“I’m here more than there, lately,” the younger man replied, not seeming to notice his reaction. “I had the honor of showing her around her first time here. She didn’t have much experience, and when I showed her the ropes, so to speak, she was eager to learn and seemed to really need the support of the community.”
Axyl was not only good-looking and personable, he was also younger than him by at least a decade. Fiona’s willingness to engage in a scene with a stranger from out of town, yet she turned down his own proposition out of hand, ignited a sudden surge of jealousy within him.
Having Val and Esme’s attention as well, he leaned back, forcing himself to relax.
“I hate to hear it. What happened?” the younger man said, directing his question to Eric.
“I’m not sure, because I never got to speak to her about it. She just let her membership lapse,” he replied. “It was right after a scene went bad, which I suspect had something to do with it.”
“That’s an understatement,” Val muttered.
“She let that putz Jordan run her off,” Noah concluded.
“He wasn’t the only reason,” Esme quietly put in.
Looking a bit wounded, Val asked, “You talked to her?”
“Only briefly. I don’t think she meant to answer, but I surprised her by calling early in the morning before work. She said Club Decadence didn’t have what she was looking for.”
“Did she mention what that was?” Eric asked.
“Stability with a forever dom. She also wants a family someday. After turning thirty-four this year, she said her clock was ticking. She was in a forthcoming mood and mentioned giving up BDSM altogether and settling down with a nice vanilla guy if she could find one.”
“That’s not settling down,” Noah muttered. “That’s just settling. It won’t make her happy.”
“We should’ve helped her find someone here,” Val stated, glaring at her dom. “If we didn’t have so many stupid rules—”
“Don’t start,” Eric warned.
“Why? We’re a community. And we’re supposed to be a safe place for like-minded people. That’s what you’re always telling the new members. If they can’t find someone here, what are the chances they’re going to find someone in a city as big as LA, all on their own? Especially someone like Fiona?”
“What does that mean?” Eric demanded. “Are you calling her fat, too?”
“Like I would!” Valerie exclaimed. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, she punched her master in the shoulder. “How could you accuse me, of all people, of fat shaming? I meant that she’s shy with very poor self-esteem. That she had the nerve to come here to begin with, then put herself out there for a year, was a feat in itself for an introvert like her. After what Jordan did to her, I’m not at all surprised she quit. That’s why I’ve been trying to reach her.”
“She should have found your sub group, SG,” Noah commented, not liking the fact that an emotionally vulnerable submissive was withdrawing from what she needed to be whole. That it was Fiona, who he’d been thinking about constantly since the incident, doubled his concern.
“Yeah,” Val agreed in a less voluble tone. “That she didn’t wasn’t from my lack of trying.”
“Did you actually just hit me?” Eric asked, a few beats behind in the conversation and clearly dumbfound by his subbie wife’s behavior.
As if she hadn’t noticed it hurting until he pointed it out, Val shook her hand, which had to have taken the brunt of the impact on her dom’s rock-hard deltoid.
“Someone has to make you see reason,” she said by way of explanation, not offering an apology, which from Eric’s scowl he’d expected. “Fiona isn’t the first sub who quit the club because she couldn’t find a dom who suited her.”
“We aren’t running a dating service,” he grumbled.
“Maybe we should, because you are quite good at it,” Keiran, a silent observer until now, said. “Or did you forget you were behind me and Esme getting together?”
“He gave me an ultimatum,” his wife disclosed. “Find a dom or get out.”
Val gasped, shooting her master a disappointedhow could youlook.
“He did the same with me, although the threat was different,” Keiran declared.
Val’sglower deepened. “I see. It’s only against the rules when a submissive tries to connect two people who have something in common. That seems fair.”
“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, sprite. Keep it up and you’ll be standing during office hours the rest of the week.”
