But what is she doing here?
I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing.
Careful to remain hidden, I watch my opponent walk through my home as if she has any damn right to be here. The rush of blood in my ears is deafening. My heart beats frantically against the cage of my ribs.
I swallow hard, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck; my shoulders are tense, the muscles across my back pulled tight.
Sutton is in myhome.
During a club event.
I can’t… this can’t…
Fuck!
I can’t make sense of it.
I’ve underestimated her, the depths she’ll go to for a deal.
I never would have guessed Sutton would be the type to strike below the belt, the kind of person who’d willingly destroy her opponents like this, but I can’t deny that she’s here to do that very thing. She’s discovered my secret… but how?
It’s not like she just happened to show up here on a night I was hosting a club event; she’s dressed to the nines and wearing a mask, for fuck’s sake. So it’s no accident, no data leak that has provided her with my very private—veryunsearchable—home address. She didn’t come here to see me, the sports agent; she came here dressed and ready for a masked ball.
Which can only mean one thing.
Christ, I can’t breathe in this mask! But I don’t dare take it off. Not in a room this packed with guests.
Not while I’m surrounded by seventy-five prospective new members.
And certainly not while Sutton Hart stands just a few yards away.
I nearly blew my cover when I saw her with one of our newest Dominants. The sight of her right there, onmyfront porch, robbed me of breath.
But then he put his hands on her, held her close for seconds that stretched into painful, devastating minutes that felt like hours, and I had to hold myself back.
In my world, we claim what is ours, but I had to remind myself that she doesn’t belong to me. The desire to change that fact remains a relentless thrum in my veins. An urgency growing more demanding with every passing moment.
But not only is Sutton Hartnot mine, she’s come here to ruin everything I hold dear.
Hasn’t she?
It’s the only logical explanation for her surprise appearance.
Los Angeles is a small town, regardless of what it may look like to the outside world. We’re a bubble here, a tiny little microcosm of everyone in everyone else’s business. It was only a matter of time before my two worlds intersected, before someone discovered my nighttime…proclivities, but not her.
Fucking Christ,nother.
Tucked into the shadows between the staircase and the wet bar, I watch her move around the room. She’s with her blonde friend, Imogen, the woman she was with when I ran into her at Joyce yesterday. The blonde walks with her head held high, unabashedly meeting the gazes of everyone she passes, openly flirting and welcoming attention.
In stark contrast, Sutton keeps her head slightly bowed, and the more I observe her, the more I start to think maybe she belongs here.
It’s a stupid thought, something I’d be an idiot to hope for.
Time passes in a blur as I stalk her. She and her friend tour my home, peeking curiously into room after room, sometimes ducking back out quickly and giggling at whatever they witnessed, and other times lingering to observe. The desire to hear their whispered secrets has me struggling to keep my distance, to keep myself hidden as I watch them explore.
Deeper into my home they travel, deeper into this night of temptation we’ve curated for prospective members, and all the while, Sutton keeps her head slightly bowed. An instinctive subservience in response to the heady dominance in the air tonight.
Fuck, she’s perfect.
