Because it didn’t. Or, at least, what happened didn’t mean a thing. I can handle a new sub for a night, but, as I told Sunny from the start, I am absolutely not in the market for anything lasting. And that’s a permanent condition.
As an experienced Dom, I may not like when a woman refuses aftercare, but once she leaves of her own volition, it is no longer my problem.
“Fine? Just fine?” Lucas’s disbelief rubs me the wrong way. “Bet you anything she’ll be back. ’Cause that little scene seemed like a hell of a lot more than justfine.”
“Yeah? Well, good.” I turn to look across the club floor at where members are gathering in groups, some already playing, others planning a session or just hanging out the way people are doing all over the city at this hour. “I hope she does come back. I’m sure she’ll make some Dom very, very happy.” I give him a bland smile.
“Sure, bud. Whatever you say.” Lucas leans in and gives me a long look of concern. “You’re tired as hell. Been burning the candle at both ends, man. Why don’t you head on home? We got it covered here. Go and get some rest. Give yourself a minute to come down.” Giving my upper arm a solid thud, he takes off into the crowd, his head a foot above everyone else’s, grinning like a fool.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rae
IGET OUT, GRABmy stuff from a busy, smiling Daff, and race up the club’s stairs like I’m being chased by a pack of rabid dogs, quietly mouthing the lyrics to “Guns and Ships” fromHamiltonthe way I do whenever I move quickly.
I had to get out of there, right that minute. It was all too much. Too intense, too real, and then the speed-dating thing ended, and I snapped out of it and understood that none of it was real at all. It was pure fantasy, and I’d fallen face-first into the deep end. The scene finished, and I was standing there looking at that guy, that stranger, who’d barely touched me and somehow made me feel so much more than I’d ever felt with Brendan or anyone before him, and suddenly, I was drowning.
“Have a good time?” Harlow asks as I burst out onto the brick sidewalk and suck in my first breath of crisp, early-fall air.
I blink at the lights and the traffic and all the ordinary, everyday things that oddly didn’t magically melt down while I was downstairs getting my whole world blown wide open. “Yeah.” The truth rises up like a fresh sunrise. I did it. I went to a BDSM club, and I did the Dom/sub thing. “It was amazing.”
“Guess you’re one of us, then, huh? That mean you’ll be comin’ back?”
I hesitate, unsure if it’s a good or terrible idea to regularly partake in something so absolutely cataclysmic. “I don’t know.”
“No?”
“It was a lot.” Understatement of the freaking century.
“You okay?” She steps closer. “Sure you don’t want to stick around for a while? Maybe wind down? Just hang out and chill?”
“I need to go.”
“Safe to get home?”
“Yep. Parked over there.”
“That’s right. The Honda.” She snorts. “You sat there for like ten minutes before getting out.”
“Come on. Give a shy girl a break.”
“Shy? More like scared shitless.” Smirking, Harlow watches a group of people approach, dressed in club wear and carrying sports bags and rolling suitcases, no doubt full of BDSM and fetish gear. “Next time, instead of lurking all night, you can hang with me until you’re ready to go in.”
“Next time I’ll walk right in.” If there is a next time. Do I want a next time? “But hanging out sounds fun too. Thanks.”
She gives me a friendly elbow nudge and takes IDs from a couple of the people now crowding the entrance. “See you soon, then.”
With a final wave, I head to my car, get in, lock my doors, and let out a long, uneven exhale before turning on my phone. Hands shaking, I text my best friend.
Me: Done.
Samantha: Whut?
Me: The club. The Dom/sub thing. I went.
Immediately, the phone rings. I start the engine, pull out into the late-night Richmond, Virginia, traffic, and accept the call.
“Youskank, how could you?” Samantha’s not happy. She takes her role as my best friend very seriously. More seriously, actually, than her role as Sugar’s coms director, which is frankly too bad.
