Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 558(@250wpm)___ 465(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 558(@250wpm)___ 465(@300wpm)
“Home club?” He settled into his seat. “Like in my house?”
“No, I meant like a club you belong to,” she corrected. “Like I belong to a club called The Hideout, but there are other clubs in other cities that honor my membership and would let me play there if I happen to be visiting.”
She didn’t mention that it wasn’t The Hideout those other clubs honored. Their club was new and didn’t have much of a membership yet. But the club her father had founded with his friends was known throughout that world. Sanctum.
Someday The Hideout would be every bit as respected as Sanctum. No matter what her dad said.
Dare frowned, and his voice went low. “Maybe we should talk about this when we get to my room.”
“Why?” She didn’t lower hers.
His head tilted toward the driver. “We’re not exactly alone.”
“I don’t think the driver cares,” she pointed out. Taxi drivers heard everything. And she didn’t really care. It was their business, and she didn’t see why some driver who overheard five minutes of their lives should care either.
“I care.” His jaw went tight.
She studied him for a moment and realized this man didn’t have a club at all. He was one of the two kinds of Doms her father had taught her to stay away from.
The fact that her father actually had a talk with her and her sisters about the types of tops and bottoms to avoid was proof that she had a weird family. Taggart Family Rules. There was a list of them, and while many of them were totally normal—clean up after yourself—there were some that probably didn’t show up in other families. There were two types of tops her father had told her to avoid. One was the top who simply used the power exchange to control his or her partner without any thought to what the submissive needed. For some reason her dad called these the Storms of the world. She’d also been told to stay away from anyone who called themselves Storm.
The second was the top who was ashamed to be a top. There wasn’t a lot of use for shame in her father’s world.
The good news was she wasn’t about to have an actual relationship with this man. She didn’t have to save him from himself and teach him that his instincts weren’t some evil thing that needed some sweet vanilla princess’s love to vanquish them. All she wanted from this man was to have a great night and move on and hope he figured out a way to be comfortable in his skin, that he found the woman who helped him do that.
So she needed to decide if she wanted to spend the night with him or to pass and take this taxi right back to the safe house and the vibrator that would never once try to shame her.
Her mom had been the one to tell her what to look for in a vibe. That had been one deeply uncomfortable conversation, but that’s what happened when your parents were the world’s most sex positive couple. You got embarrassing discussions and conversations about birth control that she wished her brother would have listened to.
She sat back and respected Dare’s boundaries on the short trip to the hotel, her mind going through all the options and how to handle this situation. He tried to make some awkward small talk about the pub they’d come from and how nice it was to be by the ocean. She murmured at the right times, but she had a decision to make.
It was no more than five minutes and they were there. He paid the fare as she stepped out and realized he’d been absolutely right about the ocean. She could feel a cool breeze on her skin, smell the salt in the air.
In a couple of days she would be stuck in the safe house with Lou. She would be careful, so careful. She wouldn’t be able to focus on her body’s needs. All that would matter was ensuring the mission went off without a hitch.
Because this was the first time she was running the op without her parents or her Agency bosses looking over her shoulder.
“Do you want to get a drink?” Dare stood in front of her, the doorman holding the ornate door for them. “We can talk about it in the bar if we keep it quiet.”
She wasn’t about to keep it quiet. A long sigh went through her, and she wondered if she shouldn’t have given one of the rugby guys a try. She probably could have had a nice couple of hours by now, but no, she had to find the complex one. Not tonight. “I think I’m going to pass. I hope you have a good night, Dare.”
Maybe she would walk on the beach for a while and that would settle this restlessness she felt. She could walk and then head back to the house and order pizza with Lou and they could watch whatever old spy show she was into at the moment and tomorrow she would settle into work. When they got back to Dallas, she would go to The Hideout or The Club and find a hot Dom and play to her heart’s content.