by Maren Smith
“Yeah,” Theo agreed, then grinned. “Isn’t it great?”
Declan and Walker both looked at him.
Blake whapped Theo’s arm. “This experience ought to be sucking the joy of strip clubs right out of you.”
Theo’s grin only broadened. “Try growing up in the same close Greek neighborhood I did, my friend. Trust me, it only whets the appetite.”
When the lights went out, Walker felt the jolt of nervous energy ripple straight down through the line of his brothers and up his back. It was a lot like staring into the gaping maw of a burning building: unsure if anyone was still inside, but knowing if someone didn’t check, a person could die. And he was that someone. That jolt of sizzling energy didn’t just dash up his spine, it shot down his legs now too.
Sophie was almost done spelling out the rules. She was going to introduce them soon, and the lights were already down low. They’d flash on soon. Then it was do or die time, and Jesus, he was first.
As he’d done with just about every other burning building he’d encountered in his career, Walker took the lead. Silent as fireman-clad ninjas in heavy boots and rattling helmets, they ducked out from around the screen and hurried to stand in a line in front of it.
“I feel like such a piece of meat,” Declan said again.
“I think I see my ex,” Blake said.
“What?” Everybody stared at him.
“Submissive,” he clarified. “Not wife.”
“You did that on purpose,” Troy accused, and the volume on Sophie’s speakers shot up to cover both Blake’s muffled chuckles and the cheers of the crowd. Women jumped out of their chairs, clapping and whooping, and nearly drowned Sophie’s spiel, making her shout the last of her introduction: “I bring you the bad boys from Big Banks’ very own Ladder 54 and the CCC’s first ever Date-A-Dom!”
Do or die. Walker managed to bow his head along with his coworkers just before the blinding stage lights snapped on. Even staring down at his own booted feet, at last he understood how the possums on the highway felt, pinned in the brights of his truck’s headlamps. Not the sort to get stage fright under normal circumstances, Walker usually loved performing in front of an audience. Heaven knew, he did it every play party night, dancing his dance with submissive after submissive. Sending them to fly in the heights of subspace through the steady application of his floggers, or the sharp biting snaps of his cane.
As one, his brothers removed their coats. Walker barely managed not to lag behind. His coat hit the floor perhaps only a half second after everyone else’s. Hopefully, he wasn’t so out of sync that anyone noticed. Like he had any reason to be nervous. Like he hadn’t already played with more than half of the CCC submissives in this crowd at least once. That was one of the best benefits to being a dom outside of a committed relationship. Or, in his case, any relationship. He could play with anyone he wanted, in any way he wanted, without fear of having to ask permission or worry about what touches might or might not set off his significant other.
“Walker!” Sophie called, startling him from his thoughts. She was supposed to introduce him, but his name and the subsequent cheering that followed was all he heard.
Shit. He was up already. He wasn’t prepared, and yet his long legs carried him to the front of the stage just as they’d done in their rehearsals. Every step felt like a leap of faith, though. The lights were so bright, he couldn’t see a thing. But he could hear and, wow, the language these submissives were using as they catcalled out of the darkness. He wasn’t a sailor, had never felt the urge to be one, but a sailor would have blushed at some of the comments he caught when he turned sideways to show off his physique and even struck a somewhat goofy pose. At least, it felt goofy. The ladies went wild, and damn if Sophie wasn’t egging them on.
“A master with both flogger and cane,” she shouted above the noise of the cheering crowd “If you’ve seen him play, then you also know he’s got one hell of a pumper!”
Oh, Jesus. Walker almost rolled his eyes. He cast a glare out over the audience he couldn’t see for the lights. Sophie had better hope she got out of here before he did, because otherwise, his chief’s wife or not, he was going to swat her ass.
Fuck it, he sighed. When in Rome… Flexing his biceps, he gave two sultry pumps of his hips, much to the delight of the women in the audience. Auction paddles flashed all over the room, like blinking red fireflies riding that sea of shadow beyond the glare of the stage lamps even before Sophie bellowed those infamous words: “Shall we start the bidding at one hundred dollars?”
The audience went off like a shot. Before he even thought to flex another muscle or pump his ‘pumper’ or, hell, rip his pants off and give the girls a show to match anything they’d seen at any beefcake show in Vegas, his cost soared over eight hundred dollars.
“Yes, ma’am,” he mouthed back over his shoulders to the rest of the guys.
“They’re overpaying,” his best friend Declan shot back, but they were all grinning.
His price topped a thousand, and Walker promptly struck another pose, showing the audience the size of his spanking hand and his best ‘You’d better mind me, little girl’ glare. The bidding, which had begun to slow down, shot up another two hundred dollars. It hit fifteen hundred when he shrugged out of his suspenders and took off the belt his uniform did not require, but which he’d thought might be a useful stage prop for a show like this. He doubled the worn leather over and crooked his finger to the audience. It was too bad he couldn’t see beyond the blinding glare of the stage lights, or he’d have walked out among those cheering ladies to pull the first willing one that he came across over his knee and mock spank her for the crowd. Which was also too bad, because there was so much more to him than just a man who liked to spank. What about his violet wand? His Hitachi wand? His multicolored low-temperature wax candles and play bag full of toys that revolved around bondage and sensation play? He could make a head-to-toe zipper in three minutes flat and rip it off again in a hell of a lot less. He was versatile and learned, and he took pride in various techniques that he’d studied in the lifestyle. Flogging and caning was only a single facet of who he was as a dom. But then, Sophie’s flyers had emphasized what these ladies were purchasing was one night of hot spanking fun. As much as he didn’t want anyone mistaking the Date-A-Dom auction for Purchase-A-Prostitute, he saw no harm in showcasing exactly how he might put the ‘hot’ into their evening, were they so inclined.
Grabbing a phantom head of hair, he mimed putting a woman on her knees and face-fucking her there, and damn if his price didn’t jump again. It was seventeen hundred now, although it was slowing down. The race seemed to be between two determined bidders, with one bidding immediately upon the back of the other, while the other was taking longer and longer to follow through.
Curiosity gaining the best of him, Walker approached the edge of the stage. From here, the lights were almost directly at his knees—still blinding, but the shift in vantage did leave him able to see the shadow of individual faces in that sea of blackness. He could also hear a little better. Whether it was because the disappointed bidders had fallen to pouting silence, or because others were as curious as he was to see who the last two bidders were, the audience had somewhat calmed. Beneath what catcalling and laughing continued on, Walker thought he heard something else. Something lower-pitched, like a grunt of exertion… or perhaps, distress. Either way, it was an unusual sound to make in the middle of a bidding war.
Stepping over the light directly in front of him, Walker hopped off the stage. The grunting sounded desperate now, deep and guttural and rhythmic, like someone in the throes of sex. He wasn’t the only one to notice either. Heads were turning. People kept looking back over their shoulders, trying to identify where that noise was coming from. A paddle came up in the back, flashing a blink of deep red and punctuating it with a grunt that drew his immediate attention.
“Yup!” called David, a fellow firefighter who had volunteered to act as Sophie’s auction spott
er. He pointed to a flashing paddle in the front row as the bid climbed a hundred dollars higher.
Walker recognized the front-row submissive as a member of the CCC, although he couldn’t immediately place her name. She was a quiet one. The sort that liked to watch, but never seemed to play. At least, he’d never seen her play.
“I’m fine,” snapped a raspy voice, drawing Walker’s attention back to the far row again. A few seconds later, a badly quavering paddle rose high enough to flash out a single red blink, then immediately dropped out of sight again. The paramedic in him took over. Walker strode down the aisle, amazed that neither David nor Sophie had noticed the woman was bowing over, clutching her stomach and rocking.
“Excuse me. Excuse me.” Walker squeezed his way through the densely occupied row of women and folding chairs until he reached her. When he lay his hand on her shoulder, she raised her sweat-bathed face and—ah, hell. It was Tammi Lou, and just that fast her shoulders suddenly jerked and hunched, and bending double, she vomited all over his shoes.
The blowout must have affected both ends, because the woman on her other side squealed in disgust and leapt out of her chair, falling into the person on her left because they were too tightly packed to have anywhere really to go.
Flushed, panting, and now crying too, Tammi Lou grabbed both her mouth and the back of her dress. She all but climbed over everyone in her race for the nearest bathroom. Her sobbing echoed weirdly with the deep thumping base of the stripper music.
It couldn’t have happened to a nicer girl, Walker thought and was instantly ashamed of himself for it. Nobody deserved that. Not even a shallow, selfish, money-grabbing person like Tammi Lou, whose only noticeable ambition in life seemed to be bilking money out of men in exchange for sex.
The music was still thumping, but now people were whispering. The laughing had fallen silent and so had Sophie.
“No, no,” he mouthed, waving his hand for her to proceed. “Too much to drink.”
From the bar, Lance brought cleaning supplies and a bucket of hot Pine-Sol-scented water.
“Was that Tammi Lou I saw tearing out of here?” Lance asked once he was close enough to be heard over the music. This wasn’t the worst mess they’d ever seen, and it didn’t bear much need for commenting beyond, “Carry on. Excuse me, ma’am. Nothing to see here,” as Walker waded back down the row to scrub the floor, chair, and his own shoes. “Carry on.”
Sophie was too far away and the music too loud for her to hear his mutterings, but she was a smart woman and she’d already drawn her conclusions. Her mic clicked on, her spiel started up again, and the crowd—made up of sensible women who’d been promised a good time—were more than willing to get back into the swing of the next auctioned male.
Trust Blake to provide a distraction when one was needed. His good ol’ boy wink and charm soon had the ladies cheering again. Leaving Lance to dispose of the bucket, rags, and filthy water, Walker ducked into the men’s room to wash his hands and make himself presentable to meet his winning bidder.
Was it the same young woman—her name still eluded him; R-something, wasn’t it? Rachel… Regan… Rebecca—that he’d seen before Tammi and her bout of sickness claimed his attention? Or had the winning bid been stolen by someone else? Ready to see who he’d be playing with, Walker dried his hands, combed his fingers through his short dark locks to make sure he didn’t have helmet-hair cowlicks standing up anywhere, and then headed out to meet up with whomever was waiting for him.
Only nobody was.
Walker searched the bar and circled the outskirts of the audience, every whooping one of them with attentions fixed on the stage, but he couldn’t find a single lady patiently waiting with a happy-expectant-nervous-apprehensive or any combination of those emotions on her face. No one was standing near Sophie, either, who was once more working the crowd, driving up the bidding being ‘yupped’ out by David each time a red-light-flashing paddle shot up in the air. Currently on the stage, Blake was air-humping and air-spanking to the music, and those ladies with their paddles were going crazy. If he kept that up, his auction price was going to clear Walker’s. Which didn’t spark seeds of jealousy so much as relief. He was glad Sophie and Walt were getting the help they needed.
Speaking of which, where had his own winning bidder gone?
A quick glance back over the crowd revealed only one other empty chair, and that had been in the spot R-something had been bidding from.
Yeah, like that didn’t hit him in the ego. She’d just shelled out two grand for him and then, what? She’d bailed? Without lingering to say ‘hi’ or exchange phone numbers, or solidify any date night plans?
Maybe she’d gone to check on Tammi Lou.
Curious, Walker left the noisy living room again and ventured down the hall. It was only because the back-patio wall was all windows and there was a fire still burning in the smoking area that he saw the shadows of R-something, head down, clutching her coat tight around her as she fled for the parking lot.
Okay, now that did hit his ego. Had he taken too long in the bathroom? Did she think he’d ditched her?
A flash of white light startled him. Turning, Walker spotted Lance, tucked back behind his bar with a camera in hand. “That little lady could not get away from you fast enough,” he said with a grin. Chuckling, he examined the digital picture he took. “Oh, yeah, this is going right up on the firehouse Wall of Shame.”
Yeah, this didn’t affect his ego at all.
Chapter Two
Still dressed to impress in last night’s sexy sequined cocktail gown, Rylee sat in the corner of her full-sized bed, knees drawn up to her chest, her back wedged where the two walls joined. Staring out through the crack in the curtains, she watched as the orange and amber of the rising sun painted the darkness from the sky.
She’d done it; Rylee couldn’t believe she’d done it. She’d won Walker, for one glorious day and night of what she was sure could only be unparalleled pleasure with just the right amount of pain, but she’d done it in a way she could scarcely believe. It had been cheating and backhanded, and that wasn’t like her. She’d never been the kind to hurt somebody else, and for what? For the twenty-four-hour affections of a man who didn’t even know she existed?
She was appalled at herself.
She’d cheated to win the auction, and she’d never, ever cheated at anything before in her life.
Poor Tammi Lou.
Poor Tammi Lou, my big fat toe, the ugly side of Rylee’s conscience sneered back. It was the side that had kept her up all night long, trying to justify the unjustifiable. Tammi Lou was gorgeousness personified; Rylee… wasn’t. Tammi Lou was perfect blonde hair, hypnotically blue eyes, high cheekbones, and movie-star lips; Rylee was plain, brown, mousy, and freckly. Her boobs were too small. Her hips didn’t curve. Her body was as straight as a prepubescent boy’s. Tammi Lou could have anybody she wanted, and she did, going through man after man, wallet after wallet, sometimes to the tune of two or more in any given month. She’d ruined more marriages, dating relationships, friendships, and broken up more play partners than Rylee could count, much less compete with. Not that she wanted to. Tammi Lou was toxic everywhere she went, but to the best of Rylee’s knowledge, Tammi Lou hadn’t once ever poisoned an undeclared rival with syrup of ipecac.
Ipecac isn’t a poison, her conscience scoffed. It had been considered medicinal for ages, for crying out loud. It only tasted like poison… with an unpleasant, system-cleansing side effect.
She’d made Tammi Lou throw up in front of everyone, including Walker. That was the kind of embarrassment nobody really recovered from. Had Rylee had such a mortifying loss of physical control, she wasn’t sure she could have stayed in the CCC, or Big Banks—or hell, even the whole of Montana afterwards! No matter where she went, she knew she would forever be branded as: “Hey, isn’t that the girl that puked all over poor Sophie Lassiter’s high-class charity function that one time?” The embarrassment would be overwhelming.
&nb
sp; What had she done? How was she going to live with herself after this? Should she apologize? Would she go to jail for assault if she did? Hugging her knees that much more tightly, Rylee huddled deeper into the corner.
The cellphone on her nightstand buzzed. She looked at it, but she didn’t need to pick it up to know who it was. Walker had already texted twice last night, before she’d even got home from that disastrous auction. Now here it was, not yet seven o’clock, and already he’d texted again.
She couldn’t avoid him forever. She probably already looked guilty as hell. What woman in her right mind purchased the winning bid on the dom of her dreams and then ran away without claiming her prize? That didn’t make sense. Nothing she was doing right now made sense, and if she wasn’t very careful someone else was going to notice that. Then they’d start asking questions, and she’d crack. She’d never been any good at maintaining deception; she always cracked under pressure.
This was horrible. Rylee covered her face with both hands.
The phone buzzed again. Another text received.
She had to do something. She couldn’t just sit here and ignore him.
She reached for the phone, the last text received catching her eye and all but stopping her heart mid-beat.
Unless you want a refund…?
God, no! Did she deserve the prize she’d stolen? No! Did she want to give it back? Seriously, God and hell no!
She checked the message prior to the last and her heart stopped all over again.
Come to the window.
Oh. Shit.
Her heart leapt out of her chest to catch in her throat instead. Crawling off the edge of her bed, Rylee crept to the window. She peeked through the curtains the way anyone else might check the lawn for zombies.
A lawn full of zombies would have been easier to handle than the sight of Walker, dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a blue Ladder 54 t-shirt that showed off the mouth-watering breadth of his shoulders, the solidness of his chest, the trim of his waist, and every bulge and vein in his muscular arms. Popeye would be so proud.