Zansi Patel was going to hyperventilate. She tried holding her breath. She bit her lip, and tried to look away, but she couldn’t.

The man looked like a walking sex fantasy. His powerful well-muscled body moved with easy grace. He was tall, maybe 6’4” with biceps that would make grown women weep to be embraced by. The muscles rippling under his white button up shirt quickened her pulse. His narrow waist meant he would have that sexy V rippling from his abs. Holy mother of God it was getting hot in here.

She watched, like she did every day, from the secrecy of the window with the drapes to hide her voyeuristic acts.

The man carried himself with a commanding air of self-confidence. Why wouldn’t he, he was like a real-life god. The sunglasses he wore hid some of his face, but she could see enough to know that too was godlike. His profile spoke of power and ageless strength. The set of his chin suggested a stubborn streak. And his hair, well, his hair was like spun gold. The silky strands were cut short and always looked as though he had run his hands through the locks in frustration.

Her fingers itched to do just that. The ache between her legs was getting stronger every time she saw him. The wetness gushed, muscles tensed, her heart rate and respiration increased, and her nipples hardened to pebbles.

“You know how creepy you’re being, right?”

Zansi yelped and grabbed at the drape pulling the rod and material down to the floor in a heap. Standing there panting, she watched as her neighbor, the sex god, looked up as he was opening his car door. He must have heard her yelp.

Now would be a good time for the earth to open up and swallow her whole. But instead, she just stood there frozen as the sex god looked directly at her before getting in his silver sports car.

Her body was still in a state of frozen animation as she stood there pathetically watching her fantasy back out of his driveway.

The moment the car was out of sight, she turned all her pent-up sexual frustration towards her brother. She raised her hands to tell him not to bother trying to humiliate her any more than she already was.

When her eyes locked onto him, she could see he was laughing hysterically. He had to hang onto the kitchen island to keep from bending over in his fit of laughter.

“Just what is so funny? The fact that you brutally humiliated me is not funny in the least.”

My brother stopped to catch his breath. “I humiliated you?” he asked before starting to laugh hysterically again.

Huffing, she stepped over the pile of drapery on the floor and made her way to the coffee pot. She poured two cups even though he in no way deserved a cup of coffee.

When she handed her brother his coffee, he sobered.

“Really, Z, why don’t you just go over and introduce yourself to him.”

Zansi almost choked on her coffee.

“Yeah right. Like I would stand a chance with a man like that!” she said, looking down at her old pink chenille bathrobe that had seen a full decade, and looked like it. It had been a gift from her father, so she was loathed to get rid of it. When she was younger, Zansi watched the oldies channel and had fallen in love with the show Laverne and Shirley. Her father had gotten her the bathrobe and had her mother embroider a big Z on the lapel as a Christmas present.

Her brother rolled his eyes. “Apart from this,” he said, making a sweeping gesture up and down my torso, “you’re a beautiful, smart woman. He would be lucky to go on a date with you.”

Zansi made a face at him. “The only ones that think I’m beautiful are my newborn patients. And keep in mind, they can’t fully see right after birth.”

Her brother picked up his keys. “I’m your brother so it would be weird to tell you that you were sexy, which I’m definitely not telling you that, but with that said, I have seen the way men stare at you. I just don’t understand why you don’t see it.”

“Ewww, that is weird. Go to work, weirdo.”

Her brother grinned and waved as he walked out the front door.

Zansi opened the freezer and pulled out her already opened chocolate bar. She took a bite and the chocolatey goodness melted on her tongue. There was nothing quite like the first cup of coffee and chocolate to get you going in the morning.

***

Flynn was in a shitty mood this morning. It started with the nanny he had hired a month ago to live in his house, who showed up in his bed naked in the middle of the night. She was attractive, he guessed, but he hadn’t hired her to fill his bed, he had plenty that would do that, he had hired her for his newborn niece. Now he was going to have to find a new nanny. Fuck.

Because of the naked bed debacle, and the fact that his niece had cried for most of the night, he was up earlier than usual. Which turned out to be a good thing because his manager called to tell him that one of the masters that worked for him was sick. He believed his friend was sick but not from the flu; he would guess too much whiskey.

His friend, Jack, had been with him almost since the inception of Club Bliss. The S&M club had been cooking in his head since he was in college. On a boy’s trip to Vegas one weekend, they found themselves in a sex club. It was a bit sketchy, but the general vibe was so different from any other bar he’d been in. It seemed that everyone in the club had their own kinks and felt free to act them out. It was wild and freeing at the same time.

It was a weekend he would never forget, and it firmly lodged the idea of his very own sex club. It turned out to be one of the hottest, most exclusive clubs in Seattle, Club Bliss.

When he got out of business school, he moved to Seattle and started searching for funding to open his dream.

It took a hot minute to get that funding, but he was street smart and could read anybody, which helped in this business, but it was his business acumen, and not his street smarts, that sealed the deal. The club's backers knew they stood to make a huge amount of money. And they certainly had not been disappointed.

The other reason he was in a shitty mood was Master Jack had a morning client. Not just any client, it was Sally. Every person that worked for him, man, or woman, knew Sally. She had a variety of kinks. More than the average female, you could say.

Today, Sally must have wanted a quickie before a big board meeting because she had only booked a ninety-minute session. Sally was the CEO of a major insurance company and had bigger balls, metaphorically speaking, than most men he knew. She was married with two kids and a dog. Club Bliss was her stress relief. Whatever got you through, right?

Sally requested, as she usually did, the torture chamber. Flynn wasn’t a fan of that scene, but Jack excelled in the Torture Chamber. Flynn preferred bondage. When he had a woman secured in handcuffs and at his mercy, Jesus, he was in heaven. There’s nothing quite like it.

He whipped his silver Mercedes Benz coupe into his parking space in the back of the building. Sighing, he got out and looked lovingly at his car. That car was the first major purchase he’d made with cash when the club took off and soared into the stratosphere. As much as he loved his coupe, it wasn’t very practical with a baby. Tomorrow he was handing over the keys and coming home with a safe, albeit expensive, Volvo.

The club was quiet as he entered. At night the walls vibrated with music and sexual energy. This morning, it would be only Sally, him and the club manager, Chris Bloom.

Flynn hadn’t been in his office for ten minutes when Chris popped his head in.

“Morning, boss.”

“Morning,” Flynn mumbled.

“How’s baby Alice?”

Moving his head around until his neck cracked, Flynn sighed.

“Baby Alice is sleeping peacefully at the moment. However, that wasn’t the case most of the night.”

Chris looked confused. “I thought you had a nanny?”

The mention of said nanny made my anger spike.

“I do, but the sound of a baby crying is hardly conducive to sleep. The only way she calmed down was when I rocked her.”

“Aww, that’s sweet.”

Flynn gave Chris a look that told him that there was nothing sweet about being up half the night with a crying baby and then having to be at work first thing in the morning.

Chris cleared his throat, getting the message.

“Um … Sally is waiting in the chamber.”

Suddenly, the torture chamber didn’t seem so unappealing now. Maybe hearing Sally scream and a good hard fucking is just what the doctor ordered.