If the upcoming meeting was like the last one, I wouldn’t reserve a balcony this time. Instead maybe I’d keep her on the main floor in the courtyard and we’d put on our show. And I would call Luke soon.
I looked up as Abby came back into the room.
“Everything good?” I asked. Her eyebrows were wrinkled as though she was thinking hard.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I had a call from Sasha. She wants to talk to me and I have a feeling I know what it’s about.”
“Miss Blake?” Cole asked. “Is she back in the group?”
It hadn’t been hard for me to pick up on Sasha’s interest in Cole. Outside of the subtle comments she made, I saw her interest the night she watched his demo with the lady who never returned.
Cole, on the other hand, wasn’t as easy to read. On the surface, it was only a question. Is she back in the group? It could have been an I’m interested because I’m now a senior member and she’s part of the group. Or it could have been an Oh yes, I remember catching her before she fell to the floor and broke her nose. But the question wasn’t spoken like either of those. It was more of an I’m going to act all nonchalant because I don’t want you to realize just how much I remember about Sasha Blake. Plus, there was the way he’d looked at her the night of the demo she watched. The sly smile and his obvious delight in her interest.
I glanced at Abby to see if she’d picked up on Cole’s comment. Sure enough, her eyes had grown wider. She looked at me, obviously wanting to say something. I nodded.
“She’s not an official member, Sir,” Abby said. “Master and I are still working on requirements to join the group, and since she dropped out, she’ll have to reapply. But …” She paused, glancing at the wall behind him, not meeting his gaze. “She did go to the last group play party. I was with her as she watched your demo.”
“Oh?” he said with a smile.
I knew I hadn’t misheard that one. The Oh that was not so much of an Oh yes, but more of an I hope I left her hungry for more.
“Yes,” she confirmed to Cole. “In any case, she’s not ready to join just yet. At least in my opinion.”
With that, Cole rose from his seat and patted me on the back. “Time for me to say my good nights. I’m sure you and Abby will work everything out perfectly. I trust you two.”
I smiled to myself as the outline of a plan took form in my head.
We showed Cole out and said our good nights. Abby and I went to sit in the living room, and I brought up the plan that was on my mind. She was surprised at first. But as I explained my thought process I could see her understanding what I was suggesting.
“You have played with other men in a limited capacity. It’s not like the cane where this is completely new.”
“You want me to give you names? I wasn’t expecting that.” She shook her head. “I think I’d rather you decide.”
“I don’t want a name necessarily, just your thoughts on a few things. For instance, would you want a third and in what capacity? And if you do, do you want it to be a stranger or someone you know? And if you think you’d like someone you know, would it be better for you if they were in the Partners group or someone you won’t see frequently?”
“I haven’t given this any thought.” She was shaking her head gently. “You have to give me time to wrap my head around it. I don’t think I want a third, but I do like the idea of increasing public play and I’m not opposed to doing more scenes with another Dom. But I don’t want it to be any more than what we’ve already done with Jeff and the others. And I know I don’t like the thought of a stranger. I mean, the stranger fantasy we do is fun. But I don’t think I’d like to be in a scene with someone I don’t know.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Those are my thoughts right now and as for who? Someone I know from the Partners group or the New York one.” She picked a pen up from off my desk and spun it around. “Daniel and Jeff are out; they’re in relationships themselves and neither of them wants to play with anyone else. That leaves Cole or William Greene or Evan Martin. I’m not sure the New York group is an option. We haven’t met with them in forever.”
“No to Evan Martin, he’s a bit too flippant for my taste.” He was a good Dominant, but I didn’t care for his juvenile behavior outside the playroom. “William Greene I could talk to. Cole’s out. He told me he doesn’t serve as third for people he’s in a group with.”
“Just as well,” she said, but didn’t expand further. “And who were you thinking of if we went outside the Partners group?”
“There are several people I had in mind, but the one I think would be the best is Luke.”
“Oh,” she said, a look of mild shock in her expression. “I hadn’t thought about him.” She was quiet for a minute. “But he makes sense.”
“You don’t have to decide right now. I just wanted you to think about it.”
“I wonder if it’d be strange if we asked someone from the Group. Would it make things weird when I saw them in the future? Like, would that be the first thing to pop into my head when I saw them?”
“It would only be as weird as you let it be. If you tell yourself it was just a scene, an experience, it might not be that weird. But you also need to think about the future. If we asked William and then months from now, he had a serious relationship, would you feel strange having played with him before?”
“I don’t know. When we’re with our New York group, we’re with women you played with and it’s not odd for me.”
“Yes, but it’s been years since I’ve played with anyone else.” There were only two women still in the New York group whom I’d played with in the past. The rest had moved away or joined another group. “If we pick someone here in Wilmington, you’ll see them frequently.”
Talking about the New York group made me wonder if Charlene was in a group. Abby and I hadn’t been to a meeting with them since before Henry was born. Was it possible she was in our New York group now? I probably needed to find out before Abby and I did anything with them again. And I didn’t have to think about just how weird it would be if Charlene was in the group. Seeing one of my employees naked wasn’t something I wanted to do. Not to mention, I didn’t even want to think about what Abby would say if she saw her at a function.