CHAPTER 1
Sutton
Oh, flea flicker.If there had ever been a time for me to find my voice, it was then. A man in a leather strappy outfit which left me staring right at his bare nipples, tugged me after him. He had a long ponytail that swished around like a horse’s tail and pointed straight to his half-naked butt. I instantly missed staring at his nipples. I opened my mouth to speak up and tell him I was there for a job interview, but he stopped suddenly and looked back at me, his eyes going up and down my body in a way that made me blush and cross my arms to hide what my oversized clothes didn’t.
“You’re doing the nerdy teacher thing? It shouldn’t surprise me that those damaged men out there probably have teacher kinks, right along with their mommy kinks. It’s fine, I guess, but can you at least unbutton your sweater a little? If you want to get bid on, honey, you’re going to have to give a little something. Let me see your tits. I’m sure they’re amazing under that frumpy sweater.”
I gasped and held my hands up in front of me. “N-no, thank you!”
“Oh, you’re good. If I wasn’t leaning fully into the male side of my bisexuality, I’d eat you up. Apparently, I have an unfulfilled teacher kink, too. I bet it was Miss Myers. She was an angel.” He let out a huff and shrugged, then refocused on my attire. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure someone out there is going to take one look at you and cream themselves for a chance to ruin that perfect good girl look.”
My ancestors had to have been statues for a living because my freeze response was so intense that it had to be in my DNA. I was a lump of woman being led around like a show dog. It didn’t fully occur to me just how much of a mess I was in until I was standing next to him on a stage looking out over a crowd ofpeople that I could just barely see. The spotlight was focused on the stage and I was instantly twenty degrees warmer. They were watching me. I could see the people closest to the edge and their eyes burned me more than the spotlight.
The sounds I could hear coming from the parts of the room I couldn’t see made me shudder and wrap my arms around myself. Sure, I was a virgin with absolutely no experience, but I knew that the moans I was hearing were from dirty, filthy things. When I’d lived with my last roommate, I’d overheard a lot of their love making and it had never sounded so…primal. I could hear skin slapping against skin.
I was going to faint. I was light-headed and there was only so long that I could continue standing when all my blood was rushing to my face. I looked up at the leather clad man next to me and prayed he could read the silent prayer I was throwing out. I needed out of there. I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up where I was, but I wanted out. As fast as possible.
Instead of helping me out, he waved his arms around me and created an even bigger scene. “And we have a last-minute beauty. You weren’t on my paperwork, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
If he wasn’t going to help me, maybe someone else would. I looked around wildly, my eyeballs the only part of me willing to try practicing flight. Too bad they were stuck in my stupid, frozen head. My mouth worked enough to mutter my name.
“Um… Sutton?”
Oh, god. I’d given them my name. I’d spilled my real name. I happened to know that in the whole state of Texas there were around fifteen hundred Suttons, about half of them being female. In the Dallas area, there were only around two hundred. I didn’t like my statistics on how easy it would be for some terrifying person to find me. My name was listed on my school’s website, because of course, leather man was correct. I wasa teacher. Kindergarten, to be specific. I’d never asked but I was one thousand percent sure that parents of kindergarteners didn’t like finding out that their kid’s teachers had been at a sex club, giving out their real name.
Before I could give out my social security number, a sweaty woman who looked like an avenging angel stomped up to the stage and yanked the mic from the man next to me. She scowled at him with enough anger thatIwanted to hide.
“You’re finished.”
I didn’t know if she was talking to me but something about her tone gave me the courage to get the heck out of there. I ducked my head and muttered a thanks to the universe for my legs working. I didn’t look at anyone around me as I fumbled my way through the dark room. I kept my eyes on the floor and when I got to a door, I took it.
I couldn’t remember where I’d come from. I’d been in such a state of panic and shock when the security guard at the front of the club let me in that I hadn’t paid attention to anything useful. I had no idea how to get out of the massive, intimidating mansion that I officially knew wasn’t just a fun, exclusive dance club.
It didn’t help that my sense of direction was historically awful. Again, my ancestors were coming in hot with the terrible traits. I took a turn down a darkened hallway, doing whatever I could to put as much distance between myself and leather man as possible. I’d gone to a corn maze once in high school that felt similar to the hallways I was lost in. In the corn maze, people had jumped out at me and done everything they could to scare me half to death. I had that same panic running hard and fast through my veins. If a masked man jumped out at me with a clown wig, I would’ve just accepted it as part of my fate.
I hadn’t seen anyone in what seemed like forever, so I slowed to a quick walk but I still continued to look over my shoulderagain and again. When it was clear to me I wasn’t going to find my way to an exit by myself I accepted that I was stuck. I wasn’t going to try to find my way back to that dark and sex-filled room, at least not until it was void of people like leather man. Instead, I found a door marked as a bathroom and slipped inside.
I locked the door behind me and pulled off my glasses so I could rub my eyes. Everything was fine. Really, it was. I was locked in a bathroom in a sex club, but so what? It was not a big deal.
The reflection staring back at me in the mirror said that was a lie. It was a huge deal. She looked like a gentle breeze would knock her over. She looked weak and scared. I hated it but no matter how hard I tried to force my spine to stiffen, it just stayed curved in fear.
I’d only wanted to interview for a nanny position. School was out and I needed to make as much extra money as I could before it was too late. I had plans and I needed financial backing for them. When one of my coworkers suggested I interview for the job of nanny for a set of club owners, I’d taken one look at the link she’d shown me and copied down the phone number. I’d placed the call for an interview before the ink was dry.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Hilary truly hated me enough to trick me into something so tawdry. It was one thing to make fun of me at work for being a prude with no friends or fashion sense. It was something incredibly different, and worse, to send me to a sex club. I didn’t like to think poorly of people, but Hilary was a butt.
I shut the toilet lid and sat down. How long did people do…stuff…at a sex club? Surely they wouldn’t stay for long. My roommate and her boyfriend had never made noises for longer than fifteen minutes. I settled in to wait and really wished I’d made a fuss about the security guard taking my phone.
CHAPTER 2
Dominic
I’d never lost a fucking potential new hire in the mansion before but there was a first for everything. Anger boiled inside of me. Security hadn’t thought to bring her to my fucking office. No one had bothered to let me know that we had an innocent woman wandering around the club like a little lamb.
I was stomping down the maze of hallways toward her hiding spot, only because I’d checked the cameras after hearing that Benny had forced her on stage for the auction. He was done. I was going to make sure he never set foot in the club ever again. He should’ve taken one look at Sutton, the fucking kindergarten teacher with eyes as big as coffee mugs, and known she wasn’t up for auction. She looked like someone’s goddamned grandma in her massive clothes that covered almost every inch of her body.
She’d been my top pick from the applicants who’d applied for the nanny position we desperately needed to fill. She was educated, solid, and had a reference letter from her current principal which made her sound like an actual angel. It was clear that no matter how qualified I thought she was, it wouldn’t matter because she’d just been traumatized and would probably run screaming as soon as she could.
“Fuck.” There were few things I hated more than seeing a scared woman. One truly scared. Not the kind of scared we embraced in a club that was twisted with arousal and consent. There was something especially fucking awful about seeing the scared little teacher running like the devil himself was chasing her. It was her eyes. I’d never seen eyes so big and expressive, even on shitty surveillance footage.
