Mr. Sir (Ball & Chain) by Jayne Kingston Read Free Book Online Page A

straightened and gave each other a wide-eyed look when a toilet flushed. Neither one of them had known anyone else was in the room.
    “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute,” Tim Greenburg said as he came out of the stall. “The two of you can go back to comparing dicks after I’m out of here.”
    Owen looked at Sanders, who said nothing. He didn’t need to.
    They turned toward Tim at the same time.

Chapter Seven
     
    Grace checked her hair and makeup one last time, turned and gave her backside another glance to make sure it looked all right in the dress she was wearing and headed downstairs. Her husband was not in the living room waiting for her with a bottle of wine like he said he’d be. She passed through the dining room to the kitchen, but he wasn’t there either.
    “Owen?”
    From the basement she heard, “Down here.”
    She huffed a sigh and went to the top of the stairs. “What on earth are you doing down there? We’re going to be late for our dinner reservation.”
    “Come here,” he called, his voice playful. Tempting. “You need to see this.”
    She touched her forehead to the doorframe, summoning a little patience. “Can it wait until after dinner? I have no idea whether this place will give our table away if we’re late or not.”
    He called her down again in a singsong voice that made her shake her head and smile. She had to take the narrow stairs sideways in her heels. At the bottom she looked around the laundry room, but he was still nowhere to be found.
    “In here,” he called through the open pantry door.
    “What on earth,” she muttered, her heels clicking on the bare concrete.
    She hadn’t been able to get in the room for three weeks because he wanted to surprise her once the room was finished. She’d thought it was strange he was making such a big deal out of a pantry, but she’d gone along with it. Letting him finish it himself meant she hadn’t had to do any more painting after all.
    She stopped just outside the door.
    Her first thought was that the walls were not painted the white they’d agreed on. They were a deep, royal purple instead. Electric lights in scrolled wall sconces flickered like candles. There was lush, dark carpet on the floor and medieval-looking wrought iron rings bolted to the walls both near the ceiling and close to the floor. Chopin was playing from the iPod dock on top of the wardrobe in the corner.
    And her husband was sitting on the corner of a sheet-draped, sturdy-legged table the length and width of a wide massage table with one foot on the floor and his other leg draped casually over the corner.
    He was barefoot and shirtless in an old pair of jeans.
    “Happy belated anniversary, baby doll,” he said. The thrill of hearing his scene name for her, in that cool, deep voice, nearly caused her knees to buckle.
    “Are you freaking kidding me?” she asked dryly.
    He calmly folded his hands over his thigh as he looked her over from head to toe. She shivered at the look of pure desire on his face.
    “Goddamn, you look good,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
    She was wearing a new dress, bought especially for their night out. It was that deep emerald green he always said was his favorite color on her. The low, square neckline showed quite a bit of the tops of her breasts, the skirt hung to her knee and the whole thing hugged her in all the right places, as though it had been designed just for her.
    “You made me scrub and primer this room for this ?” she asked.
    She ventured a step into the room and looked around. There was a wide, thickly upholstered chair big enough for both of them just to her left. A padded sawhorse with not one, but two padded rails to kneel on and several D-rings bolted to the frame stood in the back opposite the wardrobe—which was surely full of all their toys.
    “Now where the hell am I supposed to keep food when I learn to can this fall?” she asked, hands on hips. There would be no paddle if she didn’t misbehave a