by Livia Grant
“Cabby,” she reminded as she locked her doors. “Scaring the shit out of people with our driving since 1897.”
“The recklessness is only half as scary as your attitude. I wonder if you’d still think it funny if you hit something… or someone.”
Slamming the door, Abby walked the length of her car towards his. “Did I take your parking space?” she asked, not bothering to disguise her mocking tone or hide her grin. “Is it the last spot in the whole parking garage? Is it the last one?”
His right hand on the steering wheel flexed, the long fingers stretching outward before he re-gripped the wheel. He said nothing, which only made her smile widen. Handsome as Newton was, she saw no point in trying to be nice to him. He didn’t like her; had never liked her. Well over two years ago when she had first been vetted as a Crucible member, he’d taken an instant dislike to her. When she’d been vetted into the Overtime Club, it was the same. But even now after Terry—better known as Muscles among the other DMs—had helped her obtain one of Black Light’s discounted new sub rates, for some reason, Newton still glared. To this day, she had no idea what she’d done to offend him, but she couldn’t remember a time when he’d looked at her without wearing that same stern frown.
Like he was her Dom, and she was a particularly rotten submissive.
Except that he wasn’t; and neither was she. She was a damn-fine submissive. And these days, she no longer wondered what she’d done to irritate him way back when. Oh no, these days, she went out of her way to earn his disapproval. Irritating the hell out of certain people was the spice that made life worth living. Just like now. With one hand resting on the tailgate of the pickup truck parked beside her and her other knuckled against her hip, and the frigid February wind blowing through the garage and up under her black winter coat, she gave him her best ‘suck ass’ grin.
“I guess one of us is going to have to find another place to park.” Her grin widened, showing a bit of teeth. “There’s another garage three blocks down the street. Near the park. You know, the one that’s filled to the concrete brim with about a bazillion winter birds. You’ll be digging your car out with a shovel by the end of the night.”
“Yes,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I know where it is.”
“Have a nice walk.”
His frown deepened. Pulling his arm back in, he found the button to roll the window up.
“Loser,” she called helpfully, just before the window closed. “Move along.”
She shooed at him, but he had already shifted into forward gear. His giant black SUV crawled around the corner and continued down the slope toward the exit. She waved, but if he looked back, she never saw it. Hopefully, he didn’t look back, because Murphy’s Law ruled her life and if he did, then it was probably at that exact moment when her foot found that same slick spot her tire had and, skidding out from under her, down she went. She set off the theft alarm on the car she used for balance while she got her feet back under her.
The parking garage amplified the sound. She could still hear that alarm seven minutes later when she finally made it down the block, across the street to the row of buildings that harbored the psychic shop.
“Hoodlums,” she told Luis when the door unexpectedly opened and he stuck his head out to check the street.
“Uh huh.” He gave her a knowing look, but held the door wider so she could slip past him and come inside.
Abby flashed her membership card to gain access to the cold tunnel that led down to Danny at the security desk and the locker room, and then the dungeon beyond. A shot of pure giddiness bolted through her, raising all the fine hairs on her body. Without exception, Valentine’s Day was the worst holiday on the face of the planet. She never had a date. Between work and college, her social life outside of study groups—and the two nights a month that she squeezed out of her budget so she could get her kink—on was practically nil. But this particular Valentine’s Day was different.
She shivered, weeks’ worth of building excitement sizzling through every part of her at once. She’d been looking forward to this night from the moment she found out her recruit application had been accepted. No, she wouldn’t get to pick her Dominant tonight. In fact, she wouldn’t even know who he was until he spun her name on the giant roulette wheel, like the one pictured in the header of the email that had been sent to every member on the mailing list. That seemed a small drawback compared to what else this night promised—three solid hours of fun-filled, no strings attached, anything goes scening. So long as she didn’t safeword out, the night would even culminate in a prize: a fully-paid, thirty day membership. Abby shivered again, thrilled at the very thought of being able to come here every single party night for a full month—so long as she wasn’t working. The new sub discount was great, but it was still money out of her pocket. As it was, she was struggling to afford one night a week.
The burly security guard looked up from the short stack of papers he was studying when she exited the tunnel into the security room. “You made it,” he said, by way of a greeting.
“As if I’d miss out on any part of tonight.” She was so close to the dungeon now she could smell the leather and wood. She shivered all over again. Something Danny must have noticed as he assigned her a locker for the night.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“What could I possibly be nervous about?” she scoffed, handing over her membership card.
“You don’t pay tonight.” Danny handed it right back. “I just need to log you in and assign a locker. So… not nervous at all, huh?”
“Nope.” She stubbornly refused to think about the four hard limits she’d listed on her application—all of which Jaxson had assured her would be strictly upheld—and, perhaps more importantly, the two remaining ones which hadn’t made the cut. If she rolled them on the wheel, her only choice then would be to either do it, or to safeword out. Unfortunately, while safewords were always an option, taking that option meant failing the competition. Failure simply was not an option. Not for Abby.
The palms of her hands grew clammy before she banished the unpleasant thought. There were more than thirty kinks on the roulette wheel the Black Light administrators had designed. Only two terrified her to the point of cold sweats and panic. Both were on her list, but already her stomach was rolling. She pressed her hands over the worst of it, as if holding it hard enough might still the unease. “Am I the last to arrive?”
“The last submissive,” he confirmed, tapping at his iPad. “As soon as Newton gets here, then we’ll have all our Doms too.”
“How did he make it into this event?” she grumbled.
“How did you?” Danny countered, with a pointed look.
Abby didn’t know if Danny was an actual Dom or not. She’d never seen him play, and just because he worked here on party nights, that didn’t necessarily mean he was into the lifestyle. But if he wasn’t, damn, he had that look down.
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said, more to herself than him. “Once I’m partnered up, I’ll be so busy having a good time that I won’t even notice he’s here.”
“Unless you’re matched to him.”
“Bite your tongue!” She laughed as if the very thought of that didn’t make her stomach flip-flop all over again. Not that she was concerned. Fifteen pairs had been signed up for this event. Fifteen Doms, which gave her a one-in-fifteen chance of rolling the dud, which also gave her a fourteen-in-fifteen chance to roll literally anybody else. Her heart quickened, thudding against her ribs in a cadence of new-budding excitement. “This is going to be a good night,” she said, rubbing her hands down her winter-coat-covered thighs. “It’s going to be the best night of my life. Not scary at all.”
Studying her, Danny set his iPad down on his desk. “Are you sure?”
She rubbed her thighs again, every trace of confidence within her suddenly turning false in the time it took to meet his steady gaze. She tried to laugh, but it came out faltering and nervous-sounding. “Of course, I am
. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“What you’re trying to prove and to whom.”
Abby stood in front of his desk, unable to break her stare from his and suddenly feeling every bit as cold as she had been walking down that cold tunnel outside. “I don’t have anything to prove,” she heard herself say. She didn’t know how she managed it. Her lips felt oddly numb and uncooperative. Like they were someone else’s and she was borrowing them to talk through. “I’ve got every right to be here, if I want…”
“I didn’t say one word about rights.” Danny planted his hands on the edge of his desk—he had huge hands; Abby could remember thinking that once before, but the realization struck her again now and with it came the most absurd urge to circle around this suddenly too small desk and let the burly security guard pull her into a strong, secure hug with those massive hands of his—he leaned towards her. Arms braced, he brought himself right to her eye-level.
“If you think Terry wouldn’t tell us something as important as this before you were accepted as a new recruit, you can think again,” he said evenly. “That man beat you up—”
“I’m fine.”
“Hog-tied you—”
She tried to laugh again, but only because she had to do something and covering her ears and singing ‘la-la-la’ at the top of her lungs really wasn’t an option.
“Assaulted you,” Danny brutally continued. “Strangled you. Threw you in the trunk of his car, drove you out to butt-fuck nowhere, and left you for dead in the middle of the night in an Amish corn field.”
She spread her arms. Everything inside her felt shaky and cold. “And yet, here I am.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I survived,” she insisted, as if such a thing required proof above and beyond standing here in front of him.
“Yes, you did.”
“I’m fine.” She had to insist that too, and she hated that her voice squeaked when she did.
He arched an eyebrow. “How many plates and-or screws did it take to put your jaw back together again?”
Twelve.
Her mouth tightened, letting her feel with heightened awareness the two points where her teeth still didn’t meet up quite the way they had… before. She cleared her throat. She also stiffened her spine, standing as tall and as straight as she could. “I’m not here to prove anything to anyone, Danny. I just want what everyone else here tonight wants: to have a good time.” She thought about it. “Preferably with someone who isn’t a giant asshat.” She blanched when Danny cocked an eyebrow. “Uh… I didn’t mean you.”
A corner of his mouth quirked into a very small, very crooked smile. “No, I know you didn’t.” He arched both eyebrows at her now, giving her a look that—despite that smile—held an even greater level of severity than normal. “Terry has his eye on you tonight. You know how you get when you’re starting to panic but too stubborn to call it, and now so do all the DMs. The second any of them suspect that’s starting to happen tonight, you won’t need to safeword. They’ll call it for you. Got it?”
She caught herself before she actually stomped her foot. Folding her arms across her chest, she demanded, “Did Terry do that to any of the other submissives?”
“For,” Danny emphasized. “Not to, and none of the other submissives went through what you did. This isn’t up for debate. Either you agree to his terms and be aware that he’s going to be watching you closely all the way to midnight, or you turn your little ass around and take a walk. Which would be a pity since I suspect—” Danny deliberately dropped his stare from her eyelevel to her chest. “—beneath that thick, black, scratchy-ass wool winter coat, you’re probably wearing one of your cute little cock-tease outfits, and lord knows I’d hate to miss out on how you like to flash me before you go inside.”
Her turn now to cock an eyebrow, Abby struck a pose. She also untied her waist belt, plucked the buttons undone from chest to hip, and whipped her coat open. It was her favorite part of the night: the Great Reveal. She’d spent more time on her outfit tonight than normal, and from the way Danny’s eyes lit with hungry approval, she knew every minute of that time had been well spent. This particular little black number she’d picked up at the mall. Made entirely of black lace netting, the babydoll cut gown was see-through from top to bottom, showing off her barely-there thong panties and complete lack of a bra. She wasn’t wearing stockings tonight. Hell, as soon as she was in the main room, she wouldn’t be wearing shoes. Letting her coat drop to the floor, she stood before him knowing she looked damn good.
“Hell, yeah,” Danny said appreciatively.
Abby turned around, showing him the equally transparent view from the back, and cast him a knowing smile over her shoulder. He was staring at her ass, shaking his head and not bothering to hide his approval.
“Victoria Secret, eat your heart out,” he said.
“It’s not my heart I want eaten tonight.” Very deliberately, she bent over, taking her sweet time in retrieving her fallen coat. “Spankable?” she coyly asked.
“Among other things.” His voice had lowered, thickened, become that soul-shivering growl that she loved to hear her Doms use.
She looked back over her shoulder again. “Want me to twerk it a little?”
“I’d rather be able to do my job without the added embarrassment of a full-on woody. No, thank you.”
“Be nice to me,” Abby said with a smirk, “and I’ll tell you where to get this exact dress for your girlfriend.”
Abby had hooked the collar of her coat but was still completely bent over when the door to the secret passage yanked open, letting in a gust of extremely cold air and an almost as cold Newton.
“Je-suh—” Halfway over the threshold, he stopped both mid-step and mid-exclamation when he saw her. The heavy metal door swung shut, bumping his back hard enough to nudge him the rest of the way over the threshold. He never once took his eyes off her upturned and mostly bare ass.
Straightening slowly, Abby fought back the urge to strike another pose. She folded her coat over her arm instead. Now he was staring at her tits. She let him too. An odd tingling sensation lit up her belly, spreading goose bumps up her back, down her arms, reaching into the valley between her breasts to pepper its effect across the halves of each exposed mound.
“Do you like what you see?” she asked.
At first, he didn’t seem to hear her. But then she saw him visibly startle and at last his gaze snapped all the way up to lock with her eyes. He didn’t say one word. Nor did the stark somberness of his expression change, although she was amused to note a slow flush of color rise to stain his winter-ruddy cheeks. It might have been the cold, but she much preferred to think that blush a result of having just been caught with his eyeballs in the titty jar.
“It’s okay.” She took two sultry steps closer to him. “I don’t mind if you look. Here.”
Shifting her coat away from her body, she turned in a single, slow circle, letting him gaze his fill. However, when she finished and once more stood facing him, his gaze remained stubbornly locked on hers. In fact, she’d have sworn it hadn’t moved. The tingles in her stomach morphed into the sinuous fluttering of a dozen butterfly wings, all of them tickling at her in ways that made her silly heart flutter and her pussy twitch along in time. Especially when she saw his jaw tighten and his throat swallow.
“Very nice,” he finally said, his tone was every bit as expressionless as his face, but Abby wasn’t fooled.
For the second time that night, she let her smile grow teeth. “Yeah. Too bad ‘look’ is all you’ll ever be able to do. Because this right here, is the closest you’ll ever come to touching me. Tonight or any other night. Not without violating consent.”
At last. His coffee-brown eyes darkened even more, ever so faintly narrowing on her words, though he made no attempt to respond in kind. Still, any reaction out of a disapproving ice giant like Newton was, in her opinion, as good as victory. The lo
wer simmer of temper lurking just under that handsome frown was proof enough that she was getting to him. That right there was almost enough to make her whole night.
“Come anywhere near me tonight and I’ll scream consent violation so loud that the Runway regulars will hear it. And considering Runway isn’t open tonight,” she smugly pointed out, “that’s loud.”
Turning on her three-inch-high stiletto heels, Abby put all the sultry wiggle into her strut toward the lockers. It would have been perfect too, if only she hadn’t stepped on the hem of her own coat. Like a submissive on a too-short leash, she stumbled, tottering on her high heels and ruining her own snark-exit from the conversation. She caught herself after only one faltering step, quickly yanked the hem of her coat out from under her foot, and found her balance. Balling up her wayward coat, Abby tugged and smoothed her dress back down into place and stole a quick look behind her to make sure no one was laughing. Arms folded across his chest, Newton hadn’t cracked so much as a smile; Danny had a hand over his eyes. Not her best walk away, but no one was making fun of her, so…
“Nailed it,” she said under her breath. Head held high, she walked away as if her face wasn’t burning and her hands weren’t shaking. Not that she had anything to be embarrassed about. This wasn’t the first clumsy thing she had done in front of Danny and, to be honest, it wasn’t likely to be the last. As for Newton… well, who cared what he thought? He didn’t like her and she was long past caring why. No way was she going to base the success of her night on his opinion of her or anything she did, especially since she probably wouldn’t see him once the event got started. Give her someone with a stern but steady hand, someone she could sink into the right headspace for and Newton could start his scene right next to her and she’d never notice him.
That suited her just fine. Stuffing both purse and coat into her assigned locker, Abby left Danny to finish checking Newton in and pushed through the heavy door that guarded the pleasurable wonders of Black Light’s dungeon. As it always did, Abby paused just inside to drink it all in—the evenly spaced play stations, the dark dungeon décor, the multicolored track lights that lit up each stock and cross and spanking bench enough for those getting their kink on to see what they were doing… and for them to be seen by those who liked to watch. The bar was already open, tables and chairs provided pockets of comfort for all those who would not be participating in the main event, and up on the stage, two massive roulette wheels had already been set up. Her name would be on one; the other would be sectioned out in a variety of potential kinks.