way you hold yourself. Only you have the seriously sexy Dom vibe, whereas Thomas rocks the seriously sexy sub vibe.”
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it. “Whoops, got to run. Another batch of cupcakes have cooled enough to be frosted, and I am the frost minion. But I hope to see you guys later. If you stay late, things get really mellow and fun during the wee hours.” She winked. “And sometimes some really intense things happen, too, if that’s also something you’d like. Nice to meet you. Tell Thomas he still owes me that dance he promised me at my wedding reception. Full on tango.”
“I’m better at it,” Rory said.
Chloe laughed. “I bet. Talk to you guys soon.”
As she hurried away, Daralyn looked at him. “Thomas agrees.”
“Agrees with what?”
“He says you used to be a way better dancer than him, before you joined the football team and decided you had to be cool.” A light smile flirted over her lips.
Rory snorted. “I’m still a better dancer than him. Chloe only thinks I was joking. I’ll take you dancing one night.”
Her eyes lit with a mix of anticipation and mild terror at the thought. Then her gaze traveled beyond him and she made a pleased noise. Following her glance, Rory saw Julie and Des headed in their direction.
While more in tune with her surroundings, Julie still looked way more mellow than her usual self, walking with a dreamy tranquility in the curve of Des’s sure arm. Chloe, who’d headed in their direction, paused to give Julie a hug and Des a brief touch on his arm before she kept moving toward her cupcake frosting task.
Then Julie saw them. Her eyes lit with joy, and she gripped Des’s arm, a non-verbal way of telling him she was all right, and hurried forward to hug Daralyn.
“You both look great,” Julie said. “But no offense, Rory, Daralyn looks so incredible.”
“None taken and I couldn’t agree more,” he responded. Daralyn did her shy, pleased smile as he tightened his grip on her hand. Could the girl do anything that didn’t squeeze his heart into pulp?
“I have to take your picture tonight to send to Les,” Julie told Daralyn. “Proof of how awesome your personal shoppers are.”
Rory offered Des a hand to shake. “That demo was incredible.”
“Really,” Daralyn echoed, shooting a glance at Des before coming back to Julie. “It was…well, incredible. I couldn’t look away.”
“She couldn’t.” Rory slid an arm around her waist, tugging her to lean against him as he stroked her hip. “She was pretty caught up in it.”
He noticed Julie’s dreamy look. “What?”
She gusted a happy sigh. “I love seeing the two of you together. Makes me feel all gooey.”
Des sent Rory the male patented women look, but it was followed up by a glance toward Julie as full of feeling as what Rory felt for Daralyn. Proving it, Des circled Julie’s waist, much as Rory had Daralyn’s, and drew her to his lean hip. “I’ll take a picture of both of our gorgeous women to send to Les. She’ll like that.”
“And one of Rory and Daralyn. So she can get gooey over them, too.”
Des nodded with a smile, then looked toward Rory. “Would you like to try it? The rope stuff?”
The question was directed solely to him. Tyler had pointed it out during the review of the rules. In this environment, Doms were asked what their subs might want. The subs weren’t asked directly. Rory had noted everything in their environment fit with that. Like whenever waitstaff had come by with food and drink, the offer had been, “Would you or your sub like one?”
Daralyn seemed entirely at ease with that. Earlier in the day, when she’d expressed, in her roundabout way, that she wasn’t always thrilled when people made decisions for her, she’d also made a point of saying she didn’t have that problem with him.
It came back to what lay between the two of them, no one else, not even someone in her past or what problems she had expressing her feelings.
So yeah, he was interested in the rope stuff. But he did a check on Daralyn’s body language. An interesting kind of tension had gripped her, like how she reacted when he gripped her wrist or throat.
During Des and Julie’s demo, Rory had watched Daralyn forget everything, get lost in it. How often did she get to let down every guard, relinquish every worry, and give herself to pure feeling?
He kept a peripheral eye on