Free Purely Professional by Elia Winters

up from his typing. “And I don’t have a ‘steady parade of women showing up all hours of the day and night.’ Lay off the wine.”
    Bridget stuck her tongue out at him, her nervousness making her feel a little reckless and cocky, but she set the glass back down on the table.
    “So why so long?” Max looked up.
    That question was easy to answer. “My career comes first. Relationships take time. I’ve sacrificed a lot to get where I am, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
    Max shook his head. “I get it, you don’t do relationships. But you don’t need a relationship to have sex. You’re a beautiful woman. If you wanted a sex partner, it would be easy to get one.”
    Bridget paused, a bit flustered. “Well, sex gets complicated. And I don’t want anything complicated.”
    He pointed back and forth between the two of them. “This might get complicated. We’re neighbors, and at least kind of friends. This is more than just hopping in the sack for a night. This is intimate.”
    “We’ll keep it from getting complicated, then.” Bridget shrugged. “We’re both smart, independent people, right? And I’m doing it for work, so that makes it easy.” The fact that he starred in all her sexual fantasies probably wasn’t going to help uncomplicate things, but he didn’t need to know that.
    “If you say so.” Max looked up, fingers poised over the keys. “How often do you masturbate?”
    All right, it was going this direction now. In some ways, this felt less personal than the previous questions. “A few times a week. Three times, maybe? Sometimes more. Depends on the week.”
    “Right, fourteen months without sex.” He kept typing, revealing nothing. “Do you own any sex toys?”
    “Yeah, a few.”
    “Be specific.”
    “A dildo and a vibrator. Oh, and a pair of handcuffs.”
    “Ever use them?”
    “Of course. They’re sex toys. I don’t have them as coffee table decorations.” Bridget rolled her eyes.
    “The handcuffs too?” Max clarified.
    “No, not those. I told you last week at Starbucks, I’ve never done that.”
    “Why’d you buy them, then?” Max folded his hands on the keyboard, curious.
    Bridget paused, struggling to answer the question. Why had she bought them? “I thought they might be fun.”
    “So you only have two sex toys?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Which one’s your favorite?”
    “It depends on my mood.”
    Max crossed his ankle over his knee and studied her over his glasses, not typing anymore. “Ever had sex with a woman?”
    “No.”
    “Ever fantasized about it?”
    She studied him. “Maybe.”
    “Maybe’s not an honest answer.”
    “All right, yes. But I fantasize about a lot of things.”
    “Like what?”
    Bridget paused. How much should she reveal? He’d said trust was essential, but she didn’t want to just confess everything right away.
    “You’re blushing.” Max’s smile was teasing. “What’s making you blush?”
    “All right. Most of my lovers have been…less experienced than me. I sometimes wonder what it would be like with someone who knows what he’s doing.” There, that was innocuous enough, right? He didn’t have to know the dirty details.
    He nodded, seemingly satisfied, turning back to his computer.
    “Ever been in a threesome?”
    “No. What is this, some kind of purity test?”
    He ignored that comment. “Ever had anal sex?”
    “No.”
    “Do you own any lingerie?”
    “Not really. A silk nightgown. A garter belt and stockings.”
    “What are your boundaries? Is there anything you wouldn’t try?” Max’s hands hovered above the keyboard as he waited for her answer.
    Bridget paused. “I don’t really know what my options are,” she admitted. “I guess I would be open to just about anything, but I don’t know what I’d actually like .”
    “You probably won’t know until you try it.” Max’s word choice wasn’t lost on Bridget. Somewhere during the conversation, this had stopped being