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Tara broke the unspoken rule of the Subs’ Garden and pulled out her tablet. She shoved a chair into a dark corner of the elegant locker room and sat, shoulders hunching as she furtively tapped the screen. Something Nathan had said gave her an idea and she wanted to take notes before she forgot.

There were no formal rules preventing her from treating the subs-only space as a coffee joint and settling in to do some work. Still, she was breaking a social norm, and even knowing that, she didn’t stop until she’d taken her notes. Normally she was all for the unspoken rule. Disconnecting from the rest of the world was a huge part of why she spent an almost obscene amount of money every month to be a member.

But talking to Nathan always sparked ideas.

She was tempted to keep her work tablet and sneak in some reading—she always had a list of journal articles on her to-read list. Instead, she put the work tablet away, pulling out the small e-reader she kept in her locker. Journal articles wouldn’t hold her attention in this environment. They were always dry and technical, and tonight odd snippets of conversation about what the “game” and what was on the club’s checklist would easily distract her.

Tara hesitated, e-reader in hand.

Normally, reading “smut” was part of her scene prep. She’d sit in the Subs’s Garden and read, her body warming, skin starting to tingle as she enjoyed unrealistic but wonderful stories about people falling into bed, then into lust, and sometimes into love. All while having incredible, kinky sex.

Tara almost never left the Subs’s Garden without priming her own pump. Even if she knew—thanks to pre-scene negotiations—that there wasn’t going to be a sexual element to her submission, she made sure she was aroused.

Arousal made submission easier, so she got herself hot and bothered even if she knew her scene for the night wasn’t going to have a sexual element, resulting in self-inflicted orgasm denial.

Leaving a scene frustrated and needy rather that blissed out from orgasms was disappointing, but she had a system in place to deal with it—a wearable G-spot and clit vibrator she’d insert before getting dressed in her street clothes. Controlled from her phone, she’d turn it on in the car and enjoy the drive home. Once in the safety of her apartment, she’d touch herself as she replayed the weekend’s activity, and finally have the massive orgasm that would hold her for the next two weeks until it was her turn at Las Palmas again.

Her turn.

Tara looked around the Subs’s Garden again.

The Subs’ Garden was a suite of rooms. Normally the space felt almost empty, but since there’d been an all-club meeting, everyone was here. All around her the other subs were chatting and prepping. Some were sitting silently, looking anxious as they waited to be called to a playroom or courtyard by their new game partner.

She wondered which one of these people was going to be Nathan’s partner.

Tara winced, tucking her e-reader back into her locker before going to the long counter and dropping onto a padded stool.

Thinking about Nathan was a bad idea. She was rather proud of how she’d handled running into him. It wasn’t the first time they’d huddled against a wall to talk shop, though usually it was a hotel hallway at some conference or other.

Tara took a comb from the elegant box on the long counter and brushed through her hair. It looked okay, but wasn’t glossy and lush. She needed to do more than just wash it with a shampoo bar, but she’d never been good about a hair care routine the way her sister was.

Soon that would change.

Everything about the way she took care of herself would change.

She pulled her hair into a long ponytail at the back of her head, gaze skimming the reflection of the room and people around her.

This would change too.

This was the last weekend she’d be here.

Maybe this checklist game was a good transition into what came next. A remarkable end.

Tara rubbed lotion into her forearms, elbows, and neck, her focus on what the future might look like. Anxiety and joy in equal measure made her heart race.

She was lotioning her legs, more for something to do than any devotion to skin care, when the intercom in the ceiling clicked on.

“Sub Tara to the Iron Court. Wear a robe.”

Tara stilled, anticipation and a touch of nerves sliding through her. Now she was second-guessing her decision not to read some kinky romance. It was harder for her to submit when not aroused. But surely her “partner” would want to do some scene negotiation and maybe setup prep. Hopefully during prep she could come back to the Subs’s Garden and get herself properly ready.

The fact that she’d been instructed to wear a robe strengthened the idea that this was just going to be a “nice to meet you, what are you into” conversation and maybe scene negotiation, not jumping straight into anything

Tara stood, tugging at her club attire, before heading for her locker and grabbing a knee-length, sapphire-blue robe she usually wore for meals. The blue looked good with her complexion, but the soft clingy microfiber wasn’t exactly sexy the way shiny satin was.

In those moments, her mood shifted from pensive to anticipatory.

Tara checked her reflection one more time. She was smiling. The confusion and consternation she’d felt during the announcement had been replaced by excitement. Tonight felt right, this game the perfect way to end her time at Las Palmas.

Tara stepped out into the night, headed to meet the partner who would dominate her.

Tara shivered a little as she stepped into the Iron Court. Each of the three “courts” referred to a Spanish-style square building with an open-air courtyard in the middle. In the Iron Court, the garden didn’t have plants. Instead, the covered hallway lined the four sides of a haunting, statuary-filled space. Each of the doors that opened off the hallway led to a playroom.

These playrooms were designed for the darker and more intense scenes, many of them resembling medieval dungeons rather than elegant bedrooms.

Tara’s excitement didn’t dissipate, but it was tempered by caution. The point of the game was to push people to try new things. Both new partners and new kinks.

Where the other two courtyards had greenery and seating areas, here there were heavy concrete statues depicting moments from BDSM play.

Looking around, she wondered what letter she’d been assigned. She knew at least one of the playrooms had a cage in it, so maybe C for cage. She glanced around the eerie garden.

The small stage in the center of the courtyard would be perfect for some sort of auction scene role-play—though she didn’t think “auction” was actually on the club’s checklist. She just liked that trope in books.

Tara stopped beside the stone form of a naked woman on her knees, head bent, legs spread. She glanced around, a delicious shiver of fear working its way down her back.

A shadow moved, and for one fanciful moment she thought a statue had come to life.

The man has his back to her, his hair dark but painted silver by the moonlight. He wore classic Dom leathers—leather pants and a leather vest. The vest revealed thick arms, with enough muscle on his shoulders and upper arms to create curved contours. His skin was pale in the moonlight, almost glowing. This was a man who kept his shirt on, even during the long southland summers.

Tara walked forward, her slippers nearly silent on the hard-packed path between the statures.

Ten feet, five. She slowed, scuffing her foot a little to make sure he knew she was there.

The man flinched, his shoulders jerking.

But he didn’t turn around.

Tara frowned at his back. Was this part of their assignment? She tried to remember items from the checklist that restricted sight. There was “blindfold” of course…

The moment stretched, silent and tense. Tara fingered her robe, wondering if he was waiting for her to speak, and if he was, what he expected her to say.

She considered and discarded several comments, but did rub the sole of her shoe on the ground once more, in case he didn’t actually know she was there and hadn’t heard her approach.

With an audible exhale, the man turned to face her.

Tara’s reality exploded as two worlds that she’d kept distinctly separate collided, the shock wave from that collision rocking her back on her heels.

Nathan.

Nathan.

He glanced at her for only a moment, and whatever he saw on her face made him wince and look away. He tucked his hands into his pockets and for a wavering moment, she didn’t see adult Nathan but college-aged Nathan, who’d stand up, hunch his shoulders, and shove his hands in his pockets whenever he was stuck on something and needed to think.

Nathan was here, waiting for her…because he’d been the one to summon her.

“You’re my checklist partner,” she said slowly.

“Yes.” He still wasn’t looking at her.

“That’s…” Her brain was stuttering, her heart thumping hard inside the cage of her ribs. “No.”

He grinned, face still turned away. “That’s what I said.” The smile faded.

Years of avoiding being at the club at the same time, and now they’d been assigned to work together.

Work together?

No, that language was her brain frantically trying to make sense of this. They weren’t assigned to “work together.”

They were scene partners.

He was supposed to dominate her. Nathan. Her best friend. As her Dom.

The thought stopped the air in Tara’s lungs.

“Mistress Faith wouldn’t budge,” Nathan said, shoulders hunching even more. “I tried. But don’t worry, I’m going to resign my membership.”

That snapped her out of the shock paralysis.

“No, you’re not,” she said instantly.

Finally, Nathan looked at her. For just a moment, his gaze slid down her body. It was a quick glance, and if she hadn’t been watching him she would have missed it.

But she felt that look down to her toes, which curled inside her slippers.

“You’re not leaving Las Palmas,” she rushed out.

He huffed once, the sound almost amusement. “Faith said you’d be pissed if I quit without telling you.”

“You were going to quit without telling me?”

“I’m mildly annoyed that Faith was right.” He tried for a self-deprecating laugh but it sounded strained.

“She was.” Tara took a moment, sorting through her thoughts. “I assume you informed her it would be professionally awkward and generally inappropriate for us to scene?”

“I should have phrased it that way.” He frowned in thought.

“What did you say?”

“I said you were my best friend.”

Tara’s heart swelled as she looked at the man she’d known half her life. There had been periods when they weren’t close, work and life meaning they only saw one another at conferences, exchanging a few emails in the times in between, but time and again they found one another.

“We should get a drink.” She felt like she needed a drink, which was rare for her.

His relieved exhale made her smile. “Yes. Let’s. I said meet here because I wanted privacy, but I could use a drink.” Nathan stepped up beside her and she turned to head back the way she’d come. Nathan’s hand pressed gently against the small of her back as they started walking.

Tara blinked in surprise at the touch. Nathan always held doors open for her—a gentlemanly habit that had nothing to do with her specifically. Usually, he ended up holding the door for dozens of people in his silent, polite way.

In twenty years, he’d never put a hand on her back to guide her.

Tara must have stiffened as she walked by his side through the courtyard, because after a dozen steps, Nathan cursed and dropped his hand.

“Sorry. Habit.”

It wasn’t his habit in the outside vanilla world. That meant it was his habit here.

If she wanted to extrapolate further, it was one of his Dom habits.

Meaning, that for a moment, he’d treated her the way he would a sub.

Tara looked at him from the corner of her eye, studying his face in the moonlight. She’d never seen him by moonlight. On the occasions they were outside after dark, they were usually in a large city and his face was lit by streetlamps, not the moon.

The library—which held no books on its shelves but rather a collection of antique sex toys—also housed the bar and a good amount of seating. It was crowded tonight, which made sense, given that every member was here.

“Your usual?” Nathan asked.

She hesitated, but one drink would be okay. She nodded. “I’ll find us seats.”

They’d had this exact conversation a dozen times over the years.

“I’ll get the drinks. Your usual?”

“Yes. I’ll find us seats.”

Usually, it took place in a crowded hotel bar during a conference. They divided duties logically—his size allowed him to push through crowds and belly up to the bar easier than she could, and Tara had no problem asking people for spare chairs or making them shift around to create space.

Though the library was crowded, she didn’t have to resort to seating negotiations, snagging a two-seater couch not far from the door. The large armchair to the right of the couch was currently occupied by a Dom, his sub kneeling on a cushion by his feet as they conversed quietly.

What if Nathan walked over here and ordered her to kneel in front of him?

Tara’s stomach muscles tightened, and she breathed through it.

Objectively, she was very aware that Nathan was good-looking, if not exactly handsome in the traditional sense. His sharp intelligence and quick smile were incredibly attractive. At least to her. Not that she was actively attracted to him. It was more that she was aware what his best features and qualities were.

Once… Once she’d had a massive crush on him, but that was back in college. She hadn’t dated at all in high school, too focused on getting the grades necessary to make it to college. Nathan had been a revelation of sorts—a little awkward back then but able to easily make friends and navigate any social interaction. Smart but not competitive when it came to intelligence. Good-looking but not arrogant.

The first semester they knew one another, she’d dreamed of more.

Imagined them slowly starting to date.

Going to geographically adjacent, if not the same, grad school.

Getting married a few years later, when their well-paying jobs meant they’d have enough money to pay for their own wedding.

That had been a fantasy, born of her love for romantic movies and books.

They became friends, and she’d assumed it would turn in to more, until the night she caught him having sex with another girl. Kinky sex, with a girl he’d had blindfolded and tied down.

That had shocked her, and for a month she hadn’t exactly avoided him, but she hadn’t sought out his company. But the sight of him forcing the rope-wrapped woman to her knees, opening her mouth with his fingers, and then sliding his cock in, had more than shocked her. It had stayed with her. A seed planted that would take years to grow.

And in the meantime, she and Nathan had gone back to being friends, her crush smothered by the shock of what she’d seen, and the deep certainty that he wanted something she didn’t have.

Back then, she’d decided that their friendship was far better than the fantasy relationship.

Nathan appeared with a highball glass in one hand, a bottle of hard cider in the other. He passed her the glass. “They looked at me like I’d punched a kitten.”

She laughed at his disgruntled looked, accepting the kalimotxo. Equal parts Coke and dry red wine, it was like a carbonated sangria, and had been her drink of choice since college.

“You like sweet drinks too.” She pointed at the cider.

“Yes, but wine snobs don’t care about mine.”

“Did you tell them to use a cheap, dry red?”

“I did. If possible, she was more offended at the idea of cheap wine than at mixing it with pop.”

She always thought it was cute when he said the word “pop” rather than “soda.”

They sipped in silence for a few minutes, and if there was a thread of tension in their normally companionable quiet, she ignored it.

What she couldn’t seem to ignore was the memory of his hand on her back, or the way his gaze had skimmed down her body.

A year from now she wouldn’t be sitting in a bar with him—not here, not at a conference, not a local bar for after-work drinks. She’d wrestled with that, with understanding everything she’d lose, thanks to the choice she was making, but what she stood to gain outweighed the loss. She hoped not to lose her friendship with Nathan, but from everything she’d read, once she did this, all the relationships in her life would change.

Tara sat up, thoughts snapping and flowing as she pulled apart and reassembled a shocking idea.

“I know that look. Do we need a whiteboard?” Nathan looked around, as if he’d suddenly spot a whiteboard and dry-erase markers hiding in a corner of the sex club’s library/bar.

“They assigned us as partners for the game,” Tara stated.

Nathan’s shoulders tightened. “Yes. Like I said, I’ll?—”

“No, you won’t, because I’m resigning.”

Nathan leaned toward her, and his bulk seemed to loom over her. “Absolutely not, Tara.”

She had to swallow down her visceral reaction to both his physical nearness and the deep-voiced order. That was proof that her shocking idea was actually a good one.

“I was already planning to resign,” she explained. “It has nothing to do with the game.”

Slowly, Nathan retreated to his end of the couch, watching her carefully. “Do the overseers know?”

“No. I haven’t told them yet, but was planning to.” She had an entire plan in place, and coordinated both her life and work to ensure maximum success.

“Wait, wait. Why are you leaving? Are you not…into it…anymore?”

Tara’s cheeks felt hot, but her complexion usually didn’t show a blush, and with the low lighting, she hoped he wouldn’t be able to tell as long as she held her expression still.

“No. But I have plans that will make coming here, even twice a month, impossible.”

Nathan was frowning again. “Is it a new job? I thought your current project was at least a five-year commitment.”

“It is. It will probably be closer to ten.”

“Wait, are they moving your lab overseas?”

“No, no. I would have told you if something was happening at work. This isn’t about work.”

He opened his mouth, and she shook her head. Just once, but his lips closed and he nodded. She wasn’t ready to talk about her plans with anyone aside from the medical team. Not yet.

And Nathan…

She had no idea how to tell him. Oddly, his opinion of her plan was one of the most important to her. Until she found the precise right words to explain it, she didn’t want to.

But she was also hoping he’d help her.

Never, in even her wildest imaginings, had she pictured asking him for help while in Las Palmas.

That brought her back to the wild idea she’d had only moments ago.

“Like I said, I was already planning to resign. Problem solved.”

He nodded, but didn’t look relieved.

Her stomach fluttered, the wild thought she’d had only moments ago seeming like more and more of a good idea the longer she sat here, and the more she drank.

Tara sucked an ice cube out of her glass, crunching it between her teeth as she worked through what she was about to say one more time. Nathan was attentively watching her, and she could feel his regard as if it were a physical thing. This should have been it, the end of their conversation—the problem of their game assignment solved by her impending departure.

But neither of them moved, and Nathan’s expression turned expectant.

Beneath her robe, her nipples were hard in the fetish lingerie.

Tara drank the rest of her kalimotxo in one go. Liquid courage.

Intellectually she knew it would take far longer than thirty seconds for alcohol to affect her enough to impair her decision-making skills or lower her inhibitions. But she could pretend, and later blame it on the half glass of red wine. Fortified by the courage placebo, she turned to face Nathan.

“I resign now, and we ignore the assignment. Or…”

Tara met and held his slightly widened gaze with her own.

“Or we do it. We play the game.”