Page 26 of Dare to Love Again

The man she was talking to shook his head, patted her shoulder, and left her standing at the bottom of the steps, looking utterly defeated.

“She’s burned so many bridges, you might be her only hope,” Eric noted.

As if she’d heard him, she looked up, green eyes glistening. From this distance, Keiran wasn’t sure, but it could have been from tears. Slowly, her gaze swept the length of the room and at the last minute, just before she turned, her eyes found Eric’s. They shifted briefly to him, before her face fell, her shoulders slumped, and she walked up the stairs and out of the dungeon.

“Set it up. Friday. In the little dungeon upstairs. Seven o’clock sharp.”

“Why the dungeon?”

“If she can face me there, she’s ready. Otherwise, it might be kinder to cut the lass loose so she can go on grieving.”

Eric stared back at him a moment, then his concern slowly eased to be replaced by a shit-eating grin. “I knew once you saw her you’d take her on.”

“After that look, like someone just ran over her puppy, how could I say no?” He stepped in front of his partner, meeting him eye to eye, dom to dom, and added, “You should be horsewhipped for putting the poor lass through the humiliation of repeated rejection and assigned her to me to begin with.”

“Sight unseen, you turned me down flat. How would the same request a week ago have made any difference? Besides, she needed a nudge. Being brave enough to approach doms when she could barely look them in the eye, let alone speak to them when she first got here, means she’s ready for you, if not your dungeon.”

“You’re still a bastard, Dupree.”

A feminine gasp from beside them announced Val’s arrival.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Just a disagreement on management styles,” Eric replied, while he slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. “Saint Keiran uses kid gloves while I tend to take them off and get dirty.” The amusement left his face when his eyes cut back to him. “The end will justify my means, my friend. See if it doesn’t.”

A cry of red echoed above the play. Instantly, Keiran started toward the station. Over his shoulder he warned, “I’ll kick your ass later, Dupree.”

“I’ll let you if this doesn’t turn out as I expect.”

“Let you? My Irish ass.” But he was halfway across the mammoth play space, his gaze on the station with the weeping submissive in chains, and her dom, frantically, but ineffectually trying to set her free.

He arrived, saw it was an equipment failure, not a cruel top causing the problem, and had the bolt cutters out of the emergency box before more help arrived. Thomas, one of several physicians in their membership, and David, a full-time Rossi man, were both on DM duty tonight and immediately responded. Mistress Eryn who chaired the membership committee and was the de facto head-domme-in-charge came to lend a head, as did Gareth, one of the other club masters who was here simply to play. When Keiran cut through the malfunctioning quick-release shackle, the frazzled master scooped his weeping sub into his arms and carried her to a booth to comfort her. Eryn followed with water and a blanket from one of the aftercare stations set up around the big room.

“Step aside, please.”

The club members, gathered to watch this latest drama, parted to let Eric through. He was alone, which meant his delay in arriving had been to secure Valerie somewhere safe.

“Can we have one night without a drama?” he asked in disgust as he took the defective shackle from him and examined it. “This hasn’t been oiled as required. I’m calling a meeting first thing in the morning. Things have gotten lax and asses are going to be flayed.” Usually even-tempered, by the time he finished his voice was approaching a roar. “We have a responsibility to ensure everyone’s safety and we’re falling down on the job. Carlos got in when he shouldn’t have, and now this. What the fuck?”

David, who oversaw the schedules of the full-time staff, answered his question. “Alicia. She was on reception duty tonight, and she, along with Jaquelyn, were supposed to have done the preventative maintenance and oiled all the shackles, metal cuffs, and equipment hinges on Sunday.”

“That’s twice she’s failed to carry out an assignment,” Eric said in a deadly tone. “Unacceptable.”

“Her attitude has been increasingly bratty, which for Alicia is saying something,” Thomas noted. “She’s been without a dominant since Destry parted ways with her last spring.”

“She’s the type of sub who needs constant attention, and a firm hand on the reins. I’ll take care of this recent inattention, but we need to see about getting her someone permanent.”

Gareth Michaelson was one of the few club masters who wasn’t a Rossi man. A software designer who made his first million by the age of twenty-five, the computer genius didn’t fit the master mold. He looked like a linebacker, not the typical nerd. His good looks and adventurous nature made him popular among the subs, despite being a sadist. And they could always count on him to volunteer when one of the club’s submissives needed disciplinary action.

“She may be lax in her duties,” Eric stated, “but we can’t—I won’t—lay the blame for this solely at her feet. We had an issue with the St. Catherine’s wheel last night, and I don’t mean jammed cuffs. One of the foot manacles had lost a screw. If the conscientious dom hadn’t noticed it before he inverted his sub, we might have had a more serious incident. Now this.”

His hand around the back of his neck, he looked at his feet a moment before he announced his decision on how they would move forward. “We’re operating six nights a week on a skeleton crew and that can’t continue. Tomorrow, we’re closing and I’m calling in a maintenance crew to perform a thorough inspection.” Eric nodded at Gareth. “You deal with Alicia tonight, but she’s back here in the morning at eight. Besides whatever corporal punishment you administer, I think a fitting lesson for her inattention lately is to polish every piece of wooden furniture while the men check every hinge, bolt, and screw. Are you available to supervise her?”

“Absolutely,” Gareth said, nodding and grinning. “With a cattle prod if necessary.”

That he planned on using one of the low-voltage implements to motivate the errant sub was obvious to Keiran, as well as David and Thomas who were both nodding in approval.

Eric went on, outlining his plan. “Afterward, I’ll meet with her in my office to decide her future as an employee.”

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