I don’t want to push Sasha if this is somehow out of her comfort zone when Miscreant wasn’t.

Maybe it’s because we know people here.

I take a long, slow sip of my beer and let her process. There’s nothing I like more than Sasha’s face when she’s thinking something through. The way her forehead furrows and her nose wiggles. The little flicks of her eyes, the tight pout of her mouth.

Thinking Sasha turns me on, but then again, all Sashas turn me on. Sarcastic, sexy, generous, shopping, and indignant, too.

And when she reaches a conclusion, and her eyes light up? Fucking hell, that’s hot.

She nods. “Okay. Right. Obviously I want to watch.”

I grin wolfishly. I can’t help it. “Obviously.”

“No need to brag, pervert Santa.”

“I checked twice, and you’re definitely on the Naughty is Nice list.”

She blushes and her eyelashes dust her cheeks as she smiles. “Well, if I’m on a list…”

It takes a few hours for that scene to start. Before it does, we do a circuit of the dungeon. Sasha tries her hand at flogging my back, then I show her my rusty rope skills under Hugh’s watchful eye.

By the time we’ve settled on a couch in the library, everyone is probably aware that we’re together. And when I stretch my arm across the back of the sofa, Sasha settles in against my body, so she’s made her peace with that—at least in this crowd.

Tomorrow we’re flying to Vancouver, where we’ll really be alone for a week, and the outside world won’t matter.

After that? Who knows.

One thing at a time.

Right now, we’ve got an orgy to watch.

From the negotiations which happen in front of us, Henry’s going to conduct the sex. But there’s no doubt Madeline’s in charge in their relationship.

She wanted this, and so she gets it. If Henry struggles with sharing his woman, and he clearly does, that’s part of their dynamic.

She wants him to give her this. She wants him to suffer a bit, because she knows it brings him a sharp kind of pleasure he can’t get any other way.

Or maybe she just likes to hurt him, and he likes it, too.

People are complicated.

Fucking, though, is damn simple. And the volunteers who have signed up are down for that—simple, straightforward, vigorous sex. It starts simply enough, with Henry introducing his wife to the other men. He encourages them to compliment her, and talks about what she likes—her nipples sucked, her clit teased, a feathery touch.

She wants to be worshipped, and that’s what they give her. Beside me, Sasha fidgets and squirms, especially when one of the men gets between Madeline’s legs.

I couldn’t share Sasha like that. The bolt of possession hits me in a most unexpected place—my heart. Right in the middle of chest, the knowledge that I want her all to myself grows and throbs.

My fingers rub up and down her arm, and I squeeze her shoulder.

She licks her lips. Crosses her legs.

I think about her cunt, wet and swollen for me. Just for me. Mine.

My cock strains at my fitted suit pants. If anyone were to look over at me, with my legs spread and my slouched position on the couch, they’d see a clearly turned-on man.

They might think it’s about the tableau in front of us. They’d be so fucking wrong.

As soon as the scene ends, I’m pulling Sasha through the house.

“So we’re not going to say goodbye?” she teases me as I shove her wrap at her in the cloakroom that once had been a front sitting room.

I don’t answer her. Instead I send a text to the driver to meet us out front, then I press her against the wall and kiss her as I work my hands up her skirt and rip off her panties.

“Okay, no goodbyes,” she whispers, her chest heaving.

I don’t fuck her in the limo. I want to, but I want other things, too.

I want her stretched out in front of the fireplace in my bedroom. I want her cries for my ears only, and I don’t trust that privacy screen.

So I ply her with Prosecco instead, drinking it from her mouth until she laughs. Then I lick it off her breasts, making her sigh, and when those sounds threaten to break the erotic silence in the back of the limo, I take her mouth and I kiss her the rest of the way.

When we arrive at my house, we’re both lust-drunk and wine-tipsy. I take the bottle and give the driver a five-hundred-dollar tip.

Inside, we kiss again at the door. Sloppy and happy. We make out on the stairs, shedding our clothes as we slowly climb.

And when I stretch her out in front of the fireplace, it’s just as perfect as I imagined.

I get inside her and I stretch her out, my cock big and unyielding as it takes up space in her body. Claims her from the inside out.

In the back of my mind, there’s a little thought that it might be time to talk about ditching condoms. I want to feel her pussy squeeze me, hot and bare and perfect.

I want to spill my seed inside her, and that drives me crazy. I deepen my strokes, my hips and thighs tightening up with need as she digs her heels into my ass. Fuck, she makes me frantic.

We roll, and I jackknife up, holding her on my lap as she rides me through the last, bucking thrusts. When she comes, I follow in a blinding, fireworks kind of orgasm that makes me say silent prayers to the sex gods.

After I deal with the condom, I grab the blanket off the bed, and we stretch out in front of the soft glow of the fireplace.

Sasha’s the first to speak. She gives me a sated smile. “That was worth it, eh?”

I laugh. “Oh yeah.”

She looks at me with the same curiosity I saw earlier, and I nod lazily. “You want to know more about all those people?”

“I want to know more about you.” Her voice is soft and sweet, and she could ask me anything right now. I’m hers in every way, and she has no idea. “When was the first time you went to a club?”

I think back. I know this isn’t exactly the story she’s looking for, but this is the one that’s most honest. “Early in my rookie year. One of the guys suggested we go look for some action at a club he knew in Las Vegas. I was expecting a regular kind of nightclub. Not even close. It wasn’t really a kink club. Not in a Miscreant or Rapscallion sense. I’d say more…kink-adjacent. The only scenes, for want of a better description, were simulated on a stage while club goers danced, drank, and watched. So, maybe a cross between a strip club and a BDSM club? Somewhere for people to take a walk on the wild-ish side.”

“There’s a few places like that in Toronto, too. But they’ve got a weird reputation.”

“Right. Yeah, this place probably had a bad rep, too. And it was only an okay night out. But what I saw spoke to me. I mean, I understood that what I was seeing wasn’t real-world BDSM, though. So I started looking into it and was fascinated.”

“How long did it take to find the real kink community?”

“Another year. I can’t just go to any local munch, and I didn’t know anyone who could get me into the private circles. I had to wait for another opportunity like that, and it came during a road trip out west. Alberta has a vibrant kink community, and there are some high-rollers in Calgary who are the real deal. I haven’t looked back. It was like something clicked. I discovered a part of myself, you know?”

“Yeah, actually, I do,” Sasha says, and her gaze shifts, going unfocused as she drifts into a memory.

“Max’s party?”

She nods. “I mostly went as an excuse to get Beth there. And then…well, you know how that’s unfolded for me.”

I do, and what a fucking gift it’s been to show her my favourite secret world. “There’s something really special about early exploration. After my first real kink event, I needed to know everything. Experience everything. I became a total kink-geek.”

Sasha reaches out and strokes my face. “That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. You’re such a perfectionist.” She’s not wrong. “Did you do like Doms I’ve read about—experience the receiving end of things as part of your training?”

God, that’s digging deep. I nod. “That year, I realized I had a teammate who was deeply involved in the local kink community. He worked with me at first, then later, I was introduced to the woman who became my mentor. She encouraged me to experiment with every aspect of kink. I settled into hedonism as my main label, but I’ve got some brat in me, and a pretty good pain tolerance. I like to top in my personal relationships, but I can switch for a scene. So, even after I finished my training at the club, I volunteered to bottom for the occasional sadist who was looking to dish out more pain than his sub could handle.”

“So, you have masochistic tendencies?” She pushes up, her eyes bright with mischief. Maybe she liked that flogger more than she let on.

“I think every athlete is a masochist to some degree. No pain, no gain has been the mantra for decades now. Even you have a masochistic streak when it comes to exercise.”

She skips right past that to the juicy detail. “Never mind that. You bottomed? Tell me that bedtime story, Tate.”

“Is your voyeurism fetish maybe not just confined to watching?”

She grins. “Maybe not.”

Well, okay then. “Let’s be clear, it was more of a service role.”

“Crystal clear. Gimme the goods.”

“Are you looking for a story that must have me as the whipping-boy?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Here we go then. Once upon a time, in a city very far away from here, there was a Domly professional football player—let’s call him Bull—who agreed to play with a sadist, Bob, and his sub, Jill. Bob was always careful never to dole out more than Jill could handle, but every once in a while, he needed to let off some steam. That’s where Bull came in.”

Sasha squirms a little, and that makes me grin.

“He took everything Bob threw at him—literally, with whips and floggers and everything in between. And he took it all for Jill. And a little bit for himself. Because not only did Bob take him right to the edge of his pain-threshold, whenever Bob gave Bull a reprieve, he ordered Jill to blow Bull, but not let him come. By the time Bob finished torturing Bull, he was dripping with pre-come—”

Sasha’s hips rock against my thigh.

“Are you okay there?”

“Perfectly. Go on. Dripping with pre-come…”

I like the idea of her coming against my leg while I tell her a dirty story, but I don’t want to tell her about fucking another woman. So I kiss her instead, until she comes apart in my arms.

“…And they fucked their way to very happy endings,” I whisper before I pick her up and carry her to my bed, where I love her up one more time before I fall asleep with her snuggled into my side, her head on my chest.