Before the heavy doors could close behind her, she rushed down the steps and sprinted south on the sidewalk along Beverly Boulevard. It was the long way to her car. At a run, so not her forte, she reached the garage in minutes. Hurt and mortification must have inspired speed.
As she climbed the stairs to the third level, sucking wind and sweating, she was never more thankful for her used Chevy with its keyless entry keypad, and that she always left her phone and wallet in the trunk. Or she would have no choice except to return, and rerun the gauntlet of humiliation, to retrieve her purse from her locker.
They could keep her thirty dollars and tube of lipstick. No way was she going back for more insults and degradation. Not tonight. And most likely never again because among the beautiful people, she was a fish out of water.
A fat fish, evidently.
SEEING HER BOTTOM LIPquiver as she bolted toward the door, Noah shot to his feet to follow. He couldn’t watch her go and do nothing. But she was more adept at battling the Friday night crowd than he was.
When he barked, “Move!” in his sternest master’s voice, the subs quickly skittered out of the way. The doms, who usually felt no compunction to follow orders, took one look at his face and obeyed his command. There was no sign of her, however, when he made it out to the street.
“Damn, Jordan, that judgmental asshole,” he muttered on his way back in. Acting as if he was god’s gift to the submissive world when he didn’t know the first thing about them. And he had shit taste in women.
Fiona was lovely. He’d had his eye on the curvy brunette since she’d joined last year and was sorely tempted to claim her for a night. But he sensed her vulnerability, not just in the shy looks or the quick rise of color to her cheeks in the dungeon, but something about her called to the protector inside him.
She was exactly his type. All the more reason to stay away. He could too easily fall under her spell, but he wasn’t going there again.
Besides, he worked long hours, traveled often to some of the most impoverished places on the globe, took risks when Rossi called on him, and volunteered as a DM at the club when he could. There was little time for anything else. What could he offer a submissive like Fiona, who was obviously looking for a forever dom?
Although it was self-imposed torture, he’d watched her over the past year when he was in town, which wasn’t much, as she’d crashed and burned over and over. Her taste wasn’t much betterthan Jordan’s. She’d say no to the doms who might be amenable to something long-term and yes to the players.
Her problem was she didn’t hang around long enough, either in the bar or lounge before or after playtime, to mingle with the other submissives. If she did, she’d get the scoop on who might be a good fit and which doms to run from as if her incredible caramel-streaked waist-length hair was on fire.
Robert fucking Jordan would have topped his list of the latter.
Eric’s subbie wife would have adopted her in an instant, but she didn’t afford her or any of the many kindhearted, well-meaning, matchmaking subs a chance. It was against the rules, but watching Fiona struggle, he could see where it would be useful in certain circumstances.
As he stalked into the lounge, he was so enraged he wanted to put his fist through the loathsome man’s smug, surgically enhanced face. Yeah, he’d had a rhinoplasty, and Noah would take great satisfaction in seeing that he needed another.
That was risky, however. Not that he couldn’t take the smarmy little putz, but because as a surgeon, his hands were his livelihood. Another reason he didn’t seek out and punish the asshole’s unacceptable behavior, he lacked the authority.
He wasn’t a DM tonight; he was a regular member, just like Jordan. Although it wasn’t for Eric’s lack of trying.
Within six months of his joining, the owners and other doms had nominated him for club master status. They awarded the title to only the most experienced and respected. It was an honor, but the elevated position came with added responsibility. They mentored new and less experienced dominants, provided demonstrations on some of the less common BDSM techniques, and served as dungeon monitors on rotation.But he wasn’t in a good place then, and still didn’t feel he had the time to serve in that capacity. He helped when he could, but that was it.
Instead of seeking Jordan out and give him the ass chewing—and kicking—he richly deserved, Noah sought out someone who had the authority to handle the situation.
Eric Dupree wore multiple hats, CFO for the Rossi group, which included the main headquarters in San Antonio, the satellite office here in LA, and both clubs. He had clout in all locations but especially here at Decadence LA, where, as the master dom and operating partner, his word was law.
Eric didn’t tolerate any sort of humiliation in his club unless it was part of a negotiated scene. Yeah, some subs got off on that. As Fiona’s distraught face and quivering bottom lip flashed in his head, he knew for damn sure she wasn’t one of them.
“Eric, a word,” he called, catching him leaving his private booth in the dungeon, his submissive wife at his side.
“It’s our turn at the cross. Can it wait until after?”
“There has been a situation.” He glanced around. “But I can track down Tristan or one of the other masters, I suppose.”
“What kind of situation?” Eric interjected.
“I don’t like to carry tales, but it’s that or start one of the infamous brawls the bar is becoming known for.”
“Please, don’t,” the owner said, sounding aggrieved and a bit desperate. “I just paid the invoice this morning for the new furniture after the last one. Fill me in on what’s going on. Perhaps I can take care of it without breaking tables and thousands of dollars’ worth of glasses.”
When Eric heard Jordan’s callous insults had sent one of their members fleeing the club on foot, after dark, in the middle of downtown LA, he wasn’t pleased. But Valerie, who’d earned the nickname subbie guardian—SG for short—was livid.
“You’ve got to do something about him, master. Jordan isn’t merely a misogynistic asshole. He gets off on being cruel. Last week, he called Analise an Amazon and made her crawl across the playroom floor because barefoot, she towered above him byseveral inches. She still has bruises on her knees a week after the fact. Before that, he used a hood on Mandy because he said her hair looked like straw and was an eyesore. They were both humiliated, and that wasn’t something they negotiated as part of their scenes.”
“Why didn’t they use their safeword or come to me with this?” the master dom demanded to know.
