Someone is pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell. I raise my head off the closet floor, where I’ve apparently fallen asleep. Christ, how long have I been here? The apartment is totally dark now, so it’s been hours.

More pounding. More doorbell.

Then someone is yelling for me. “Kris! Where are you?”

Jasper. He’s let himself in. What the hell does he want at this hour on a Friday night? Doesn’t he have better things to do now that he’s engaged to Ellie and expecting a baby?

I drag myself off the floor and take a second to get my bearings after I’m hit with a dizzy spell. When was the last time I ate? Last night? No wonder I’m light-headed.

I head downstairs and turn on a light, my eyes protesting the brightness after so much darkness.

Jasper is standing in my living room. “Where the hell have you been all day?” my best friend asks.

“I was here.”

“Why haven’t you answered your phone or responded to the two thousand texts we sent you? We were worried.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ve been down hard with the flu. I was asleep all day and never heard the phone.”

“Aileen was disappointed you weren’t there.”

His words are like a knife to the gut. The thought of her disappointed because of me is crushing. But better now than later, when her disappointment would be so much more profound. I’m doing the right thing for her, or so I tell myself. It’s agonizing to stay away from her, especially knowing she’s so close now. “I’m… I’m sorry to hear that, and I was sorry to miss it.”

“You sure you’re all right?” Jasper eyes me with the kind of insight only a longtime friend would have. “You look weird around the eyes, mate.”

“I’m fine.” I will be. Eventually. “You’ve probably got better things to do than check on me. Where’s Ellie?”

“In the car. We’re on our way home.”

“You were in Venice, and you live in Malibu. How is this on the way home?”

“Everyone was worried, Kris.”

I feel bad about that. “Apologize for me.”

“Will you be at Marlowe’s birthday party tomorrow night at Flynn’s?”

Oh God. Is that tomorrow? Everyone will be there, and they’re sure to invite Aileen and the kids. Fuck. “I’ll see how I feel.”

Jasper gives me an odd look, filled with a million questions. But he only asks one of them. “If something were truly wrong, I hope you know you can talk to me about it. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course.” This… This is too personal to share with anyone, even him.

“All right, then. I’ll leave you be. Ring me if you need anything.”

“I will.” I walk him to the door. “Thanks for coming out of your way to check on me.”

“No problem.”

I appreciate what he’s done. I’d do the same for him if the circumstances were reversed. I hate that people were worried and Aileen was disappointed.

And then I’m elated because she was disappointed. That means she wanted to see me as badly as I wanted to see her.

No! You’re not elated! You can’t have her. The voice inside my head reminds me of the understanding we reached earlier, when I decided to stay home rather than go to her. That voice has directed my entire life, and it’s never steered me wrong. I’m counting on it now to lead me through the greatest dilemma I’ve ever faced.

I should eat something, but the thought of food makes me nauseated. Instead, I go upstairs to the master bedroom and lie down on my bed. Closing my eyes, I allow my mind to wander in Aileen’s direction. After all, no one can be hurt if I think about her, right? But instead of her sweet, beautiful face, I see the parade of women with whom I’ve had superficial dealings, most of them sexual, over the years.

In our clubs here and in New York, I’ve worked out my aggressions on willing subs who allowed me to control their pleasure. I’ve bound them, controlled them, fucked them in every way a man can fuck a woman. In the past, my dominance has been all about the mind game, exerting my power to bring the ultimate pleasure.

But I’ve never felt a goddamned thing for any of them. Not one of them has ever stirred me the way Aileen did from the first time I saw her. I’ve never felt powerless around a woman until she came strolling into my life at Flynn’s wedding. I may as well have been standing on a table that she upended, because she knocked me on my ass, and I’ve been there ever since.

I tell myself I was much better off before I knew she existed in this world. Before that day five months ago now, my life was under my control and everything was fine. Since then, nothing has been the same. Of course, I’ve heard about love-at-first-sight bullshit happening to other people. I saw it happen to Flynn after he met Natalie and went off the deep end over her. Hell, I’m a fucking film producer. I’ve seen the movies and read the books.

But I didn’t honestly believe it was a real thing until it happened to me.

I think about the night a couple of months ago when we were hunkered down in my apartment, dealing with the threat levied at Jasper and the rest of the Quantum partners. Aileen and her kids were on their way to LA to visit Natalie and Flynn for the kids’ school vacation when the shit hit the fan. Natalie brought them here.

Aileen walked into my home, and the second I saw her, it was like someone had sucked all the oxygen from the room, proving that what happened at the wedding wasn’t a one-off. No, it was the start of something so far outside my realm of understanding that I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all these months later.

Things like that don’t happen to people like me. Someone as pure and perfect as Aileen doesn’t belong with someone like me.

So, it doesn’t matter if meeting her was like grabbing a lightning bolt with my bare hands. It doesn’t matter that the hours I spent with her were the best of my entire life. It doesn’t matter that I want to do everything I possibly can to make life easier for her and her two adorable kids.

No, the only thing that matters is staying the fuck away from her so she’ll have the chance to meet a nice, normal guy who can give her the kind of life she deserves.

There is nothing normal about me.

I can’t have her.

Somehow, I have to accept that and move on. Oh, and while I’m doing that, I also have to find a way to see her every fucking day at work and at the frequent gatherings with my friends without losing my fucking mind.

I’m trapped in a hell of my own making with no way out. I’ve got to get out of here before I lose my mind. I get up, grab my wallet and keys and head for the elevator.

---

Club Quantum is rocking. Ever since we let in outside members, our revenue has skyrocketed. If anyone was surprised to find out the Quantum principals run a BDSM club, we haven’t heard about it. People in the lifestyle tend to keep their mouths shut, especially those in our business. Members sign airtight nondisclosure agreements that ensure our privacy and theirs.

Sebastian says something to a guy at the crowded bar. He gets up, nods to me and moves along. Apparently, Seb told him to give his seat to me.

I take his place, sliding onto the barstool and mumbling my thanks to Seb for the Grey Goose and soda he puts in front of me.

“How you doing?” Sebastian asks.

“Good. You?”

“Busy.”

“That’s how we like it.” When my partners started falling like dominoes and stepping away from the club somewhat, I suggested opening it to the public or shutting it down. No sense paying Sebastian and the rest of the staff to run a club that most of us had lost interest in. I’m glad it worked out, because I love coming here. In the fishbowl of Hollywood, I prefer the privacy of our club to the more public options for late-night entertainment.

Despite my high-profile business, I keep a low profile in my personal life and wouldn’t have it any other way.

I nurse my drink and try not to dwell on the anxiety stirred up by Aileen’s arrival. I came here for a break from that, and I’m determined to find a distraction to get my mind back where it belongs. A distraction such as the young woman who stands a few feet from me, watching the action on the floor, her expression an intriguing combination of curiosity and fear—my favorite qualities in a sub. Her shoulder-length curly blonde hair, big blue eyes, plump lips and curvy, sexy body make for an attractive package. If I have a “type,” she’s it.

Taking my drink with me, I get up and go over to her. “How’s it going?”

My presence seems to startle her. “Umm, fine?”

“You’re new.”

She nods. “This is my first time here.”

“What’s your name?”

“Evelyn, but my friends call me Evie.”

“Nice to meet you, Evie. I’m Kristian.”

“I know who you are,” she says, blushing. “Everyone knows who you are.”

“That’s what I get for having famous friends.” Mindful of the million-dollar initiation fee we charge new members to keep the riffraff out, I wonder what she does. “Are you new in town?”

She laughs. “Hardly. I’ve been here ten years chasing the dream. So far, I’ve had quite a bit of success with modeling, but the acting career hasn’t materialized.”

I immediately wonder if she joined the club to gain access to us, but watching her watch the action on the floor, I begin to see that she’s here for the right reasons. On the far left-hand stage, a Dom has his sub attached to a St. Andrew’s cross. She’s facing away from him, and her ass is bright red from the flogger he’s been using on her. Two men are tag-teaming a woman on the middle stage. Her ass is plugged, her nipples and clit are clamped and her Doms are driving her wild with feathers.

The stage on the right features two men, one of them on his knees sucking the cock of the other.

“Have you had a tour of the club?” I ask Evie.

“Sebastian said he’d give me one when things die down at the bar.”

“I could do it if you don’t want to wait for him.”

She glances back at the bar where Seb is up to his eyeballs in customers. “Sure, that’d be great.”

“Right this way.” I lead her through the big room, watching her take in what’s happening on the various stages. “We allow everything but intercourse on the main floor.” Curious, I ask her, “Have you belonged to other clubs?”

“Yes, but none as nice as this one.”

“How long have you been a sub?”

“Always,” she says. “But I only understood it for what it is about five years ago.”

“Do you have a Dom?”

“Not now. I… I recently ended an unhealthy relationship.”

I sense a much bigger story, but I don’t ask her about it. I’ve got enough of my own problems without taking on hers, too. “Do you like to watch?” I ask, even though I already know the answer to my own question.

She nods.

We walk down a dark hallway lined by a series of doors. I gesture to the first door, and she opens it. I follow her into the observation room, where we encounter a scene in progress between a Domme and her sub. He’s a big guy, easily six-foot-two or three, muscular and completely at the mercy of the much smaller woman who has him tied to the four-poster bed. She circles the bed, running the leather tip of a crop up his inner thigh.

His cock is so hard, it’s purple against the pale skin of his belly.

I press a button on the wall so we can hear him moan. His every muscle is tight and tense as he tries to anticipate what she will do.

With a flip of her wrist, she flicks the crop against his balls.

He screams.

She does it again and again and again as he shrieks. “Don’t you dare come. Do you hear me?”

“Y-yes, Mistress,” he sobs.

Evie watches the scene, her fingers white from gripping the molding that frames the window.

“Do you like what you see?” I ask her.

She licks her lips. “Yes, Sir.”

That word, so fraught with meaning in our community, has me moving closer to her, slipping an arm around her waist to bring her in tight against me.

She leans into me, and we stand like that to watch the scene progress to her sucking his cock while he begs for permission to come.

“Do you like to be bound?” I ask Evie.

“Under the right circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“I have to trust my Dom completely. Trust has been an issue for me in the past.”

I could easily win her trust and show her how it should be. I could take her to a private room and negotiate an agreement that would leave us both drunk with pleasure. With her leaning into me and expressing tacit interest, all I have to do is suggest it to make it happen. I’m about to say the words when an image of Aileen pops into my head. My arm drops from Evie’s waist.

She looks up at me, her brows furrowed with confusion.

Sebastian comes into the room. “Ah, there you are,” he says to Evie. “I wondered where you’d escaped to.”

She blushes at the sight of Sebastian. He’s a big, strapping, muscular dude with dark hair and eyes, sleeve tattoos, pierced ears, scars he doesn’t talk about and a ten-inch cock that keeps him in hot demand with the female members of the club. He could have any woman he wants, but he’s choosy. I’ve known him to go months without a woman. He told me once he’d rather wait for someone who does it for him than settle for someone who doesn’t. I admire his restraint. I’ve been much less choosy in my dealings with women.

“Kristian was kind enough to offer to show me around since you were busy at the bar.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Sebastian says to me.

I note the hungry, needy way he looks at Evie and take a step back. “It was nice to meet you, Evie.”

“You, too.”

I leave the room feeling shaken once again by the realization that Aileen has so totally taken over my body and soul that the thought of touching another woman intimately makes me feel sick. I haven’t been able to bring myself to be with anyone else since the day I met her. I’ve never gone this long without sex. Turning down a willing sub is highly out of character for me and further proof that I’ve lost what’s left of my mind.

I return to the bar, order another drink from the backup bartender covering for Sebastian and down half of it in one big gulp. About two seconds later, I remember I never did eat anything, which is why I’m more than a little drunk after one and a half drinks. “Can you order me a salad with grilled chicken?” I ask the bartender.

“Of course. I’ll put it right in.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Marlowe coming toward me.

She slides onto the stool next to me and orders a glass of chardonnay. “There you are. You had us worried earlier.”

“Sorry about that.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Everything.

“Don’t give me that shit, Kristian. I can tell just by looking at you that something’s wrong. And where the hell were you today?”

“I was… I…”

Her hand lands on my arm. “Talk to me, Kris,” she says gently. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I take another swallow of my drink, seeking the courage to say it out loud. “Aileen.”

“What about her?”

I glance at my friend and partner, someone who has been there for me any time I needed support, encouragement, friendship. As much as I love her and know that she loves me, I can’t say the words.

So naturally, she says it for me. “Aw, damn. You’re in love with her.”

“What? No, I’m not in love with her.” Really? My own conscience calls bullshit. I want to tell my conscience to shut the fuck up and stay out of it.

“Would you even know love if you felt it?”

Marlowe is one of very few people who knows a little about how I grew up. No one knows the full story, and if I have my way, no one ever will. What does it matter to who I am now? Her question about love strikes at the heart of all my insecurities where Aileen is concerned. She’s hit the nail squarely on the head. How would I know what true love feels like?

“This,” I say gesturing to the club and all it entails, “is my life, my home. Can you see her here?”

“Not really, but I never expected to see Natalie or Addie or Ellie here either.” Our partners’ significant others have taken on our lifestyle after being introduced to it by the men they love.

“That doesn’t mean Aileen will be like them. She’s a mom and a cancer survivor. How does one go about sexually dominating a woman like her?” I take another deep gulp of my drink because thinking about sexually dominating her is all it takes to make me hard as concrete. Motherfucker.

“You’re getting too far ahead of yourself. You haven’t even talked to her about anything that truly matters. Perhaps she’ll surprise you the same way Natalie surprised Flynn and Addie surprised Hayden and Ellie surprised Jasper. Maybe it’ll all be fine.”

“It’s different with her.”

“I understand.”

I raise a brow in her direction. Marlowe is notorious for her avoidance of anything that smacks of romance or commitment. “Do you?”

“I’ve been in love before. I know how it feels and how difficult it can be to reconcile the emotion with the lifestyle.”

“I’m not in love with her.” I’m such a fucking liar.

“So you said, but something has you tied up in knots where she’s concerned. Is that why you stayed away today?”

I shrug. I don’t want to talk about why I stayed away. Everything about Aileen makes me feel raw and unprotected, the same way I felt after I witnessed my mother’s murder. I hate that feeling, and part of me is angry with Aileen for resurrecting emotions I’d sooner live without than revisit.

I signal the bartender for another drink. We have a two-drink limit for members, but I’m not a member. I’m a fucking owner, and I’ll have a third one if I want it.

The bartender delivers my drink, and I down half of it in one swallow. Across the bar, I make eye contact with a redhead, who raises her glass to me. Under normal circumstances, that’s all it would take to start the ball rolling. I could be engrossed in a scene with her within thirty minutes if I so desire, but I don’t desire her. I desire someone else, and the craving need I have for her is making me insane.

“I’m worried about you, Kris,” Marlowe says softly. “I don’t like seeing you this way.”

“I don’t like feeling this way. Why do you think I stayed home today?”

“Avoiding it won’t make it go away,” she says softly.

“Won’t it?” I’m the king of avoidance when it suits my purposes.

She shakes her head. “If she’s in your heart, you’ll take her with you everywhere you go, no matter how far you run.”

The truth of Marlowe’s statement hits me like a rock to the head. I’m so totally fucked, it’s not even funny.