One reason was we were part owners of a BDSM club in Wilmington, and as one of the senior submissives, she was always being asked questions. Though she’d met many of her closest friends at the BDSM group years ago, they now talked about anything and everyone.

  While she had friends in New York, they weren’t the type to stop by and say hello on a random Tuesday. As a result, I knew she had a tendency to go a bit stir crazy when we were in the city for an extended time.

  As part of my preparations for our club visit, when Luke called to confirm our attendance for the upcoming weekend, I’d asked if he knew if anyone Abby knew would be there. He couldn’t confirm anyone outside of him and his wife, Meagan, with any certainty, of course, but he said he’d ask around to see if he could get more information.

  He hastened to add that if word spread that Abby and I were doing a demo, he could just about guarantee an increase in attendance. I didn’t agree to anything. Rather, I told him I’d speak to Abby and get back in touch with him. I shook my head after the call ended. Sneaky bastard. I smiled. Trying to get us to agree to a demo.

  Who knew? It’d been awhile since we’d done one. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea ever.

  The more I thought about it, the more and more I liked the idea. Not only that, but I asked myself why I thought I had to check with Abby.

  We would be in a BDSM club. She’d be wearing my collar; I knew her limits. More than that, a demo would be good for both of us. I’d already decided I’d give her plenty of social time while we were at the club, because I knew how much she needed that.

  A plan for the night came together in my mind, and I found myself looking forward to it more than I’d expected. Yes, an evening at the New York club would do us both some good.

  “You’re unusually quiet,” I told Abby a few days later as I pulled into the parking lot of Luke’s club. It wasn’t like her.

  She turned away from the window she’d been looking out of and gave me a pointed look. “It’s you.”

  “Me?” I didn’t know what she meant by that. Not one clue.

  “Yes, you.”

  I didn’t respond right away. Instead, I parked the car and tried to think of what she could be talking about. Neither of us made a move to get out.

  Abby sighed. More than likely, she thought it was something obvious and was a bit irritated I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that, my lovely.” I gave her one of my best grins. “What is it I’ve done to bring about this mood you’re in?”

  She hesitated, as if trying to decide if she wanted to bring it up or not. I hoped she did. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.

  “It’s the way you’ve been acting the last few days,” she finally said. “The look on your face when you’ve talked about this weekend. It’s like you have something up your sleeve or know something I don’t know.”

  “Well, Abigail,” I said, emphasizing the name I reserved for times like this when she wore my collar, “that’s because I do have something up my sleeve, and I do know something you don’t.”

  I slid out of my side of the car and walked around to open her door.

  “You are such a Dom,” she said.

  “How fortunate you remembered, and I didn’t have to remind you of that fact,” I said in a tone, letting her know it was time to get serious.

  Her eyes darkened with arousal at my words. “That’s not anything I’m likely to forget, Master.”

  “Good to know.” I bent down and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Let’s go inside.”

  I sensed Abby’s body relax as we stepped inside and checked in. At that same moment, tension I hadn’t noticed left my shoulders.

  We made our way toward a sitting area. Though numerous couches, love seats, and oversized ottomans filled the space, most people stood. It wasn’t long before Luke and his wife/submissive, Meagan, found us. Abby’s face lit up at their approach.

  “Abigail,” I said with a nod at Luke. “If it’s okay with Master DeVaan, you can sit and talk with Meagan for a few minutes.”

  “Of course,” Luke said and then leaned over to whisper something in the ear of the tall willowy blonde at his side.

  While the two women caught up, Luke and I took a few steps away.

  “Looks like a pretty good crowd,” I told him, looking around. Most of the equipment in the public play space was being used. A man wearing a black security shirt stood at the entrance leading to the private play areas. “That’s new.”

  Luke followed my gaze. “Yes. We added security there, not because of anything that happened here, but because one of the other clubs in the area had consent issues. The extra security check can’t stop everything or everyone, but I’m hoping it’ll make it harder for it to happen. I don’t think the Delaware club needs it. Not with the way things are set up there.”

  In the Delaware club, the private play areas had a different entrance, separate from the main club. Members had to apply and pay an annual fee once accepted in order to reserve a private room. And reservations had to be made at least twenty-four hours in advance.

  We’d received quite a few complaints from Tops when those changes were made. Fortunately, after several submissives talked about how much safer they felt with the new policy, those Tops came around.

  A movement from the far side of the room caught my attention. I glanced over and saw a group gather around a club employee. Luke followed my gaze to see what I was watching.

  “Newbies,” he said. “They all signed up to attend a new members’ class. This is their second time meeting and their first time in the club. To let them see how real-life couples play. Couples like you and Abby.”

  “That’s why you were so adamant Abby and I do a demo?”

  “Of course,” Luke answered unabashedly. “The two of you are legendary in the area’s BDSM clubs.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, but whatever response Luke made was lost on me. The group of newbies had shifted, allowing me a better look, and what I saw froze me in place.

  Ellery and Vincent were in the group.

  Fuck.

  “Is something wrong?” Luke asked.

  “The couple there, Ellery and Vincent?” That was all I could get out.

  “The Mannes?” he guessed.

  “Yes. What do you know about them?” Normally, I’d never think about asking such a question, much less do so. Likewise, it’d never crossed my mind Luke would answer.

  “They’re somewhat new to the area,” Luke said. “Moved here from California.”

  Yes. Yes. But I want you to tell me the things I don’t know, I thought in my head, but kept from vocalizing. I glanced to where Abby sat, still engrossed in her conversation with Meagan. She hadn’t looked around the club at all since we first arrived. It was possible she could avoid seeing them at all.

  But not if we did the demo.

  “Do you know something about them?” Luke asked at my silence.

  “Can we go talk in your office for a few minutes?” I asked. “In private?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  We walked to where our wives sat, deep in conversation. At our approach, they both stopped talking and looked our way.

  “I need to speak with Master DeVaan for a few minutes, Abigail,” I said. “I want you to remain sitting her with Meagan. She’s the only person you’re allowed to talk with.”

  Her collar was very noticeable. No Dom allowed membership into Luke’s club would ever approach someone else’s collared submissive.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, but I saw the questions behind her eyes. She knew something had bothered me.

  I hoped she wouldn’t spend her time looking around and trying to find what it was. Unfortunately, if I told her not to look around, she’d be even more curious. Then if we did the demo, the curiosity would turn into anxiety, and that wouldn’t be fun or sexy at all. And though I could more than likely use the occasion to be a lesson for the Doms present on what not to do, that wasn’t a path I wanted to travel tonight. Nor did I think Luke had anything of the sort in mind when he said he wanted us to demo something.

  “I won’t be gone longer than ten minutes at the most,” I ended up saying.

  I couldn’t help but notice as Luke and I turned to walk into his office that when Abby and Meagan resumed talking, they weren’t anywhere near as animated as they’d been seconds before.

  Luke said nothing as we walked out of the public area and stepped into the administrative portion of the club. Once we made it into his office, he turned and waited for me to start.

  “Not that it has any bearing on anything,” I said, “but Ellery is my CIO at West Industries.”

  Luke motioned to some chairs, and we both sat down. “Since you started by indicating her position in your employment had no bearing on anything, I assume it’s okay for me to infer you didn’t want to come to my office in order to ask me not to allow them membership?” he asked.

  “Of course not.” There had only been one other time an employee of West Industries had been part of my BDSM club, and I’d met him at the club and specifically asked him to apply for a position on my building’s security team. But that didn’t mean I was in any way going to suggest Luke deny membership to someone because they worked for me. “Abby and I had them over for dinner not too long ago, and shortly thereafter, Ellery came into my office and we had a very odd conversation.”

  I told him about Ellery’s comment concerning her husband’s man crush and my initial shock when she mentioned how well he claimed to know me.

  “To be honest,” I told Luke, “I chalked it up as a strange conversation and haven’t given it much thought since then.” I didn’t tell him I hadn’t brought up the conversation with Abby. “But seeing them here tonight? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it coincidental. How long has it been since Abby and I have put in an appearance here?”

  Luke’s eyebrows furrowed as he thought about what I said, and several long seconds passed before he replied. “I would think it more suspicious if it wasn’t for the fact this is their second group meeting. When they attended the first, they had no way of knowing you’d be here tonight. This second meeting wasn’t even scheduled until after the first had taken place.”

  “True, but it’s possible they knew it was the club Abby and I attended. They had to know we’d show up eventually.” I shrugged. “I’m sorry, but that creeps me out a bit.”

  “True,” he conceded. “What are you asking me to do?”

  “I’m not sure I want you to do anything. I wanted to bring it to your attention and get reassurance there aren’t any potential red flags in their application.”

  Luke nodded once and walked over to a locked filing cabinet. Once he unlocked it, he took a folder out of one of its drawers and passed it to me. He wouldn’t have done it for anyone, but we were co-owners of the club in Delaware. “I don’t remember any, but feel free to look yourself.”

  Chapter 5

  ABBY

  I couldn’t get back into the comfortable conversation I was having with Meagan after Nathaniel left with Luke. Something had either happened or he’d seen something, I was certain. I was just as certain that he’d asked Luke to talk in his office because he didn’t want me to hear whatever it was they were discussing.

  “What was that about?” I asked Meagan after the men disappeared into the crowd and several long seconds passed in silence. Although, I wasn’t sure she would know since I was almost certain it was Nathaniel’s idea to move their conversation somewhere private and not Luke’s.

  “I’m not sure.” Meagan looked around. “It couldn’t have been anything too serious. I see nothing out of the ordinary, and from what I can tell, the security guards aren’t on high alert.”

  “Maybe it had to do with the club in Delaware,” I said, thinking out loud. “Just because he wanted to speak to Luke in private doesn’t mean it had to do with anything he saw tonight.”

  “Very true,” Meagan said.

  But even though that was a possibility, I doubted that was what it had been. If it’d been Delaware business, they could have just agreed on a time to meet tomorrow or the next day.

  “So,” Meagan said. “Before the men interrupted us, I was going to ask if there was anything I could do to convince you to come over to the dark side and join me on air?”

  I’d worked for Meagan for a short time before we bought the house in Delaware. Since I’d turned in my resignation, Meagan had moved from the executive side of the media business to the on-air talent side. She was made to be in front of the camera, as the increased ratings of her time slot showed. I, however, was not.

  “Nothing,” I said with a laugh. “There is nothing you could say or do to get me to be on television five days a week of my own free will.”

  “Okay, but I still think you’d be great, and you might even like it if you allowed yourself the chance.”

  “Odds of me liking it are very low.”

  “Offer stands if you ever change your mind.”

  “Noted.”

  Meagan sighed. “You aren’t going to change your mind on this, are you?”

  “No.”

  She shook her head as if to say what am I going to do with you? But before she could get the words out, I saw Nathaniel and Luke approach out of the corner of my eye. I must have straightened my spine or something, because Meagan glanced to her side and smiled.

  “That didn’t take long,” she whispered as they came closer.

  It hadn’t. In fact, it’d taken much less time than I’d expected. Maybe there wasn’t anything wrong, after all. Maybe he needed to discuss something with Luke and the club was too noisy for a business conversation.

  If there had been anything in Nathaniel’s expression that hinted of trouble before he spoke to Luke, it’d disappeared when they both returned.

  “I was telling Master DeVaan how long it’d been since we played in public,” Nathaniel said.

  He was right. While we had been active in the Delaware club, for the last few months, our roles had been more administrative than anything. I nearly opened my mouth to agree with him when I realized he hadn’t asked a question, so there was nothing for me to reply to.

  He’d spoken it in such a way that it seemed he was merely passing along information. Although I’d already assumed we’d be playing here tonight and it was public, so I couldn’t think of a reason he’d bring it up the way he did. Then I caught the slight upward curve of his lip.

  Sly bastard.

  I knew that whatever words were getting ready to fall from his lips were the ones he’d alluded to earlier when he mentioned he had plans for tonight.

  “And that made me realize it’d been much longer since we’d done something else,” he added, and I thought those words were more cryptic than anything.

  Not to mention, he still hadn’t asked a question. All I could do was sit and listen. And wait.

  The upward curve of his lip grew into a full-fledged grin. “When I mentioned to Luke that we’d be in attendance tonight, he asked if we’d be willing to do a demo scene.”

  His words were a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. I didn’t mind either playing in public or doing a demo with Nathaniel. In fact, I found great enjoyment with both. Although, in most cases, before we’d do a demo, we’d discuss the scene. But he was the Dominant, and there was no rule saying he had to run anything past me.

  “Luke is going to have the area prepared and ready for us in twenty minutes. Any questions?”

  “Will you tell me what we’re going to demonstrate tonight?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and the sly grin appeared once more. “You’ll hear what it is at the same time everyone else does.”

  Damn. What did that mean? Would he not tell me because he feared my reaction or because whatever he had planned was one of my soft limits?

  Or maybe he was playing his evil Dom mind games with me and did so to keep me guessing?

  I truly had a love/hate relationship with mind fucks. At the moment, I hated them.

  Sixteen minutes later, I knelt, waiting in the demo area. Unlike Vincent, I knew when Nathaniel said twenty minutes, he expected me to be in place before the time was up. I knelt off to the side, out of the way of the setup while staying out of the club’s flow of traffic. I hadn’t seen Nathaniel when I made it to my waiting spot, but I didn’t need visual confirmation to know he was nearby, watching over me.

  My head was down, so I couldn’t see if many club members had gathered to observe our demo. Trying to guess from the sound of the people nearby was an exercise in futility. I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t know anything until Nathaniel told me. Instead of fretting about it, I used the time I had to take a deep breath and sink into the needed headspace.

  I recognized Nathaniel’s footsteps as soon as I heard them. My body hummed with excitement, anticipation, and need. Knowing my master was walking toward me only intensified those feelings.

  He placed a hand on my head before addressing the onlookers. It was his way of checking in with me, and one I’ve always appreciated. At his touch, I sank further into my headspace. It used to amaze me at how easily I reacted to the lightest brush of his touch, but I eventually learned it was my body’s natural reaction to him. Somehow, I intuitively knew he would keep me safe and protected.

  “Good evening,” he said, addressing the club members. “For those of you who haven’t met me, I’m Master West, and this is my submissive Abigail. Master DeVaan asked me if we’d consider running a demo tonight, and I was happy to oblige.”

  Though I still wasn’t able to estimate the number of people gathered, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the room had gotten.

  “Tonight, I thought I’d try something a little different as far as demos go,” Nathaniel continued. “Instead of showing you a particular technique, I decided I’d discuss a few fun and easy training ideas.”