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      L. Michaels. 555-1914.

      Hot damn. She’d called.

      Josh sat back in his desk chair and swiveled around with his fingers steepled together. Should he wait to see if she’d call him back? He looked over at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was already 10:15. Maybe she’d think it was too late to call. Or maybe she’d chickened out and decided not to go through with it.

      He doubted that. No way could someone come up with an ad asking a man if he knew what to do with a big spankable ass and be afraid to leave a message. Or would she? Maybe someone put her up to it, or it was all a joke.

      Best way to find out was to call her and see if she was all bluff or if she was serious. He quickly pressed the button for last call return and ignored the unsettled feeling in his stomach as he waited for her to answer the phone.

      The jarring of the phone woke Lilliana out of a light doze and after she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, she answered with a croaky, “’ello.”

      “Hello, is this L. Michaels?” a man asked in a voice so deep and sexy, Lilliana woke up completely and bumped her head against her wrought iron headboard in her haste to sit up.

      “Ouch!” she said and rubbed her head.

      “Are you okay?” deep and sexy asked.

      “Uh, yes. I’m fine. Thanks. This is Lilliana Michaels…may I help you?” She squinted her eyes in the dark of the room to search out the time on her alarm clock, afraid she’d somehow overslept and was late getting up for work. When she saw the time she breathed a sigh of relief. She must have fallen asleep after she’d spoken to Melinda.

      “Hi, Lilliana. My name is Joshua. Josh Ellis.”

      It took a minute for the name to register and when it did Lilliana gasped. “The guy who answered my ad, right?”

      “What ad? Oh! The big spankable…” He left the last word off and Lilly felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. “You’re the woman who placed the ad in the Reader—I was wondering who you were. You called but didn’t leave a message. I’ve been getting a lot of that lately and just decided to call back. Why didn’t you leave a message? Did I answer the ad correctly?” He asked the questions back to back.

      Lilliana had to clear her head. He had caller ID—well, who didn’t? But he didn’t have her address and she wasn’t going to give it to him.

      “Yes, yes you did. I called but…”

      “Chickened out and decided not to leave a message?”

      “No-o,” she dragged the word out. “I wouldn’t say that.”

      “No?” He laughed and his laugh was as deep and sexy as his voice. Either it had been way too long since she’d gotten any, or she was one nasty heffa, as she felt moist between her legs from the way he teased her.

      She laughed with him, reluctantly. “Okay, maybe I did.” She suddenly felt a bit more at ease with the conversation. “And yes, you did answer the ad right,” she finished.

      “So what’s my prize? I believe the ad mentioned the game beginning? I can’t tell you what type of images that brought to mind,” he said.

      “Oh really? Well, I hadn’t gone that far in my thinking. I didn’t expect anyone to guess it! And after all of your apple answers…”

      “Yeah, sorry about that. Like I said in the e-mail, I was hungry when I read it.”

      “Sure you were!” she laughed and continued, “I was surprised when you guessed right. How did you come up with the right answer?”

      “I’m kinky. It comes naturally for my mind to think along those lines,” he said. She could have sworn he was laughing although his voice was perfectly normal-sounding.

      “Kinky? Just how kinky are we talking? Whips, chains—what?” She held her breath waiting to see if he’d confirm her worst fears and say he was some kind of freaky-ass dominant, like the ones Lee had enlightened her about over lunchtime. After he’d told her about spankings he’d gone on a long diatribe about the whole BDSM lifestyle that had scared the mess out of her. Although…

      The idea of this sexy-voiced man tying her up and doing some of the things Lee told her about filled her with a strange expectation that made no sense at all.

      “No, none of that. I’m more into the sweeter side of submission.” He laughed again. Lilliana couldn’t tell from his voice if he were joking with her or serious. “What about you? I gather from your ad that you’ve been…spanked before?”

      Josh waited to hear what she’d say. He was hoping the luscious beauty was into spankings, because she’d captured his attention from the minute he’d set eyes on her. He conjured up the image of her sweet, round ass swaying in the full peasant skirt, which in turn had his imagination running wild with how he’d like to slap that ass and then kiss it till it wasn’t sore anymore.

      He wasn’t into the BDSM scene, by any stretch of the imagination, he just enjoyed a bit of light bondage and spanking and he hoped that she did also. With that nice, full round ass of hers…he longed to feel how soft and smooth it was as he smacked her ass and plunged his dick deep inside her warm pussy.

      After a significant pause she answered in her soft voice, “No. I’ve never been spanked. I’ve been…hit, but I didn’t like it.” Her laugh was in no way humorous.

      Her words made him pause as well. That didn’t sound good. He wasn’t sure if she was playing a game or not, but it sounded as though she’d been hurt. “It can be good with the right person, Lilliana. In the right situation. And a light spanking is a hell of a lot different than someone hitting you. But you have to feel comfortable with it. It definitely can’t be forced on you. I would never do something to a woman that she didn’t want done.”

      “That’s good to know,” was all that she said.

      “Can I ask you a question?” As they’d been speaking, Josh had carried the phone into his bedroom and had removed his clothes as they spoke and was now lying down, naked, on top of the light quilt.

      “Sure.”

      “Why did you take out an ad with that acronym if you’re not into spankings?”

      She paused before answering. “As a lark, I guess. Partially. I don’t know.” Could he hear the nervousness in her voice? “Like I said, I didn’t think anyone would answer.”

      “Well, I did. So where do we go from here?” As he spoke to her, he cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear, and lay propped against a few pillows.

      “Where do you want to go?”

      “I don’t think you’re ready to hear that yet.” He laughed at her and laughed even harder when she answered, “nasty ass,” and then giggled. Damn, she had a cute giggle. She sounded all of fifteen years old, but he knew for certain she was over the age of consent.

      “You’d be surprised,” she said and his interest was piqued even more. During their twenty-minute conversation she had already presented an intriguing mixture of innocence and naughtiness that had him ready to explore which side of her would show up in bed. He could only imagine what a combination of the two would be.

      “Would you go out on a date with me, Lilliana?”

      “A date?” she asked. He refrained from commenting on her clear surprise. From the words and the way she said it, she obviously thought he just wanted to fuck her. Spank her and fuck her, to be precise. Not that he didn’t want to do both, but he found himself wanting to do more than that with her.

      “Yes, Lilliana, a date.”

      “Like where?”

      “How about the Navy Pier Friday?” As soon as he said it, he remembered the new client that his uncle had assigned to him. He was supposed to