“Nothing. That’s one of my favorite sayings when I can’t control something.”
Might as well toss everything out onto the table. If it doesn’t scare him off, nothing will.
“I’d already been planning on leaving my boyfriend. He wasn’t much of a Dom anyway, to be honest. More a kinky guy who decided he wanted to be poly and bring a ‘real slave’ into the mix. And with physical rehab, my anxiety and OCD exploded. It was get back to walking or learn to quit rearranging the peas on my plate, so walking won, obviously. I decided that was as good a time to leave as any.”
“Where are you from originally? You don’t sound like you were raised in New York.”
“Florida, years ago. I was born and raised down here. Mikayla and I roomed together in college at USF. When my parents moved up to New York for my dad’s job just after I graduated college, I went, too.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“Then I had to stay with my parents for a while after I got out of the physical rehab facility. I decided Florida was a better choice for someone with pins and rods in their back, instead of an icy New York winter.”
“True. So what do you do now?”
“I’m living off the insurance settlement, but I’ve started doing voice work. I can work from home, on my computer, in my PJs, at any time of day or night.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a new doctor here yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. I meant…” He glanced around and dropped his voice. “My boy has to be very discreet, but he has severe anxiety. His psychologist is really good, and he’s involved in the lifestyle.”
Another puzzle piece for her to try to fit into place as she relaxed. She would not have pegged him to be gay.
“Ah. Thank you. I do have a list my doctor in New York got for me.” She pulled her phone out and called up the list from her e-mail and showed it to him.
He smiled. “Ted Collins. That’s him.” He looked up and let out a laugh. “Would you like a personal introduction?”
There was something a little odd about how he said it. “Um, sure?”
She wasn’t expecting it when Coop returned her phone and stood, walking across the room to a group of three men and a woman who had just entered.
After a moment, he peeled off with one of the men and headed their way.
Coop stepped out of the way so the other man could lean in. Not uncomfortably, but to be at the same eye level as her.
“Dani, this is Ted Collins,” Coop said.
She let out a laugh. “No shit?”
The man smirked. “No shit.” He withdrew his wallet from his back pocket and handed her a business card that, sure enough, proclaimed him to be Ted Collins.
“I guess this is my lucky night, huh?”
“Coincidental. Might I ask who referred you to me?”
“Well, Coop, for starters, but he said you treat a friend of his. My doctor in New York, Dr. Ramirez, gave me a list of counselors down here.”
“Ah, very cool. Yes. I specialize in OCD and anxiety disorders, as well as helping people who are hoarders.”
She shuddered. “I’m not a hoarder.”
“That’s not exclusive,” he said. “Just a specialty. Send me a text or an e-mail and I’ll let you know what appointments I’ve got available for an initial consultation. That’s free. I even take some insurance plans.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have insurance for this.”
“I give cash discounts and use a sliding scale.” He straightened and stepped back. “Have a good dinner, and I look forward to talking with you again.”
“Thanks.” She fingered his business card. Not pretentious, smoothly printed, no embossing, decent weight cardstock.
She took a picture of it with her phone, sending it to her scanner app for filing, and tucked the card into her purse. She’d enter the info into her contacts when she got home.
Coop retook his seat. “Hope you didn’t mind that.”
“No, I appreciate it. That was pleasantly unexpected.”
Mikayla, who’d been talking to someone else on the other side of the room, finally returned. “Was that Ted?” she asked Coop.
“Yep.”
“Oh, awesome.” She tapped the table in front of Dani instead of tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention like someone else might. “Ted is really good. Sweet guy. I’m friends with them and their wife, Essie.”
“Their wife?”
“Ted and his brothers, Josh and Mark, are poly with Essie. Mark’s her legal husband, but they all consider themselves married to her.”
“Oh.” Well, it was nice to see that this was an open-minded group. She wasn’t against poly in theory.
It’d been the sneaky-ass way Clayton had tried to go about it, and the end-runs he’d played with her trying to get her to agree to it, after she’d told him up front she wasn’t interested in having another woman in their dynamic for sex. If he wanted to add a guy, she’d have been all for that.
He hadn’t. He was okay with her being bi—which she wasn’t—but he hadn’t wanted anything to do with another peen.
And when she’d suggested she could go out and get another boyfriend, too, he’d also been against that.
One-peen policy in action.
Nope.
“My boy’s boyfriend and I have both sat in on sessions with Ted and my boy,” Ned told Dani. “I really like Ted.”
She stared at him, certain she’d misheard him. “Huh? Your boy’s boyfriend? You’re poly?”
“No. I’m recently single as of yesterday. My boy is my slave.” He smiled. “It’s…complicated.”
Mikayla snorted on Dani’s other side. “That’s one word for it.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s none of my business.”
“There’s a privacy component involved,” Coop told her. “I’m straight. I’m my boy’s Master and he’s my slave, but my boy is gay. He lives with his boyfriend.”
“Who’s…gay?” She was totally confused now.
“I would suppose so. But his boyfriend isn’t a Dominant or a sadist. All three of us are friends though. I broke things off yesterday with the woman I was dating.”
It clicked. “Oh! Okay. Now I’m tracking.”
At the front of the room, Tony called for everyone’s attention to get the evening started. Five other people, a triad and a couple, had joined them at their table.
Coop leaned in, but not uncomfortably so, and dropped his voice. “They do introductions here,” he whispered. “If you don’t want to, let me know. I already arranged a signal with Tony.”
That answered her question about whether or not Mikayla had talked to someone in advance. “Actually, I don’t mind public speaking. It’s the one-on-one that kills me.”
“Feel free to tell me to back off if I’m overwhelming you.”
She stared into his blue eyes. “Actually, you’re not. You’ve been very kind.” She finally reached out and quickly squeezed his wrist before drawing her hand back. “Thank you.”
Chapter Six
Coop had thought it a massive stroke of luck that Ted had arrived when he did. He hoped Dani clicked with him enough to start seeing him. He knew from Hunter how difficult it was to find the right match sometimes.
As Tony went around the room, when he reached their table he locked gazes with Coop, who gave him a quick nod, before calling on Carson to go first.
Some people stood for their intros and some didn’t. Dani pleasantly surprised Coop by standing when it was her turn.
He sensed a subtle change in her that he couldn’t explain. “Hi. I’m Danielle, or Dani. Not new to the lifestyle or the area, although I’ve lived out of state for several years. I’m recently single, and identify as a submissive. Fair warning, I’m not a doormat.”
The way she said it, and with her smile, drew laughter from the group. “Mikayla’s already warned me she’s going to have me v
olunteering at Venture, so I’m sure I’ll be seeing some of you around here and there.”
She eased herself down into her chair and Coop realized she did move a little stiffly.
He also immediately noticed how several of the single Doms, and the ones who liked to pick up extra play, had perked up when she’d mentioned her single status.
Why that set off prickly tendrils of territoriality in him, he didn’t know.
After the intros concluded, Dani leaned in close. “Can I ask a favor, since you seem to be on Mikayla’s good side and so far on mine, too?”
“Sure.”
“Can you keep being a buffer for me? Maybe even feel free to give folks the wrong impression tonight? Great thing about the lifestyle, I can avoid touching people I don’t know and not piss them off.”
She reached out and touched his wrist again, much as she had earlier when thanking him. “Since you seem to be educated on the subject, I’ll explain it as part of my condition, for now.”
He stared into her brown eyes. Flecks of honey and amber made them look warm, sweet, soft. “I’d be happy to.”
Sure enough, one guy jumped up from a far table and made an immediate beeline for Dani almost as soon as Tony had started to sit.
He heard Tilly mutter under her breath. “Shit.”
“I got it,” Coop said.
Tilly glanced at Dani, then him. “You sure?”
He smiled. “Prison orange isn’t your color, and Dorken isn’t worth it.”
“Dorken?” Dani asked.
“His real name’s Darren,” Mikayla said, “but that’s our nickname for him.”
He rounded the table, standing so uncomfortably close behind Mikayla that Carson actually draped his arm along the back of Mikayla’s chair and bent his elbow to force the guy back a step or risk taking a ball-tap.
“Hi there!” Darren brightly said, sticking out his hand. “Name’s Darren. Welcome to the area.”
Dani looked up at him and smiled. “Hello. Nice to meet you.” She glanced at Coop, who gave her a slight shake of his head. That widened her smile when Tilly loudly cleared her throat from across the table.
Darren’s smile faltered as he realized Dani wasn’t going to take his hand. “Oh, sorry.” He kept his smile pasted to his face and looked at Coop. “May I?”
“Sorry, she’s not comfortable shaking hands. Maybe another time.”
“Um, oh. Okay.” He stuck his hands on his hips. “Sorry, no disrespect intended. I thought you said you were single.”
“I am,” she said. “But I’m also under the protection of Coop, Carson, and Mikayla.”
Tilly cleared her throat again, a little more loudly.
“And Tilly,” Dani added.
Coop nearly laughed out loud.
Wow, she learns fast.
Darren blanched as he glanced over at the woman, who had one eyebrow dangerously arched and her arms crossed over her chest.
Cris and Landry, Tilly’s men, were making no efforts to hold her back, either. Landry, in fact, looked particularly amused by the whole situation.
“Well, okay.” Darren offered another smile, which now looked decidedly nervous. “Um, welcome, and hope you have a good dinner.”
“Thank you.” Her smile widened, bright, cheerful, even. “Nice to meet you.”
Darren left, heading to another table to talk to someone.
Dani smiled at Tilly. “Now I know why they put you at my table.”
Tilly grinned. “I’m sort of the unofficial momma pit bull of the group.”
“I’m getting that. Thanks.”
“She’s also an extreme sadist,” Coop only half-teased. “She was a nurse.”
“Technically, dude, I still am a nurse,” Tilly playfully shot back. “Just because I didn’t renew my license doesn’t mean I’m not.”
“What do you do now?” Dani asked.
“I torture Hollywood executives.” She grinned. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Mikayla broke out in a giggle fit and leaned in to give Dani the quick version about Tilly’s job at a production company, and her business partners, although Mikayla didn’t name names.
“Oh! That’s great.”
Tilly was taking a sip of water and shrugged. “It’s a living.”
Four more Doms took a run at Dani in the next fifteen minutes, and each time, she responded even more brightly and playfully to them, as if growing more comfortable with the charade.
Which, obviously, she was.
By the time their entrees arrived, she’d reached out and touched Coop’s arm a couple more times.
He also noticed how she constantly adjusted her silverware, immediately separated her food on her plate when it arrived, and kept drawing vertical lines in the condensation on the sides of her water glass.
When dinner finished a couple of hours later, Coop walked the three of them out to Carson’s car. He again noticed the stiffness in Dani’s gait, a slight limp.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Coop told her. He still hadn’t reached out to touch her yet, letting her initiate all contact with him.
“Thank you for not asking me a lot of questions,” she said. “You seem to get me.”
That was something Todd had said a lot to him about Hunter. “Not my first rodeo,” he said.
“Are you busy Tuesday night?” Mikayla asked him. “I’m making dinner. Would love to have you over.”
“You are?” Dani asked her.
“Yes, and you’re coming even if I have to send Carson after you.”
Dani rolled her eyes, but gave Coop a what are you going to do? kind of resigned smile. “I guess I’ll be at Mikayla and Carson’s for dinner on Tuesday night.”
“I’d like that. Thank you. Feel free to look me up on FetLife and send me a friend request, if you’d like. Mikayla’s got my info.”
“I need to make a new profile,” Dani said. “I don’t want my ex knowing my new one.”
Uh-oh. “Is he a problem?”
“Oh, not like that. I’m just done with him, and don’t want him able to figure out my new profile. Fresh start.”
“Ah. Mikayla, do you have my number?”
She whipped out her phone. “I think so…” She read the number off and he noticed how Dani quickly punched it into her phone, too.
Seconds later, his phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Dani smiled. “There’s mine.”
“Thanks. Feel free to text or call me.”
“Ditto. Although I prefer texts if you do, because if I’m recording I can’t answer a call. I can call back.”
“Understood.”
She looked like she was momentarily torn before she stepped in, gave him a quick one-armed hug, and stepped away again before he could even lift his arm.
Mikayla immediately stepped in to give him a long, strong hug. “Thank you!” she whispered in his ear before stepping away.
After holding the back door open for Dani, he closed it and stepped away with a final wave before heading to his own car.
Dani intrigued him.
* * * *
“Well?”
“Yes, he seems nice.”
Mikayla triumphantly grinned. “Score! And he just broke up with his girlfriend. That’s perfect!”
“Rebound subby. Wooonderful,” Dani drawled.
“He’s not like that.”
“Look, I really appreciate you engineering my own personal guard Dom for dinner, but you don’t have to try to fix me up.”
“Hey, dinner just as friends,” Mikayla said. “You’re going to need to meet people anyway.”
“I met people.” Including Jenny, who was the head volunteer and the volunteer coordinator for the club. Dani would be working her first shift at the front desk that coming Friday night with Mikayla.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m okay being single,” she said. “Maybe I’m better off single.”
“Friends,” Mikayla shot back. “You need
friends. I’m facilitating.”
“You’re trying to play matchmaker. College wasn’t so long ago I can’t remember the signs.”
“You complaining?”
“I didn’t say that.” Dani thought about her newest phone contact.
“I know his boy. Coop is really good with him. Very kind and patient. Eh, for a sadist, anyway.”
“What is the deal with that?”
Mikayla turned in her seat as far as her seatbelt would allow. “His boy is in the closet due to his family. He works for his family and they’re jerks. They also don’t know about his anxiety or other issues.”
“How can they not know?”
“They just don’t. He hides it from them. Coop plays a huge part helping him manage his symptoms. So even if you are only friends with him, like tonight, you saw how quickly he grokked your situation and how he stepped in to buffer you.”
“And I saw that you let him.”
She grinned. “Duh. Better him than me. I would have been hitting a bitch. Well, a bastard. Damn Dorken. Actually, scratch that. Dorken is a little bitch. I bet he couldn’t take a punch.”
“If I come to dinner Tuesday, will you back off trying to shove me and Coop together?”
“Absolutely, positively, maybe.”
Once Dani was home alone she took another shower, standing under water as hot as she could stand it. It helped her relax and de-stress, which actually wasn’t as severe an issue tonight as she’d thought it might be.
Mikayla had looked up Coop’s FetLife profile on her phone and emailed the link to Dani before they’d dropped her off. With a long T-shirt on to sleep in, Dani crawled into bed with her laptop, created a new FetLife account, and pulled up Coop’s profile.
He had no face pictures or other identifying info on his profile.
On the other hand, there was also no self-aggrandizing, bombastic bullshit, either. The feed indicated he’d updated his profile description earlier that afternoon.
He listed himself as single, a Dominant, Master of “someone not on FetLife,” and in a “pack” with “someone not on FetLife.”
He was also one hundred and two years old and a resident of Antarctica.
Which always amused her when she saw someone had that listed. She was currently ninety-nine, and a fellow Antarctican.
Rhymes with Orange [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Page 6
