by Ivy Nelson
“We check for criminal activity, we check their public facing social media profiles for messages that we don’t support. Basically, if they spew bigotry or hatred but then want to come join a kink club that promotes equality, consent, and acceptance, they’re not getting in no matter how much money they have to give us.”
She nodded and continued typing, taking notes.
“When is the board meeting?”
“Tonight, at seven.”
Eli knocked on the door. “Lance, can I talk to you for a sec?”
She watched as he stood and left the room. And for the first time in five years, she checked out Lance Moss’s ass.
She let her mind drift back to the time they spent together. It had been passionate and intense. Every emotion they had was intensified by their feelings for each other and they rarely sat still. If they weren’t coding or fucking, they were working out together or going on some adventure. But mostly it was coding and fucking. They had explored every kink that interested either of them. Some they put on the never try again list and others had become staples of their Dom/sub dynamic. Knowing now that she was a switch probably explained some of the clashes they had in that department. She bit her lip as she thought of his hand in her hair bringing her to her knees while she resisted the entire way down. Even though she knew she would like everything he did to and for her, there was something about that first act of submission that she always resisted.
A groan escaped her lips and she shook her head. Now was not the time to get lost in these thoughts. She’d shoved them out of her head for a few years now.
When Lance came back five minutes later, he was looking grumpy.
“Everything OK?” she asked as she closed her laptop.
“Yeah. Why don’t we get you booked over at the Glenview? We’ve still got several hours until the board meeting.”
She nodded and packed her things.
She followed Lance to the Glenview about a half hour away from Solitaire. It was an upscale hotel, not something she was expecting in the small Colorado town.
When she parked and got out of the car, Lance was waiting for her near the entrance.
“One of the fellas at the club owns this place now and a lot of members use it when they’re in town for the weekend,” he said as he motioned her through the sliding doors.
As they approached the front desk, a gorgeous woman with tan skin and dark hair that hung well past her shoulders stepped out of the office.
“Ma… Lance,” the woman said, surprise on her face. “You rarely stay here. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Isabelle. I’m just dropping someone off. What are you doing here? I thought you’d moved to one of Hunter’s Philadelphia hotels to be close to Garrett.”
Marissa couldn’t help but notice the young woman blush at the mention of Garrett, whoever that was.
“I did, but Lori is taking an extended leave and Hunter asked if I could come back here temporarily and Master… err… Garrett is right in the thick of an election cycle, so I hardly see him anyway. It’s been good to spend time with my sister.”
Marissa fought the urge to roll her eyes at the woman’s rambling. She just wanted to check into her room.
Lance leaned against the desk and flashed a smile at her. “Hey,” he said, his voice dropping low. “I’m really sorry about last weekend. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off that way. Forgive me?”
Lance had never been bad at apologies, that’s for sure. The sweet tone to his voice almost had Marissa wanting to forgive him for something. Almost.
Isabelle leaned across the desk and kissed Lance’s cheek.
Marissa cleared her throat. “Can we move on with this little sap fest so I can get a room please?”
Lance turned and scowled at her while Isabelle’s eyes grew wide as if she might tear up. Yep… princessy.
Inhaling deeply, Isabelle tapped keys on the computer and looked up with a bright smile. “What kind of room would you like?”
“Just a basic room will be fine. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, so keep it open ended for now,” Marissa said, pulling out her credit card.
Lance put a hand on her wrist to stop her. “Put it on the club’s expense account, Isabelle. We’re paying for Miss Sullivan’s accommodation as part of a contract for some work she’s doing for us.”
“You got it.”
A young woman with a name tag came rushing behind the desk. “Sorry, Miss Alvarado. I didn’t mean to be gone so long. I can finish that if you want.”
Isabelle waved her hand. “It’s fine, Shelby. These are friends of mine anyway.”
Marissa watched the exchange. Shelby seemed just a tiny bit afraid of Isabelle. She had a hard time picturing the woman as manager of anything but apparently, she was running the hotel.
“Here’s your key, Miss Sullivan,” Isabelle said. “I look forward to speaking to you again sometime.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Marissa muttered as she tucked the key into her back pocket.
Lance gave a tight smile and gripped her elbow. “Thanks, Isabelle. Can you tell your man I’ve apologized a dozen times now so maybe he’ll stop being pissed at me?”
Isabelle giggled. “You know how he feels about me. I’ll talk to him. I know you didn’t mean any harm.”
Marissa tried to pull her elbow away, but Lance kept his grip tight and steered her toward the elevator. When they stepped in, he jabbed at the close doors button repeatedly until they slid closed and the elevator lurched upward.
“Do not be a bitch to my family, Marissa. It will not end well for you.”
She stared up at him giving him her dirtiest glare. “Does your ‘family’ know how you treat the ones you decide are expendable? I used to be family too. I know how that goes.”
Lance leaned against the elevator wall and glared at her. “You really think that’s what happened? Not to mention, we had a lot more problems than just what happened that night and you know it.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Marissa whispered. But maybe it was. “Can we just drop it please?” she said defensively.
“Gladly,” Lance said.
He escorted her to her room and made sure she didn’t need anything.
“You know how to get back to the club?”
She nodded. “Yep. GPS is pretty amazing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Just don’t charge thousands to the room service account. I’m going back. I’ll see you at seven.”
The door slammed behind him and she sat on the edge of the mattress and looked around. For a basic room it was pretty nice.
She pulled out her phone and set an alarm before curling up to go to sleep. Unfortunately, a certain someone’s face kept appearing every time she closed her eyes.
4
Lance paced the lobby of Solitaire as he waited for the rest of the board and Marissa to arrive. He’d tried to take a nap or work on code for an app he was developing but he couldn’t quiet his mind enough to do either. The day had put him in a foul mood, and he felt like he was in the same tailspin he’d been in during the aftermath of the implosion with Marissa.
Implosion was a good word for it too.
The front door opened, and he looked up, half expecting Marissa.
It was Patrick and Austin. “There’s some strange chick parked out front rocking out to some crazy music. Do we know this person?” Austin asked.
Lance chuckled. That would be her routine to get pumped up before a big job. It was just a board meeting, but she had a hard time interacting with groups and often needed to pump herself up for social gatherings with more than a couple of people. At least that’s how it had been five years ago.
“That’s Marissa Sullivan. She’ll be working with us until we figure things out.”
Austin nodded. “Can’t wait to meet her. Have you worked with her before?”
Lance winced. “In a manner of speaking. We lived together for four years. Broke up five years ago.” He did
n’t see the point in hiding that from them. Especially not Austin. He’d been close with her since she first started dating Patrick.
“Yikes. This oughta be interesting. How’d this come about?”
Lance shook his head. “Fate? Karma for some terrible thing I did in a past life? Not really sure. She apparently did some work for Russell awhile back. Of all the people in the world it had to be Russell.”
Elijah stepped out of his office pulling a giggling Holly by her hair. “Upstairs with you, woman. I’ll come get you when we’re done.”
Holly waved at the group as she made her way into the bar to go upstairs.
“Sorry, Patrick,” Elijah muttered when the man glared at him. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
Lance smirked. It was still sometimes awkward for Holly and Patrick to be at the club together since they were siblings, but they had a surprisingly good system worked out to guarantee neither had to see the other doing anything kinky and sexual.
Patrick just rolled his eyes. “I’m getting used to it. Where is everyone else? It’s nearly seven,” he said, changing the subject.
Elijah pulled out his phone. “Let’s see, Hunter is on his way. He needed to stop at the Glenview to talk to Isabelle about some hotel business. Samuel is actually MIA. I’m getting a little worried about him. Matthew couldn’t make it. Dakota and Russell were having dinner with friends and will be here soon, and Garrett has to call in again.”
They were a busy bunch with a lot on their plates, but the club meant enough to each of them that they fit it into their schedules as much as possible. It was rare for a board member to miss a weekend at the club, with the exception of Samuel.
“So, are we gonna leave head banger chickee in her car all night or does somebody want to invite her in?” Austin asked.
Lance was hesitant to bring her in. Austin was another strong personality and Marissa would either hate her or they would become best friends. He wasn’t sure which one would be worse at this point.
“I’ll go get her,” Lance said, making his way to the door.
When he stepped out on the porch, he leaned on the railing and watched her for a moment. He wondered if she still rocked out to the same playlist or if she’d updated it through the years. With a grin, he walked down the steps and tapped on her window. She startled and pressed a hand to her chest as she opened the door.
“Jesus, are you trying to kill me? Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
Lance shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly sneaking. Come on inside so we can get started. Some of the others are running late.”
She stepped out of the car and brushed past him. Her scent lingered as she sashayed up the porch steps. It was a smell that took him to the past, and memories of the many times they’d wound up in the shower together overloaded his senses.
He waited a beat before he turned and followed her up the stairs.
As he stepped in, he saw Austin sizing her up. The tall lawyer stuck her hand out. “Austin Yates, you must be Marissa Sullivan. Thanks for coming in to help us out.”
Marissa shook her hand and Lance watched as his ex did some sizing up of her own.
“Thanks for having me,” she said after a minute. “I just hope I’m able to live up to whatever recommendation Mr. Adler gave me.”
“We’ll give you every resource we can to make sure you succeed,” Austin said. “I’m going to start some coffee in the conference room. You want some?”
“Coffee would be great,” Marissa murmured.
The group moved to the conference room where Austin put on the coffee.
Lance sat at the table and watched as the others began taking their seats. “Patrick, I saw you made the cover of GQ, is your wife ready to divorce you over all the fan mail you’re getting from the women?”
Patrick chuckled. “No, but she is regretting letting me take her last name. That’s the only reason I’m getting any of the publicity I am.”
Austin turned from her spot at the coffee maker. “Though his publicist checked the mail last week and said there were at least three pairs of women’s panties in the PO box.”
Marissa spoke up then. “Whoa, back up. You’re like a billionaire hot shot, right?” she said, looking at Patrick. “I know what kind of egos your types have. You’re seriously telling me you took your wife’s last name?”
Patrick chuckled. “Let’s just say my last name was not something I wanted to be associated with anymore and leave it at that.”
Marissa held up her hands. “That’s fine. I just think it’s cool.”
“You and the rest of the world,” Patrick muttered as Austin set coffee in front of him.
A commotion in the lobby told them Hunter, Dakota, and Russell had arrived.
The three spilled into the conference room seeming to argue about something.
Elijah whistled and they all looked his direction. “You’re late. Let’s get started, folks.”
He’d always been the no nonsense one of the group, which might be why they’d elected him director of the board.
When everyone was settled, he patched Garrett in.
“Lance, my girl says I have to be nice to you now. I appreciate the apology and I’m sorry if I was too big of an ass about it.”
Lance coughed. “It’s fine, man. I was out of line.”
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Elijah said, “Let’s introduce our guest. Marissa has kindly agreed to come on board with us and do a deep dive of our data security systems and help us shore up any vulnerabilities we might find. She has asked if she can attend the parties this weekend as a guest and possibly stay on site while she works to give her better access to our servers and other electronics. Does anyone object to any of this?”
Dakota raised her hand. “Not to be that person but are you even familiar with our lifestyle?” she asked Marissa.
Lance closed his eyes and prayed Dakota’s tone didn’t rub her the wrong way.
“Well, I was Lance’s submissive for nearly four years. After that I had a submissive of my own for a little while, so you tell me.”
Dakota’s mouth dropped open as she looked back and forth between Lance and Marissa.
Lance grinned. “Congratulations, Riss. You’ve done what we’ve been trying to do for years, render Dakota speechless.”
The southern woman flipped Lance the bird and Marissa snickered.
“OK, children,” Garrett said through the speaker phone. “I have to get back to work soon or I won’t be able to get on a plane tomorrow. If you make me miss a weekend with Isabelle, I will not be able to keep my promise to her that I be nice to you.”
“Sorry,” Lance muttered.
“I’ll ask again,” Eli said, “Does anyone object to any of this?”
“I have no objections, but I do have a question about optics,” Hunter said.
Elijah nodded for him to go on. “We’re very stringent about who we let in, even guests of vetted members have somewhat of a vetting process to go through, and only get to come to one weekend of parties before they’re asked to become a member. If this goes beyond one weekend, how do we explain bending the rules for Marissa? I’m assuming we’re not ready to tell the members exactly what she’s doing here?”
Lance shrugged. “I don’t see why she would need to attend more than one weekend of parties.”
“I’m just asking for contingency plans. I don’t see the harm in discussing that.”
“You could vet me and make me a member,” Marissa said. “If that is, I find reason to stay more than a week. My hope would be to finish my audit by midweek. At that point I’ll know what kind of work actually needs to be done.”
Lance glared. “You assume work needs doing.”
“I believe it was you who always said code could always be made better.”
Lance just shook his head. Now was not the time.
“Anyway, it sounds like a reasonable plan to me. The question is, will it be OK for Marissa to stay here on the propert
y through the week?”
Russell spoke up then. “I personally would feel better if a vetted member stayed with her. Are any of you free?”
Lance sighed. He had a feeling someone would suggest that. “I can stay,” he said quietly.
Marissa shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”
“It seems reasonable to me,” Dakota said. “Lance is the one who built the system. If you have questions about his ones and zeros, you have him right here at your fingertips.”
Lance laughed. Marissa wasn’t the type to ask questions. She just deconstructed and reconstructed lines of code until she found the answers she was looking for. This morning’s little question-and-answer session was out of character for her. Once she got into a job, she would zone out and not come back up for air until she was done or hit a stumbling block she couldn’t get over on her own.
“Isabelle could stay,” Garrett’s voice crackled over the intercom. “She won’t be there twenty-four seven because she’s supervising at the hotel some shifts, but she can stay.”
Marissa rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.
“That works for me as long as Isabelle doesn’t object,” Lance said.
Garrett agreed to talk to her when he got into town tomorrow.
“Marissa, can we have you step out? You can work from my office for a bit,” Elijah said, tossing her a key.
Lance watched as she gathered her laptop and stepped out of the room.
“Next on the agenda, has anyone heard from Samuel this week? We’re starting to worry about him,” Elijah said when she was gone.
Lance frowned. “That’s odd. I know he’s a bit of a mystery but it’s not like him to miss a meeting and not call about it.”
“Tell me about it. I reached out to David because he knows him better than a lot of us, but David hasn’t heard anything yet either.”
Russell eyed Lance and gave him a subtle nod. The rest of the group didn’t know how much contact Samuel had with them for his own personal security when he was out of the country. Russell was signaling for him to ping Samuel and see if he was reachable.
