Page 292 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

Pence follows me into Chicklets, not exactly walking with me because we’re not that friendly, but within a few feet of each other, which makes walking in the City at night just that touch safer. Although Pence is a skinny reed of a kid wearing clothes that probably cost ten times my old leathers, so I’d probably be the one defending him if someone decided to mug him for his stupid Corthay loafers. He breezes through the door behind me and immediately throws himself at Briar as if they haven’t seen each other in weeks.

Before I can check if Tamsin is lurking nearby, I get enveloped from both sides. Austin’s hug is gentle, which is good because he’s built like a line-backer. Hunter tackles me and he doesn’t know the meaning of the word gentle. It’s like getting hugged by an octopus. He is so freaking tactile. I hug Austin back and fend Hunter off the best I can.

“I’m not a hugger,” I complain, although Mac’s wearing me down on that score.

“Rachel’s coming. Sorry, B,” Austin whispers in my ear before he lets me go.

I meet his eyes as he steps back and give him a rueful smile.

Hunter tries to drag me to the bar, but I divert after Briar’s fake whisper of “Gawd, who forgot to take out the trash?” Two of the newer subs, Annabelle and Paula, are standing together, a little away from everyone else. I haven’t had the chance to get to know either of them, so I take the opportunity and walk straight over, trailing Austin.

Talking with the two women distracts me from Rachel’s arrival. I see her sweep in out of the corner of my eye. She takes the barstool that Briar’s reserved for her, shakes out her honey-streaked brown curls, smooths down her Ralph Lauren leatherwrap dress and launches into a loud monologue about all the ways her new club is better than Blunts. I turn my back on her and focus on the story Paula’s been telling us about her days as a cab driver.

I manage to avoid Rachel and her Drow until it’s my round. Then I have to go to the bar to order and the only clear space is two spots along from Briar. Spitting distance, and I amsotempted.

After I put in the order, I take out my phone and flip through it while I wait at the bar. There’s a message from Emily that I open.

Austin says Rachel’s shown up. Do you want rescuing?

I snort to myself and respond.

Too late.

“I had the most amazing scene with Master Ten last night,” Briar says, loudly enough that I know her words are aimed at my ears. “He said it was the best scene he’d had in weeks. I guess the last few were really ... disappointing.”

Knowing Ten as well as I do, I seriously doubt he said any of that. He doesn’t talk to his subs, not about anything meaningful. Not the way Mac does. But I hope Ten is having good scenes. I’ve had some of the best of my life since our failed scene and I’d like to think he’d be happy for me, although Ten can be such a bitter asshole that I have to wonder.

“Everyone says that a bad scene is the Dom’s fault,” Rachel purrs through pouty, plum-stained lips, in her silkiest bitch-tone. “But something I’ve realized since going to Sacrum is that the success or failure of a scene really rests with the sub. Bad sub, bad scene.”

I roll my eyes to myself and thumb through my social media notifications, chuckling at a kinky meme that Fleur, another nightclub sub who is conspicuously absent tonight, has posted.

Briar twirls a red curl around her three-inch acrylics dramatically. “Master Ten will only have good scenes with me.”

“I thought Master Ten only punished you,” says Third Bitch, Tamsin. She isn’t really a bad person either, just a follower, and not a very bright one at that.

Briar shakes her hair haughtily. “I said Master Tenpreferspunishment scenes with me. He knows I can take it, unlike some.”

She is beyond full of shit. Ten likes to do punishment scenes with her because he’s happy to punish her even when she hasn’t done anything wrong. Or, as he’s said to me several times, “Thorny lives in a perpetual state of wrongdoing.” He also doesn’t give a single fuck about her pleasure and often makes sure she doesn’t come when they scene. Fortunately for her, she kinks on that, but even if she didn’t, Ten wouldn’t care.

“It’s only a matter of time before he asks me to wear his collar,” Briar continues.

She’s delusional. Ten went through a brief period where he seemed to be considering collaring another of the nightclub subs, Tessa. He scened with Tessa exclusively for months and took her home with him several times. Watching that unfold was what finally killed my crush on him. I’m still not sure what made Ten go off Tessa, but if he didn’t collar her, he’s sure as hell not going to get exclusive with any of the other house subs, particularly one he dislikes as much as he dislikes “Thorny.”

I snort. Loudly.

Briar turns on her stool and opens her mouth, presumably to blast me, then her eyes track over my shoulder and she just sits there with an incredibly stupid expression on her face.

I turn and find Mac standing behind me. “Can I help you carry those, sweetheart?” he asks, nodding at the drinks the bartender has finally started lining up on the bar in front of me.

“Sir!” I squeal and before I think about it, jump up on him so he has to catch me as I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

He chuckles before grabbing my ass with one hand and my nape with the other and kissing me breathless. “That’s how I want to be greeted every time from now on.”

“Yes, Sir. I thought you were going to play pool?”

After that scene that left me utterly wrecked and deliriously happy, we showered, ate at the Trattoria’s buffet at a huge table that included everyone we scened with, plus Maude, Sean and his wife, Moon, and, uncomfortably, Theo, who looked at me once, sitting in the crook of Mac’s arm, and never met my eyes again. Once we’d eaten, we watched the first round of the festival awards, in which Moon and the new pony-boy, Allyn, both won ribbons. Then I went to get changed while everyone else headed off to what Harry’s biker friends kept calling “fancy pool.”

“It’s snooker,” a deep voice says from behind me as a hard smack lands on the ass-cheek Mac isn’t gripping. It makes the whip welts on my assblazedespite the cream Mac slathered over them after our shower. “And we decided to crash and drag the lot of you off to play with us.”