Page 4 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

brODY

M y phone beeps at me as we walk back to the office.

It’s a text message from Dixie Ketcham, a lawyer in Jackson, Mississippi. Dix is an old friend who worked at the agency with Adrian and me. Under normal circumstances, I’d be happy to hear from her.

Kayla Perkins just got arrested for drunk driving. What do you want me to do?

Just like that, my mood goes to hell. Kayla Perkins is eighteen, angry and self-destructive. She’s been arrested twice in the last year—once for shoplifting, the second time for public intoxication. Now, it’s drunk driving.

Get her off, Dix. No matter what it costs.

The teenager used to be a straight-A student until my father forced himself on her. Of course, in the small Mississippi town I grew up in, Judge Eugene Payne is a pillar of the community, and no one would ever believe the allegations against him.

I believe them. I discovered the truth about my father when I was eighteen. I haven’t been back home since.

BDSM helps. The protocols, designed to protect the vulnerable, protect me. Safe, sane, and above all, consensual. That’s how I play.

Outside of the club, there’s a very real fear inside me that I’m my father’s son. That his sickness has been passed on to me.

Inside the club, I feel safe. But when I see that text from Dix, every desire to go back to Club M drains away.

I wonder what Xavier wants.