“Know what?” I said, cutting him off just as he was about to speak. “I don’t want to start our first official date with the gloomies. Forget I asked. And hey, I saw how you were practically a kid in a candy shop at the aquarium. The zoo is probably right up your alley, isn’t it?”
The darkness in his expression still didn’t fade completely, but he made the effort of forcing a smile for me. “Guilty as charged.”
“I should also mention that I am extremely well connected around here. I pulled a few strings and arranged for us to have a private elephant encounter.” I mimicked blowing some dust off my fingernails and then brushed my shoulder.
Landon’s smile looked a little more genuine now. “You’re making that up, right?”
I flashed a smug smile. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”
Little by little, Landon’s mood improved throughout the morning. We started with the monkeys. When one of the gorillas pooped in his own hand, then smeared it on his head, I thought Landon was going to gag. A few minutes later, a bonobo threw up in its own hand and started eating it, at which point Landon really did gag.
I laughed as we retreated from the primate section of the zoo. Landon looked pale, but he was at least grinning faintly.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for someone with a weak stomach.”
“I’ve never liked monkeys. They’re like twisted, evil little naked humans.”
I burst out with a surprised laugh. “Definitely not. Most of them are super sweet. It’s more like they are freakishly strong toddlers.”
“Right. Because a toddler who can rip your arms off and beat you to death with them isn’t one of the most horrible things I can imagine.”
By the time we had fed the giraffes and watched the penguins fail to shuffle out of their exhibit because the ones at the front kept falling and knocking the others down like bowling pins, Landon’s mood was drastically improved.
I felt a little twinge of pride that I could cheer him up. I also felt strangely sad that he didn’t seem to try to pick up where we left off. I only had myself to blame, of course. I’d told him kissing him was a mistake. I probably would’ve needed to worry if he was still trying to put moves on me. But a very stupid side of me still wanted him to try. It was like I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t at least try to push him away, but it didn’t mean I wanted to succeed. I was playing a very dumb game of conditions with myself, where it wasn’t the outcome that determined if I was a bad person—it was how I got there.
Neither of us were particularly hungry after the atrocities we saw from the monkeys, so we settled for ice creams, which we ate in a pretty area by the pond surrounded by flowers.
“How am I doing?” Landon asked.
“Well,” I reached up and wipeda little smear of chocolate ice cream from the tip of his nose, “you eat ice cream about as carefully as a small child.” I licked the ice cream off my finger without thinking, then paused and blushed.
Landon’s eyes were still on where I’d sucked the ice cream off my finger. “I was talking about your general level of comfort. This date was to convince yourself it wasn’t crazy to finish the list with me, right?”
“I usually try not to sign sex contracts with men until the third date. So, if I end up signing that thing after only two, you’ll know you did really well.”
Landon chuckled. “I thought you weren’t counting the aquarium as a date. But hey, I’ll take it.”
“So, why here? Other than your inside connection.”
“I was serious. You looked so happy at the aquarium. I just figured you were an animal lover and…”
Landon was smiling.
“What?”
“It’s just interesting,” he said. “Women I’ve dated… They don’t—” he paused, running his tongue over his teeth and frowning at something. “I appreciate this. It was thoughtful. I’m more used to lazy flourishes—like front row tickets to a basketball game or something.”
“You’re welcome. But don’t give me too much credit. I’m too broke for a lazy flourish. Being piss poor does wonders for your creativity,” I said. “So, I was right? You’re super into animals, aren’t you? Do you know all the scientific names and that kind of thing? Habitats, mating patterns?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “The truth is my thing with the aquarium is a little more sentimental than anything else.”
He focused on his ice cream, as if he was going to get away with dropping that little nugget of curiosity and moving on.
“Sentimental how?” I asked.
Landon looked up, and it was clear he was deciding whether he wanted to go into more detail. Finally, he licked his lips, wadded up his napkin, and set it inside his ice cream bowl. “My brother and I had a little bit of an up and down childhood. Mostly it was because our dad could never decide if he wanted to be a shitty father or a good one. But I had this birthday one year. I was turning nine, and I guess he’d been shitty for a couple months and the guilt got to him. So he took me to that aquarium, just me and him. Normally, he’d just kind of complain at places like that or find somewhere to get a beer and zone out while he let us wander.”
“That time though,” Landon said. His eyes had gone distant, like he was seeing it in his mind. “He stayed with me the whole time. Didn’t touch a drop of alcohol. He read the plaques to me, told me about the animals, and even paid the extra money for the dolphin encounter. It wasn’t like him at all, and I just remember all day I couldn’t stop thinking about how I wanted to kind of bottle it up. I knew the shitty ones were going to come again, but I thought if I could just sort of capture that moment, I could live with it.”
When he stopped talking and looked at me, he seemed to realize what he’d just said. Landon laughed at himself. “Sorry. That all sounds really pathetic. Doesn’t it?”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.” I suddenly felt like the world’s biggest asshole for teasing him about liking the aquarium. I was also fairly sure he was just being nice about liking the zoo visit, too. “Jesus,” I said suddenly. “And I bring you here, which probably just makes you think about all that. I’m sorry. We can go somewhere else if you want.”
“I’m happy right here.”
Our eyes met, and as a few seconds ticked by, it felt like his words began to take on new meaning. I found myself smiling and biting my lip. “Well,” I said. “Do you want to get up close and personal with some elephants?”
“You really were serious about that?”
“When it comes to elephants, I don’t joke around.”
As promised, one of Bree’s best friends, Luna, let us sneak into the elephant enclosure a little while later. We got to hand feed the baby elephant, hose them down, and even sit on the leg of an adult elephant to pose for pictures. Landon tried to scowl when I made him pose with me, but I could tell he was enjoying himself.
We thanked Luna when it was over and walked back toward the exit. It felt like neither of us knew exactly what to do. I didn’t want the night to be over yet, but I also didn’t want to weird him out by suggesting we go walk around and look at the same exhibits again. So we headed for the exit in relative silence.
When we reached the parking lot, I was still thinking about his comment. I’m happy right here. What surprised me most about it was how good it felt to know I had made him happy. The more I learned about Landon, the more I saw how broken he must be on the inside. I liked that I could be the one to help him forget about all the pain in his past. There was still something he wasn’t telling me, but I was making progress, which was starting to feel like it was enough, for now.
“Well,” Landon said when we reached the point where we’d both need to head separate ways. My Uber was waiting, and his car was parked farther back. The poor side of me had considered taking him up on his offer to give me a ride, but the practical part of me had been worried the pressure to go back to his place with him when our day was over would be too great.
“Wel
l,” I said, bobbing up and down on my tiptoes a few times.
“Final verdict?” he asked.
I made a show of thinking hard. “I’ll look at the contract. No promises about signing it.”
Landon nodded, but once again, he seemed distracted.
“Is something wrong?”
He furrowed his brows. Just before he spoke, my Uber driver leaned out of the window.
“You almost ready?” the driver asked. “I’m going to miss out on peak hours in the city if we don’t get rolling.”
Landon waved me off. “Go ahead. Meet me at the club tomorrow night?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Sounds good.”
There was a moment of awkwardness. It almost felt like I should lean in and give him a kiss, but he turned to leave before I could make a decision.
I spent the ride back to the hotel thinking about everything, but by the time I arrived, I didn’t feel closer to understanding anything.
Landon sat behind a large, highly polished desk in his office within The Golden Pecker. I squinted at him from across the desk, wondering how long he planned to sit and scribble something on a notepad.
If nothing else, it gave me time to think. Particularly, I was most interested in trying to puzzle out where he and I stood now. Usually, two dates, two mindblowing kisses, and an impromptu bondage session would’ve made me think we were a couple.
But we weren’t a couple. I knew it wasn’t that simple, partly because I’d made a solid effort to dispel that idea after our second kiss. Current me wasn’t sure I was exactly pleased with past me for that one, but maybe it was for the best. I enjoyed being around him, sometimes because he was so easy to irritate when he was trying to be all serious. But other times, I couldn’t help falling into the age-old trap of wanting to fix him.
For all his apparent success, Landon seemed broken. His rougher side was more like scar tissue—a protective layer of shielding that hadn’t had the chance to heal fully. Then again, I guess scars never really healed, which would mean my analogy only illustrated how much I was wasting my time.
“Where do you even find a sweater like that?” he finally asked.
Just because I’d wanted to rile him up, I’d worn my lazy reading outfit of sweatpants and an oversized unicorn sweater. Yes, it even had a plushy, glittery gold horn that jutted out of my chest. He’d had to walk me through the whole club while I was wearing it, and I hoped it had embarrassed him.
I actually had an entire stockpile of sweaters like this, but I had been a little to embarrassed to bring Landon in on my collection. Until now.
“The internet,” I said. “But I had to sew the horn on myself.” I gave it a little flick, which made it wobble suggestively.
Landon rolled his eyes, grinning.
“So, did you have me come here to admire your penmanship, or are you going to show me the contract?”
He loosened his tie and pulled it free, then unbuttoned his collar. I felt my traitorous eyes scanning his neckline for hints of the tanned, muscled flesh I knew lay beneath.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” I said. “If your pants are bothering you, why not toss those off too? And who needs underwear, right?”
“I can put my tie back on if you’re too distracted to focus.”
I sighed. “No. Go on.”
He nodded, running a hand through his hair before opening the first page of the contract for me.
“Some of the verbiage here—out of context,” he added carefully. “It may not be terminology you’re used to. The important thing to remember is this is more of a formality so we can establish your hard boundaries now, without intruding on the moment down the line.”
I watched him with a skeptically raised eyebrow. “This sounds ridiculous. You know that, right?”
“So long as this contract is in effect,” he continued, once again ignoring me. “You will be my… property.”
Now my eyebrows were threatening to slide up into my hairline. “Is this some of that ‘verbiage’ you warned me about?”
“Yes.”
“Why would somebody willingly agree to be the property of somebody else?”
“It’s intentionally worded in a way that is difficult to swallow. Ultimately, the idea is you’d agree to become my submissive. In this club, you would be like my property. Outside The Golden Pecker, none of this contract would apply, unless we wished.”
“And how do you treat your property?” I asked, even though I could hardly believe I was still considering this. The truth was, I didn’t just want to keep exploring the list because of the potential inheritance. Actually, the real truth was there was no amount of money that would’ve made me go through a list like this. Landon was the little flickering flame of interest that kept me coming back, and over time, it was becoming less of a spark and more of a wildfire. I’d felt something when I was under his control at the aquarium and when I was sitting beside him in The Red Room. I’d felt a dirty, exhilarating thrill that I still craved more of.
“In this case,” Landon said. “I would treat her delicately, even if she had a sour mouth and an inability to take anything seriously.”
“My mouth tasted sour?” I asked, blushing.
Landon’s eyes flicked up at that. I thought I even saw the hint of a smirk. “I was talking about the words that come out of it. But no. You tasted…” He trailed off, then sat up a little straighter. We hadn’t talked about our kiss from the other night in the club, and the subject seemed to make him as uncomfortable as it made me.
“I just take dental hygiene very seriously,” I said. “So, if I had bad breath, I’d have wanted to know. Floss, brush, mouthwash. People don’t realize you’re supposed to floss first, but, yeah. You knock all those particles out from between your teeth after brushing and they just sit in there, causing mayhem. Gingivitis is no joke,” I added quietly.
Landon was watching me with a flicker of amusement behind his eyes. “You’re nervous. Nervous that you’re going to accept the terms of this contract, even though it frightens you. Nervous that you’ll like it.”
“I’ve only heard the first sentence of the thing.”
Landon read through the rest of the contract, collecting and marking my preferences. In some cases, I had to answer that I didn’t know if I’d enjoy something, like having my toes sucked on, because no guy had ever decided to try that. I even had to describe spots on my body that were particularly ticklish, as well as go over my medical history. There were a few boxes I noticed Landon made a check mark in the “No” box without even asking my preference.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Things I don’t participate in, even if my submissive requested them.”
“You mean there’s something too pervy, even for you?”
“Everybody has their preferences.”
I pursed my lips. Fine. Be mysterious. I stared at him as he clinically finished going through the contract, including several prying questions about my sexual history.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask, but I may choose not to answer.” Was his reply.
“Why do you want this club so badly? Couldn’t you just start your own without having to worry about the shadow of my grandfather hanging over it? Or some other kind of business?”
He didn’t answer right away. I saw that familiar look on his face—the one I saw every time I knew he was struggling to dig the truth up from somewhere deep. “Because I don’t have the money to start my own. And I need the money this club generates.”
I tilted my head. “But your car… your clothes. You’re loaded, right?”
He looked ashamed, shaking his head. “Your grandfather was careful to make sure I could appear that way, yes. But he was also petty enough to only pay me the bare minimum to keep food on my table. Everything else is technically his property, even now.”
“Why?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I believed him—like the person he was talking about couldn’t be the
Grandpa Willy I’d known my whole life.
“That’s a story I’m not ready to share. Not yet,” he added.
I frowned. More and more, I suspected the story had something to do with me, even if I couldn’t piece together how that would be possible. I decided I was nearly done being patient with him. Maybe I was wrong, and I had no business knowing his secrets, but I did know I was the one putting my neck on the line with him. It was my heart that was in danger of getting smashed to pieces, and I wasn’t willing to be vulnerable forever.
“Fine,” I said. “But you need to find a way to tell me. Soon,” I added.
When the time finally came for me to ink my name at the bottom of the list, I couldn’t help looking up at the man sitting across from me. As usual, he seemed to attract the shadows so that his otherwise perfect features took on a sinister turn.
Landon tapped his finger impatiently on the line with the red “X” beside it. “Are you going to sign?”
I picked up the pen, gave him one last glare for good measure, and wrote down my name.
16
Landon
Grant found me in my office at The Golden Pecker, where I was going over the latest financial figures. The club was wildly profitable, which was thanks to the way William had decided to structure the memberships. Becoming a member of The Golden Pecker wasn’t a right, it was a privilege, and it was a privilege only obscene amounts of money could buy. The eye-watering price had quickly turned The Golden Pecker into a status symbol that New York’s wealthy elite needed to have attached to their name. Over seventy percent of our membership dues came from people who had never set foot inside the club more than once in the past year.
But they had the coin with the Golden Pecker emblem on it, which meant they got what they were paying for. And that meant our finances for the quarter were as ridiculous as usual.
I looked up at Grant expectantly. “Two visits in a single week?” I had a suspicion I knew why he’d come. I’d all but ignored the warning he had passed to me at the apartment a few days ago. I was letting the rumors boil and fester, and it was all because my situation with Andi made me feel paralyzed. It was like the Minesweeper game I used to play when I was a kid, only every available move nearly guaranteed I’d land on an explosive mine. The only play was to sit still for as long as I could.
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