“If you could just sign this waiver?”
The slight shake to my hand makes my regular signature look like a five-year-old’s. Oh well. No one’s seeing that anyway. One big selling point on the club’s website is how cutting-edge their security apparently is, both physical and online. My identity is safe here.
“What do we call you?”
“I don’t know.” Oh, right. I need a kink name. Something that represents me, but I don’t even know who I am at this point. “I hadn’t planned on anything. I’m just curious, you know?”
“Newbie sub… Alice? Like Wonderland? Or just, like Ray? Ray of Sunshine? Or, oh, hey, how about Little Miss Sunshine? No, no, no, I got it.Sunny!That works, right?”
“Sunny,” I repeat under my breath, feeling a little less like a fraud under Daff’s care. “I like that.”
“Here you go, lovely.” She hands me a matte black name tag. In silver, she’s written:
SUNNY–SUB
MEN
BE NICE, I’M NEW.
“Oh, here’s a copy of the checklist you filled out on our website. In case you decide to share it during speed dating. Sometimes helps to know right away if someone’s a match.”
“Oh, great idea.” The club provided eight pages ofwants andmaybes andhell, nos to go through before I could even sign up for tonight. I look down at the list, my eyes snagging on Blindfold (yes), skipping to Breast Bondage (maybe), Cages (hard no), Collars (maybe), and then on down to Spanking (yes) before I meet Daff’s gaze again.
“Alrighty then. Come on, Sunny.” She pushes through a heavy steel door. “Let’s find you the Dom of your dreams.”
CHAPTER TWO
Grant
“HOW’S IT LOOKING BACKthere?” asks Lucas, aka Tank, as I crouch to shove the tools behind the bar.
“It’ll survive the night,” I say, ever the optimist.
“That good, huh?”
“I took care of the leak. For now. But we can’t get the private playrooms up and running again until we replace the plumber’s mess.” Which isn’t in my damn budget. Standing with a groan, I stretch my back and wash my hands at the bar sink. This is why I hate subcontracting, and so often end up doing things myself. At least I know it’ll be done right.
He gives me a sidelong glance. “You want me to fire the guy who did the work?”
I snort. Lucas is the closest thing I’ve ever met to a human teddy bear. Firing people just isn’t in his wheelhouse. Thankfully, with someone like me around, he never has to be the bad guy. Unless he’s playing, of course. In which case, being the bad guy is exactly his thing. “My building, my responsibility.”
“Thanks, man. We talking a lot of work?” The look I give him makes him flinch. “Shit. I know being a landlord wasn’t the plan.”
And yet somehow, here I am, property manager and fix-itman to three different businesses. Definitely not what I envisioned when I bought this building. I’d planned to buy, renovate, and sell. Short-term, low commitment. Just the way I like things.
I grab a beer before glancing up at my friend, who’s standing there, arms folded, legs wide, looking even more tanklike than usual in his uniform of matte leather pants and tight black muscle shirt. “Geez, Lucas, how much time you been putting in at the gym?”
He shrugs one massive shoulder. “Been working a ton outside.”
“Doing what? Crushing rocks?”
“Just some yard work.”
I pull hard on the beer and cast an eye over the club, which is pretty busy for this early on a Friday night. Every seat appears to be occupied, and there’s not a familiar face in the bunch. “What’s with the crowd?”
“Can’t you guess?” Lucas’s smile widens. “Wasn’t this your idea?”
On second look, I notice the group has broken into miniclusters of two, leaning in to each other, face-to-face, chatting animatedly. “You didn’t.”
