by Golden Angel
That’s right, little girls, the big dog is in the yard now.
And Olivia was the biggest, baddest bitch on the block—or, in the room anyway.
“Gentlemen,” Olivia said with an affectionate smile. She’d come to enjoy all of their company, even Zach whom she’d had her doubts about at first since he’d originally come into the club with a misogynist ass named Roland. Roland had been kicked out and actually tried to attack Leigh in the parking lot on his way out. Unlike Roland, Zach had decided to stay.
In fact, Olivia was pretty sure the class was part of what had given Zach the confidence to do so. In her opinion, Zach might be more of a switch than a Dom. He was kind of fascinating to her, because he had definitely been able to turn on his more dominant side when they were using female submissives for practice, but he also tended to follow the strongest male around. From what she could see, it wasn’t that he was a misogynist like Roland, it just seemed to be how he was wired—and when he’d started coming to the class he’d not only started to gain more confidence, but he’d veered more towards Kincaid than Roland.
Not that Olivia blamed him. When she wasn’t around Kincaid was definitely the alpha male in this little pack of alphas; the same way Patrick tended to be top dog among her group of friends. The police detective was tall, handsome, and had exuded both authority and compassion from the moment he’d walked in the door. He also enjoyed dominating both men and women, which was already making him very popular at Stronghold.
“My lady,” Mitch said, giving her a courtly little bow from the waist, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. She felt her lips twist as her smile broadened, which made his own smile grow. He was the class clown, but he was also turning into a very good Dom. In a lot of ways, he reminded her of Chris and Andrew.
“Ma’am,” both Brian and Zach chorused as she looked at them. Brian tended to be quieter than the others—not shy exactly, he just didn’t say anything unless he felt he had something worth saying. He looked a little nervous now, though, probably because he hadn’t really faced off with Olivia since he and her friend Sharon had broken up a little over a month ago. Olivia didn’t care about that though; she’d never been the type to get in the middle of friends or exes.
“Good to see you all,” she said, and saw Brian relax marginally. “Are you ready for this?”
“Oh yes,” Mitch said, his smile changing to something more predatory as he eyed the small group of women. Silence on the other side of the room probably meant they were trying to overhear what Olivia and the Doms were saying. “Do we get to choose who we work with? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
She couldn’t stop her chuckle. “Well, you know how I like it when you beg. You will all have to work it out among yourselves.”
“Dibs on Rae,” Mitch said immediately.
“You might want to wait,” she warned him. “Patrick told me there’s been a last minute addition to the class. Hopefully she’ll be here before we really get started.”
“You’ll let her stay if she’s late?” Zach asked, a little startled, since they all knew Olivia was a stickler for being on time.
“Total newbies always get a little more leniency,” Olivia said. “For all we know, she showed up twenty minutes ago and is out there sitting in her car, trying to gather up the courage to walk in. You’re all used to playing with submissives who have been in the scene for a while and you were new. Now the shoe is on the other foot; you’ve been playing in the scene and know what to expect, and you’re the dominant. As you all know, at least you’d better after our time together, it takes a lot of inner strength to be a submissive and let someone else have so much control over you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they all chorused together.
The door at the back of the room opened up and Luke, Patrick, and Michael all came walking in, obviously still having been upstairs in Marquis. Olivia couldn’t help but wonder if they’d all been up there since she’d left—and what they’d been doing since she didn’t see Ellie or Lexie.
“Ready to start your class?” Patrick asked, his expression a little odd. The scar on his face sometimes made him hard to read, but Olivia felt a strange twinge at the amount of anticipation she saw on his face. A strange sense of impending alarm creeped up the back of her spine. He was up to something.
“Just waiting for your last minute addition,” she said, keeping her suspicion out of her voice. “Unless she’s called to cancel?”
“Oh no, he’s right here,” Patrick said, grinning so widely it looked like his smile was about to split his face. “Sorry we held him up a little.”
Looking into Luke’s bright blue eyes, which looked torn between amusement and a bit of regret, Olivia froze. Her jaw clenched to keep from dropping, her body flashing cold and then hot as shock and anger washed over her.
Those bastards set her up.
Tearing her gaze away from Luke’s, she glared at Patrick.
He grinned, satisfaction showing in his eyes.
Payback, his expression said.
He should be grateful she’d helped Lexie get into the club and pushed them together, dammit. Look at how happy he was now!
Olivia narrowed her eyes.
It was not the same situation.
He raised his eyebrow at her. Wanna bet?
She raised hers right back. I won the last one.
Olivia had bet Angel would go through with the surprise wedding Adam had thrown her. Patrick had thought she’d at least punch or slap him, if not outright run.
“Are you having an entire conversation with your eyebrows?” Mitch asked, sounding fascinated. “Is that a dominant thing, or just for you two?”
“We’ve known each other a long time,” Olivia said smoothly, almost thankful to Mitch for giving her a reason to look away from her long-time asshole of a friend. Who was so going to pay for this sneak attack. She focused back on Luke, who was smart enough to look a little worried. As he should be. What did the idiot think he was doing, signing up for the submissive class? Olivia gestured to the booth on the other side of the room. “Go sit with the other submissives.”
As soon as Luke was moving, she glared at Patrick and Michael. The latter had been smart enough to hide slightly behind his bigger friend, but she didn’t miss the amusement in his eyes. “You two, out.”
“Have fun,” Patrick said, still smirking. He offered up a piece of paper as Michael hurried past, still grinning. “Here’s his survey and limits. Sorry they’re a little late.”
Her eyes narrowed at his retreating form. There was definitely going to be payback.
Brian cleared his throat. “Ma’am? What would you like us to do?”
Giving herself a shake, Olivia refocused on what she was supposed to be doing right now.
Class.
New subbies.
Baby Doms.
Got it.
A sadistic little smile curled her lip. “I’ve rethought my stance. Mitch, I’ll pair you up with Rae, but I’m going to make the mentor assignments for this evening.”
Although none of them could know exactly what was going on, they were all observant enough to get the gist. A similar smile to her own appeared on Kincaid’s face, obviously already anticipating what she was going to do.
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Chapter 2
Listening to Patrick and Michael had been a bad idea.
Luke couldn’t blame them entirely though; he’d also wanted to see Olivia’s face when he’d joined in the submissives class. Ultimately, it hadn’t been quite as much fun as he’d thought it would be. Her jaw had almost dropped, her expression had been full of shock and—he thought—a bit of desire, but then she’d gotten pissed.
Not in the way that turned him on either.
There was a difference between when he was annoying her and when she was actually angry, and he’d just felt it. He hadn’t known before. Ignorance didn’t stop him from feeling both guilty and a bit miserable about upsetting
her. Patrick and Michael hadn’t seemed too bothered by it, but then neither of them would be.
Internally sighing as he headed over to the table of rather attractive women, all looking to be in their late twenties, Luke decided he was going to find a way to make it up to her.
“Hello,” said the blonde as he approached. She eyed him speculatively. All of the women looked a little confused, and he wondered how much they’d been able to hear of the conversation across the room and how much they understood of it. “So, you’re the last submissive?”
“Yes,” he said, sliding into the booth on the end. The women had all huddled together enough that there was plenty of space on both ends. The woman to his left was very slight and petite, reminding him of Lexie’s build, but where he would call Lexie an imp or a pixie, this woman looked more like a little fairy. Give her a pair of wings and he could see her fluttering around pollinating flowers or something. Her riot of short blondish brown curls shook as she tilted her head to study him with gray-blue eyes. He smiled at her. “I’m Luke.”
“Samantha,” said the blonde, with a warm smile. Luke did his best to hide his reaction to her name. At least she didn’t look anything like his dark-haired ex. Fortunately, the redhead next to her was already speaking up, so he didn’t think Samantha saw him cringe.
“You don’t look like a submissive,” said the redhead, who was stunning but didn’t appeal to him in the same way Olivia did. She eyed him speculatively, blatantly checking him out.
“Um…” he didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Ignore her,” said the black girl between the redhead and the curly haired fairy. She was gorgeous, with dark brown eyes, an almost challenging stare, and long black braids to nearly her waist. The tightly fitted red t-shirt she was wearing made the most of her firm curves and slim waist. “She seems to have some very specific, very wrong, ideas about what submissives are and aren’t.” Leaning over the table she stretched out her hand to shake. “I’m Rae and this is my friend Domi.”
Domi, the curly-haired fairy girl, grinned. “It’s Dominique, actually, but everyone calls me Domi. And yes, I’m aware of the irony.”
A submissive named Domi. Luke grinned as he shook both of their hands, some of his misery dissipating in anticipation of how the dominants would react to her. On the other side of Rae, the redhead was slouching back against the booth pouting with her arms crossed over her chest. The blonde ignored her, so he assumed the two of them weren’t friends like Rae and Domi.
“They’re coming,” whispered Rae, looking nervous. She and Domi reached under the table to grab hands for moral support.
Luke wished he had someone to grab hands with for moral support. Even though he was a fairly confident, self-assured man who had no trouble holding his own against Doms like Michael and Patrick when it came to making business decisions, this was an entirely different kind of situation. The pack of approaching Doms made him nervous too, just because he wasn’t entirely sure what he was getting into—and with Olivia at the head of the pack he was probably in some real trouble. The sadistic little smile curving her lips when she caught his eye was not reassuring.
“Hello everyone,” Olivia said smoothly, coming to a halt in front of the table with the men arrayed behind her. All but the blond were looking at Luke now, studying him, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to shift uncomfortably in his seat under the weight of their combined stares. The others might call them ‘Baby Doms’ but as far as he could tell they had all the same confidence and authority as a regular dominant, and he’d never been subjected to this kind of scrutiny by a pack of them before.
“I’m Mistress Olivia, manager of Marquis when it opens, and also the overall instructor for this course. These gentlemen standing behind me are going to be mentoring you throughout the classes. Today we’ll just be getting to know each other, going over hard and soft limits, doing some small demonstrations over your clothing, and giving you a taste of what the class will consist of. For Thursday’s class, you will need to come in, or change into, club appropriate attire and everything is going to become a lot more hands on from there. If you don’t have any and won’t be able to procure some by then, you can come and speak with me. Any questions so far?”
Despite the blunt way she spoke, Olivia’s tone was warm, welcoming, and encouraging. One of the many facets of her personality which so fascinated Luke. He’d thought she’d come in playing hardball, establishing her dominance over the submissives—which she definitely had, but in a very different way than he’d imagined. Rather than pushing, she was almost coaxing.
Samantha raised her hand and Olivia nodded at her, with another encouraging smile.
“How much touching is there going to be during these classes, exactly?” she asked nervously.
Olivia’s smile widened a little, and now a bit of the predatory Domme showed through. “That’s up to you and your partner of the evening. All hard limits will be honored in the club, always, but everything else can be negotiated. In fact, negotiations are one of the things you’re going to be practicing this evening once we get started. But yes, anything not barred by a soft or hard limit will be something you eventually experience in this class. I’m of the opinion that trying things in class so you can define more of your limits will be very helpful to you in the future. Before we started doing these classes, new submissives would go through an Introduction Scene with a dominant she never would have met before. Here, you’ll actually have the opportunity to build up to a full-on scene, so I think this is actually better.”
Pausing, Olivia waited to see if anyone else raised their hands.
“Let me introduce the gentlemen standing behind me, who have graciously volunteered to be the mentor-dominants for the class.”
Graciously. Ha! The wide, predatory grins on all their faces indicated their anticipation of their new duties. Luke already knew their names, even though he hadn’t officially met any of them. Visiting Stronghold several times since he started to get involved with the group of friends, Olivia’s ‘Baby Doms’ had all been pointed out to him. He also knew Olivia had more volun-told them what they’d be doing than actually asked for volunteers, not that any of them had objected. More experience and practice with submissives less experienced than themselves had apparently sounded pretty appealing.
As the biggest one, Kincaid, looked at Luke and grinned, a dark feeling of foreboding and suspicion started to rise in Luke’s chest.
******
“This is Master Brian,” said Olivia, stepping back and introducing the tall, leanly muscled man. He smiled at the subbies, looking almost non-threatening for the moment, which made her lips twitch. They’d be in for a surprise if they made the same mistake Sharon had in thinking he was easy going.
“Master Mitch.” Grinning, Mitch winked at the women, his gaze lingering on Rae, causing a little round of giggles. Interestingly enough, Rae wouldn’t meet his eyes and she was the only one who didn’t giggle at his wink. That pairing should be fun to watch this evening.
“Master Zach.” Zach gave them a little hello wave of his hand, although his expression remained sternly composed. The small group of submissive women had definitely brought out his more dominant side. Olivia gave him a small smile of approval.
“And Master Kincaid.” With his arms crossed over his chest, Kincaid was definitely the most imposing of the dominants, and the smiles faded as all the women shifted nervously. Olivia definitely approved.
Stepping forward again, Olivia gestured at the table of women. “I know all of your names already, but let’s go ahead and have introductions for the class at large. Tell us your name, or what you would like to be called, and any experience you have or where you heard about BDSM and Stronghold if you don’t have any hands-on experience. We’ll start with you.”
Under Olivia’s eye the curvy blonde, Samantha, sat a little straighter, rubbing her hands on her thighs. “My name is Samantha. I went to a club in LA when I was visiting
a friend last year and… um, after that I haven’t been back but I, um, experimented with my boyfriend at the time. After we broke up I started looking around online and I found Stronghold and put in an application.”
She looked unsure if she should say more, but Olivia just nodded and turned her gaze to the redhead, Morgan. Morgan’s hair was a deep rich red, even darker red than Olivia’s, and hung in waves nearly to her waist. She straightened up, her shoulders going back and thrusting her breasts forward, emphasizing the creamy cleavage revealed by her v-neck sweater.
“Morgan Turner,” she said in a lilting voice, looking past Olivia to the men behind her. Olivia tried not to be too judgmental. All of the women had indicated they were straight on their paperwork so it wasn’t totally unnatural for them to focus more on them even if Olivia had been asking the question. Still, she had a feeling that if there was going to be a problem student in this class, it was going to be Morgan. “My last relationship was with a Dom. We never attended any clubs, although he took me to a few parties. I tried the regular dating scene these past few months but I was frustrated when I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I wanted to get into Stronghold as a regular submissive, but they said I had to take this class first.”
Depending on what her relationship with her previous Dom had been like, that small bit of experience could help or hinder her.
Olivia made a small note in her mind before turning to the black woman Mitch had focused on.
“I’m Rae,” she said, pronouncing it as ‘ray’. She looked directly at Olivia—not in a challenging manner, more like she was focusing on Olivia as the titular leader and also a way to ignore the men standing behind her. “I’m here because of Domi.”
“That would be me,” said the curly haired waif sitting next to Rae, raising her hand. Olivia’s lips twitched at Dominique’s nickname, feeling the men stirring behind her in reaction. “I’ve been doing a lot of research online and reading books, and all the chat boards said Stronghold is the best in the area, plus it’s the closest to my apartment, so that’s where I applied.”