by Sophie Stern
Contents
The Bratty Dom
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Author
Books
The Bratty Dom
Sophie Stern
Copyright © 2020 by Sophie Stern
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Some Doms are loving. Some of them are strict. My Dom? He's a little bit...bratty.
When Blair steps foot in Anchored, she's not expecting much. She's there for one reason, and one reason only: book research. Her friends told her she was an idiot for trying to write a romance novel without actually trying anything out for herself, so she decides to take matters into her own hands and try out one of the most incredible, most exclusive clubs in the city. She knows enough about "the lifestyle" to get by, but then she meets Raiden, and she realizes that she's in way over her head.
Raiden has had his heart broken one too many times to get attached to any of the women at Anchored, but the new girl seems like she's completely out of her element. If she's as experienced as she says she is, then why does she look at every single scene like it's the most incredible thing she's ever witnessed? Either she's a goddess, or she's a liar, and he intends to find out.
When a secret threatens their growing relationship, Blair is faced with a choice that just might tear them apart.
Forever.
The Bratty Dom is a contemporary romance by Sophie Stern, author of DARK FAVORS and THE FABLESTONE CLAN.
Prologue
Raiden
TWO YEARS AGO
It had been a long night. The rain made what was otherwise a horrible night even more unbearable, and I couldn’t wait to get home and crawl into bed with Angela. It was going to be okay, I told myself, because as long as we were together, things would be fine. They had to be. Losing the kid had been horrible. I’d done CPR for what felt like hours, but she’d still died. That was the problem with being a firefighter.
Sometimes, kids got hurt and I could save them.
Sometimes, I couldn’t.
It got me in my heart. My soul seemed to physically hurt as my tears mixed with the rain pouring down on me, and I wondered for what seemed like the millionth time why I’d gone into this line of work. I was supposed to be someone who could save people, who could rescue them. I was supposed to be someone who could help others.
I didn’t, though.
Sometimes people were too lost to be saved.
Sometimes they were too damaged or broken to be rescued.
Coming home to Angela was the highlight of my week. Yeah, sometimes we fought. Who didn’t? We had our own issues, but tonight was going to be different. It was our one-year anniversary, and I was ready to start thinking about taking things to the next level.
Marriage?
Maybe we could get married.
Maybe we should.
It would be a good way to show her how I felt. It would be a good way to show her that my feelings for her were big. They were serious. They were real, and I had a feeling that both of us could use something that was just a little bit magical.
The townhouse we shared was in the center of town. It was an equal distance between each of our jobs, and it was beautiful. The brick two-story home was everything I’d ever wanted in a house, and it was the kind of place I could imagine growing old in. Maybe one day I’d feel differently and want something with a bigger yard or more privacy, but right now? Right now, it was perfection.
I’d bought it as soon as I’d become a firefighter and started making real money. Angela moving in had been the icing on the cake. It was perfect. Everything was perfect.
Except for tonight.
For the first time in a long time, I was early getting home. She knew not to expect me before midnight, but despite it being the worst night of my career, I was getting home around 9:30. After the kid had died, Eddie and Wyatt had told me to go home. They both knew I was useless to the team. Everyone understood that I was an emotional mess, but nobody cared. They just told me what to do, and I was going to do it.
I parked on the street and walked up the stairs. The lights were on. That was good. She was still awake, and she was still home. Not that I really thought Angela was going to be going out. She was upset I was missing our anniversary, and I understood it. I’d tried to take off work, and I hadn’t been able to. I’d promised to take her out tomorrow, and she didn’t know it, but I had reservations at an awesome little cat café she’d been wanting to go to. No, it wasn’t top-rated restaurant or anything like that, but she loved cats and coffee, and I thought it was going to be a wonderful place to show her a good time and a special evening.
When I reached the front door, I heard music coming from inside. I took a deep breath and pasted a smile on my face. She was probably having a good time drinking wine and maybe calling her sisters on the phone. She wasn’t going to be expecting me early, especially after a long night like the one I’d had. I needed to calm down and take care of myself before I went inside, I knew. Angela wasn’t exactly known for her compassion.
There was a part of me that wished I could tell her what had happened, but she had a strict no-work-talk policy. She didn’t want to hear about me running into dangerous situations. She didn’t want to hear about me saving people. She definitely didn’t want to hear about them dying. It was fine, though. Not everyone had the type of relationship where they talked about work. I mean, I didn’t mind listening to her complain about customers at her restaurant, but it was fine.
I slid my key into the lock and turned, walking into the house. I heard her laughing, and instantly, I calmed down. She was in a good mood. She could help me relax. More importantly, she’d be happy to see me. I was happy to come home to her, and that was what mattered.
Something smelled delicious. Had she ordered take-out? It smelled delicious, and I followed the scent, as well as the sound of her laughing, to the kitchen.
Only, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of her naked on the counter.
Nothing could have prepared me for the fact that she wasn’t alone.
Nothing could have prepared me for the fact that she was with my brother, or that he had his hands on her.
I gasped, dropping my keys. They seemed to fall forever before they finally hit the tile flooring, clattering. Both of them looked up at me instantly, and Angela shoved Trevor away from her, as though she couldn’t stand him touching her.
“It’s not what it looks like,” she said.
“I can explain,” he said at the same time. There was a look of horror on my brother’s face: of surprise mixed with disdain. For himself? I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter, though, because suddenly, everything seemed to click into place at once. Now I knew why she always wanted me to call before I came home early. Now I understood why she’d asked me to have an extra key made because she’d “lost” hers. Now it finally made sense why my brother had been awkward and weird around me for the last few months.
And now I understood why Angela didn’t want to hear me talk about work.
“It’s not what you think,” she said, repeating herself. She started climbing off the counter. She kept her eyes on me, planted firmly on my face as she reached for the clothes
that had been carelessly tossed around the room, as though she thought looking away would make me disappear.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, and for a minute, I thought I was going to be sick. My brother had been sleeping with my girlfriend. My girlfriend and my brother were having sex in my house while I was at working holding a kid who was dying. I had been trying to save a little kid, and my girlfriend had been home the whole time with Trevor.
They had been together.
“Get out.”
The words came out loudly, almost a yell. Trevor looked at me sharply, and Angela finally looked away as she reached for her clothes.
“Let’s go to the living room,” she said calmly. Too calmly. That was how Angela always was. She seemed to think that if everyone would just slow down and calm down that she would somehow be able to explain things away.
That wasn’t going to be enough this time, and probably not ever again. I didn’t move, and neither did Trevor. My brother watched me, as though trying to decide how much of a threat I was.
Well, unfortunately for him, I was trying to decide that, too. I was trying to decide exactly how much of my brother’s face I was going to tear off if he took another step toward me.
He looked at me the way prey watched the tiger hunting it. He knew I was about to attack him, but he just didn’t know when.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” I said again.
This time, something in my voice must have sounded different, because Trevor turned and left without even looking back. He grabbed his clothes as he scurried out of the room, and I heard the front door slam.
“Just great,” Angela whined, holding her hands up and gesturing at the door, as if I cared that my brother had left in a huff. “What am I supposed to say to him now?”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? It hit me, suddenly, that not only had the woman I loved cheated on me, but that she didn’t care. There was no begging. There was no asking for forgiveness. There was no, “You work all the time and I was lonely.”
There was nothing like that at all. If anything, it very much seemed as though she cared about Trevor’s feelings, but not mine. She was worried about hurting him. She was concerned about his feelings, about feeling embarrassed in front of him.
She didn’t care about me.
The feeling hit me in the gut, and I felt like I might throw up. Had she ever cared? Had her feelings ever been real?
“Angela, I’m not going to say it again. Get the fuck out of my house.”
She suddenly seemed to realize that I was being completely serious, and it must have hit her all at once that I was barely hanging onto my self-control. She looked me up and down, but I barely noticed. Everything in my line of vision was red, and if she didn’t leave – and soon – I was going to start throwing shit.
I didn’t want to be that guy, and I hated her for putting me in that position. I didn’t want to be the person who caught their partner cheating and suddenly lost every ounce of self-respect they’d ever had. That wasn’t going to be me. I wouldn’t let myself become that person.
Only, I didn’t have much of a choice because she was still there.
“Angela, I’m going to go upstairs,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower, and when I get back down here, you need to be gone. I never want to see you again.”
“But-“
I turned, and she stopped before she finished her sentence. I went back into the hallway and up the stairs to the second floor. Somehow, in a haze, I made my way into the walk-in shower. I entered it, turned the water on, and sat down. My clothes were still on, and they instantly stuck to my body, but I didn’t care.
How the hell could this have happened to me?
How could this have happened to us?
I knew exactly why, all of a sudden, and it had everything to do with the entirety of our relationship. We hadn’t “grown apart” the way some couples did. Hell, we’d only been together a year. That wasn’t long enough to fall apart. We’d messed up from the start, I knew. We’d been a poor match, and I’d been so desperate to find someone beautiful and funny who understood me, and who understood the lifestyle I was interested in, that I completely ignored the warning signs.
I let the fact that Angela was a little bit bitchy and a whole lot bossy completely slide. I ignored the fact that she was totally self-centered. I didn’t bat an eye when she was rude to people because “that’s Angela.”
Well, I was paying the price, and I was unhappy about that. I wasn’t about to cry over the woman. I certainly wasn’t going to try while she was still downstairs in my own house: undoubtedly trying to gather anything valuable that she could pawn or sell after she left. I should probably get out of the shower and start moving before she grabbed any important family heirlooms.
Somehow, I managed to drag myself out of the shower. I left my wet clothes inside of it on the floor, and I wrapped myself in a robe before heading downstairs. She was no longer there, I realized. She had gone, and with it, she’d taken something. It was something very important to me, but it was something that had no monetary value.
Angela had stolen my ability to trust, and I didn’t know if I was ever going to get that back again.
Chapter 1
Blair
PRESENT DAY
The outside of the club wasn’t much to look at. From a distance, it looked like any other ship, really, and there were plenty of them in the harbor. This one was a decommissioned mini cruise ship, I knew, and I also knew exactly why that mattered. It was no longer active in the normal way that ships were. It wasn’t busy. It wasn’t being used out on the sea.
It was just…docked.
And I knew why.
I understood what happened behind the doors of the ship there, and I completely understood why it was necessary to keep things so quiet and discreet.This wasn’t the kind of place where you could just let people congregate. It wasn’t a good idea to let too many people even be aware of its existence.
Not if you knew what was good for it, anyway.
A place like the ship? It needed to be kept private. Its existence really should remain a secret. If too many people learned about it, then the aura of suspense and perfection surrounding it would change. That was inevitable. That was what always happened. New people would come and leer and try to make it different than it was now, but that wasn’t going to happen because Anchored had strict policies in place to keep its members safe and their privacy totally protected.
I stared at the ship for what felt like hours, trying to decide if it was really worth it. Should I actually go inside? Should I risk everything? Should I take a leap? I slumped down in the front seat of the car and I stared at the doors of the sex club. I saw couples entering together, but no single people. Surely, there were single people. There had to be. It only made sense that a place like this would have some singles. Right?
It wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t.
Not everyone went to a sex club to show off, after all. Some people went to have fun and meet new people. At least, that was my suspicion. I couldn’t really know for sure since I’d never been inside of Anchored, and I’d never been inside of any other sex club, either.
“Shit,” I muttered.
My phone buzzed, and I reached for it. It was a text from Carolyn. Perfect.
DID YOU CHICKEN OUT?
“No,” I answered out loud, sneering at my phone. I wrinkled my nose, disappointed in myself. Was that really what it had come down to? I’d been so excited to come to this place. I’d been so hyped up beyond belief, but then I’d just…
Well, I’d managed to sit in the parking lot for almost an hour.
And I kind of had to pee.
That was the real push to get up and get moving, if I was being honest. I ignored Carolyn’s text. Hopefully, she’d think I was already inside. I wasn’t supposed to bring in a phone with me, anyway. I understood the rules. I shoved it into the glove box, grabbed my little wristlet that held my
ID and some cash, and got out of the car. It was time to be a big girl.
It was time to be a badass.
I walked slowly in my shoes. I had chosen ballet flats since I knew I’d be taking them off once I got inside, anyway. Carolyn told me to go as a submissive, and not even try to impersonate a Dominatrix. I figured that was smart. One of the most common rules for submissives was that they didn’t get to wear shoes, so I knew once I was inside, I’d be ditching them.
I made my way to the front door and was surprised when I stepped inside. It was bright: almost blinding. I closed my eyes for a second to get used to the brightness. Once I was comfortable, I looked around for a second. I was in some sort of little foyer, and there was another door, but you obviously needed a keycard to get in, which I didn’t have. There was a little intercom there, though, and I pushed the button.
“Can I help you?” A voice came out of the speakers.
“Hey, I’m here for…well, it’s my first time.”
“Come on in.”
I heard a click as the door unlocked. I tugged on it and walked inside, staring at the little reception desk that was ahead of me. There was a tall man there in a suit. He was watching me, blinking. He looked me up and down. I was wearing a trenchcoat with the ballet flats. My real outfit was carefully protected from view, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long.
“Can I help you?” He asked politely. There was nothing to indicate that the space was a play area. There was nothing to show random people off the streets that Anchored was a place where people had sex or partied or did anything they really shouldn’t.
“Hey,” I said, walking over. “My name is Blair Jacobson. It’s my first time,” I repeated lamely, as though that was the only thing I knew how to say.
“First time?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, and again, I knew why. I needed to prove that I knew where I was and what was going on. As far as this guy knew, I thought Anchored was some sort of waterfront restaurant and was pretending to have a reservation.
