seat and lick my lips.
“Hot, right?” Morgan says.
I focus on the man on the screen. His corded muscles bunch and release as he hacks another piece of wood effortlessly. Morgan is right—it is hot. More than hot.
Morgan scrolls through his videos and stops on one where he’s close to the camera with his shirt on, though some of the buttons are undone so a smattering of dark chest hair is visible over his muscled pecs.
He runs his fingers sensually over his bearded jaw.
The video is in black and white, so it’s obvious there are silver threads in the coarse hair and that tattoos mark his neck.
I trail down his chest to note the name of the account. DomInTheWoods.
Then it clicks—this must be the friend Morgan spoke of, the Pro Dom. She scrolls to another video, and this time, he has a belt in his hands. He’s bending and tugging on it. I imagine if I could hear the sound, it would be snapping. Across the screen, captions scroll:
You want to be my good girl, don’t you?
You want to please me?
Surrender to me?
I shift in my seat, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I do not want to get turned on right now in a bar sitting next to Morgan, especially over something I didn’t even know turned me on. He’s snapping a belt, for goodness sake.
Sure, I read my romance novels, and I know Nathan has started to walk on the wild side now—evident from things I’ve accidentally overheard when I came to their cabin earlier than I was supposed to once.
I’ve never made that mistake again. But I’ve never felt like this before thinking about…
I look at the video of him snapping the belt again. Well, that.
I bring my attention to Morgan. She’s watching me instead of the video with a tiny smile playing on her red-painted lips. “Would you ever be interested in exploring submission with someone like DomInTheWoods?”
My eyes saucer at her question, and the heat in my body increases a few degrees. “I um…well, I—I’ve, um—”
“Oh, have you already dabbled in kink?”
I shake my head. “I know about it from reading, but that’s it.
But there is something appealing about surrender,” I say before I can think it through.
“It would be nice to not have to always think so hard about everything and everyone.” Admitting that out loud is freeing, but I also feel as if I’m going to throw up.
“Lindsey,” Morgan says, and my eyes meet hers. “I can understand that feeling. I think a lot of women can. I can only imagine what that must be like as a single mom and ER nurse. You do a lot for not only your family and friends but for the community as well.”
I find myself blushing at her praise but push it away. For some reason, the idea of a hot stranger online praising me is easier than Morgan doing so in real life over things I should accept praise for.
I clear my throat. “I enjoy doing it.”
“I know that.” She pushes back against my defenses. “But it doesn’t mean you can’t surrender some of the weight sometimes.”
I run my finger along the rim of my beer glass. This is essentially what Nathan was saying to me earlier when he offered to help with Kas. I know she’s right, but why is it so hard to accept help and let go?
Morgan’s hand lands on my shoulder, and I meet her soft hazel gaze.
“Not saying you should jump into anything—experimenting with kink isn’t for everyone—but this is just my friendly little nudge to maybe check out Dom’s page on your own time.
If anything, he’s hot to watch.” She waggles her eyebrows playfully, and a laugh loosens from my chest.
Morgan shows me another video of him. In this one, the camera is focused on his spread legs. He points to the ground and snaps his fingers, the caption reading: Be my best little sl*t and kneel for me.
My breath catches in my throat as the video loops. This time, my eyes focus on the way the veins in his hand pulse when he snaps his fingers. Would I like kneeling like that? Getting turned on by the degrading language is new, too.
“If you do end up interested in his services, tell him I sent you. I think he’s got a waiting list, but he’ll do anything for a friend of mine, and he owes me a favor.”
Morgan’s words break through my lust-filled haze. I look up at her to see a knowing half smile on her face. I realize, too, that I have my hand clutched to my chest as if I’m about to jump inside the phone and ravish the man.
“Thanks.” My voice sounds squeaky when I talk, so I clear my throat. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I appreciate it.”
Morgan moves to speak, but Fox’s tattooed hand that reads M I N E lands on her shoulder. She closes her mouth and turns her head to look up at him, and I give my focus to him and Nathan, who looks a bit flushed.
“You two ready to call it?” Morgan asks Fox.
He nods then looks at me. “If you’re ready, Lindsey. I don’t want to rush you.”
“Nope, I was just thinking it was time for me to go home.”
We all make our way from the bar, a drunk Nathan and Morgan telling jokes as Fox drives. But I’m only half paying attention, because the entire way home, I can’t stop thinking about DomInTheWoods.