by L. DuBois
“You’re lovely,” he murmured.
This wasn’t what modeling meant. Not when it was listed on the BDSM checklist. She should be in a corset, parading up and down for other members, only to then be stripped naked in front of everyone, and forced into a spiked bra and tight g-string with her pussy lips pulled out so they were still on display.
That would be BDSM modeling.
This wasn’t. This was intimate, as their earlier scene had been, but it was also romantic.
“Are we roleplaying as master and slave,” she asked slowly, thinking that she could handle this if she could go back to playing a part.
“No…no. This time I want Cali. My…” Zidan didn’t finish that sentence.
Cali blinked, and the first tear fell. “Your wife?”
“I was going to say my lover.” His voice was gruff.
Cali sank down to sit on the edge of the bed once more. “No, Zidan. I can’t do this.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t, won’t, the result is the same. I know I lashed out at you earlier, and…and maybe I needed to get it out.” Cali stood. “Because I’m finally ready to say goodbye.”
Zidan rose to his feet, too. “What do you mean, goodbye?”
“We were good together, for a long time. Friends, lovers. I changed, and I wanted you to change too. When you said no, it broke my heart, because I did love you.” Cali reached up and swiped her cheek with her palm. “It wasn’t fair of me to ask. Not when I knew what I was asking for wasn’t anything you wanted. When I knew that you’d lost the love of your life.”
“Cali…”
“I’m saying goodbye. This was…closure.”
“Closure?” His face, voice, they were unreadable.
“I was still angry with you, and hurt, embarrassed, even though I shouldn’t be after so long. But…” She shook her head, a rueful smile at odds with the way her eyes stung. “I’m not anymore.” She smiled at him, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Have you loved me, all this time?” Zidan asked slowly, his eyes focused and stark. The words could have been mocking, or full of pity. Instead they seemed…hopeful?
Cali took a step back, as if she could put distance between herself and that idea. Rather than answer she shook her head.
“I never loved Sana the way I’ve loved you.”
Cali’s breath hitched in shock.
Zidan’s hands curled into fists, then relaxed only to tighten again. “Trying to live my life so it was as different as possible from what I briefly had with her… That was punishment.”
“Punishment?”
“I didn’t protect her. When she died it was guilt more than grief that ripped me apart.”
Cali put her hand over her mouth, shocked not just by his words, but by seeing him like this. His shoulders were slumped, and he sounded defeated.
“I told you ‘no’ to punish myself, and in a way to protect you. Instead I hurt you. After that day in New York…I started to change.”
“Saying no to me was punishing yourself?”
He looked away, his profile stark. “Because I wanted to say ‘yes’. But I didn’t deserve to be happy. Didn’t deserve you. That’s why I’ve never told you how I feel.”
“Feel? You mean felt. Tell me you mean felt,” Cali whispered.
“I loved you then, and I love you still now,” he murmured.
“Zidan, no,” she said on a soft sob.
A terrible, wry smile touched his lips. “You deserve better than what I’ve done to you. Better than what I am. But that didn’t stop me from taking the job at the Geffen so I could move to L.A. and be close to you.”
He’d moved here for her. The revelations just kept coming, each of them a blow far more impactful than even the lash of a whip.
“I started working in TV, hoping someday I could cast you. See you every day, for however long the shoot lasted.”
Cali’s stomach burned and her arms felt both hot and cold as fresh emotions flashed through her.
“You came here for me, and never called, texted, wrote? You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I wish I was.”
Rage and grief burned her from within. “Damn you. Damn you for telling me now. When I just found some kind of closure.”
“I am a bastard,” he agreed softly. “And I hope you can learn to hate me.”
“How can I hate you?” she sobbed. “I loved you too much for that. I should have seen what you were feeling back then.” She laughed, a watery, pathetic sound. “I’m not the one who is good at identifying feelings. That’s you.”
“I am good with anyone’s truths but my own,” he agreed softly.
When he looked up, there were tears on his cheeks.
Part of her wanted to run to him, throw her arms around him. Say that she would always love him, and if that love had dimmed though the years they’d been apart she would find it again.
The other part of her wanted to run. To get as far from him as she could, because the bare truth was that Zidan bore deep emotional scars, deeper even than she realized. That meant loving him, being with him in a monogamous relationship where there weren’t other people and physical outlets, would be difficult and stressful.
Torn between the impulses, Cali did neither. She didn’t run to, or away, from him.
She stood there in the beautiful gown, tears on her cheeks, staring at her husband. Her lover.
She waited for him to move first. To act so she could react. He was the dominant partner in their relationship, and always had been.
And for the first time in all the years she’d known him, he looked utterly lost and unsure.
That broke her.
Cali held out her hand. “Zidan, come here.”
Zidan took a step, his fingers wrapping around hers, and then he dropped to his knees, hanging his head as sobs wracked his shoulders. Cali stepped into him, pulling his head against her waist, stroking his hair as he cried.
They’d done enough damage to each other with silence and distance. That stopped now. Things would change, though how, exactly, she couldn’t say.
Tonight was the end of what they’d had, who they’d been. Tomorrow would be something new.
Maybe they would divorce, but remain friends.
Maybe they would decide it was healthier to cut all ties and go their separate ways.
Cali didn’t love him anymore, not the way she had. Maybe someday that would change and they would live that monogamous, married lifestyle she’d once asked him for.
It would have to be a new love, not just rekindling the old.
That was tomorrow. Tonight she would hold him, keep him safe, while he wept.
Epilogue One
“You can’t just stop there!” Sarah grabbed Cali’s shoulders and shook her. “That’s how it ends?!”
Cali grabbed the other woman by the wrists, trying to loosen her hold. “Why are you shaking me?”
“Because that can’t be the end. He poured out his heart and you’re not sure if you’re going to be together?”
“I had just figured out closure,” Cali said in exasperation. “He broke my heart. Kept breaking it for years. And I’m supposed to just…take him back and say that I love him and want to be married to him?”
Sarah stared at her for a long moment, then threw her hands in the air. “Yes!”
Cali’s lips twitched as she turned away from the other woman to finish packing her bag. It was afternoon, and she’d just woken up an hour ago.
Woken up happy and safe in Zidan’s arms. Woken up to the warm gold light of day that made everything seem possible. Hopeful.
In the dark of night it had seemed right, felt right, to say she didn’t know what the future held for them. Emotionally and physically exhausted, the bleak futures had felt as likely as the rosier ones.
But now…
Sarah ducked around to peer at Cali’s face. “Wait a minute. You’re smiling.”
“Yes,” Cali agreed
. “I am smiling because…because I’m happy.” She blinked a few times, then let out a watery little laugh.
“You still love him.”
“Of course I do.” Cali finished zipping up her bag. “I never stopped loving him. I never will. Telling myself I didn’t…”
“Self defense,” Sarah supplied after a moment.
“Yes. Last night I was raw.” Cali took a moment, this unexpected interlude with Sarah forcing her to put some thoughts into words. “And it is true that I needed to say goodbye to who we were.”
“And now that you have…are you going to marry him? Wait, you’re already married. Make babies?” Sarah waved her hands in the air.
Her heart leapt, and there were butterflies in her stomach, but outwardly all Cali did was smile.
“Right now…” she picked up her packed tote and slung it on her shoulder. “I am going to go out to lunch with my husband. And then we’re going to go back to my house and do something utterly boring. Together.”
“And tomorrow?”
Cali didn’t answer, not until she reached the doorway out of the Subs' garden. Then she turned and looked back over her shoulder at the other woman.
“Tomorrow I plan to wake up in bed with the man I love. Everything after that…” Cali smiled then turned and walked out into the light.
Epilogue Two
Las Palmas, Checklist Game Planning Meeting
Faith cleared her throat pointedly and rapped her poster marker against the table like a gavel. The wall behind her was papered in large sheets of self-stick poster paper.
Gabriela, seated beside Leo, was still musing about the relationship between Calista and Zidan, one of the club’s married but not bonded couples. They weren’t the only married couple who chose to play with people outside their relationship. However, they were the only couple who were estranged, and who pretended they weren’t outside the sanctuary of the club.
Leo had reprimanded Gabriela for gossiping about the couple, who were also two of their Hollywood members. Pairing them together was sadistic, but very in line with the reason for the game. It was time to challenge people, but also quite frankly, a time for them to play kink matchmaker. And romance matchmaker.
That is what she wanted to do with N.
Now that she had their attention, Faith reached out and plucked up two packets, holding them up, one in each hand so her fellow overseers could read the names and see the pictures.
“N is a relatively sparse letter,” Mikel said after a moment. “And these two, they are both so…” Mikel waved one hand in the air.
“Predictable,” Gabriela supplied.
“Predictable, Mikel agreed.
“It might take some prodding, but they both have…secrets.”
“Oh?” Leo asked, alert.
“Not the kind of secrets that would damage the club or risk any members. The kind of secrets that could turn this lovely, simple pairing into something quite…” Faith smiled, tapping the pen on the table. “Something quite dangerous.”
Don’t miss N is for… coming Summer 2021.
Love sexy stories set in BDSM clubs?
Check out the Orchid Club series, starting with
San Francisco Longing
Oh wait! How about a free copy ?
Sign up for Lila’s Newsletter to get San Francisco Longing, as well as three other great stories, totally free.
Get four FREE ebooks when you join Lila’s newsletter!
Click the link above, or
Go to
www.liladubois.net
And click on the “Free Books” link at the top of the page.
A note from Lila…
I never intended this series to be romance. My original plan was for all the checklist books to be straight erotica. Spanning a few days, each story would focus on the characters’ sexual exploration and growth.
Some (possibly many) of the books ended up being far more erotic romance than erotica. Those pesky characters kept developing feelings for one another. However, with every book I remind myself of the original intent. That’s why the first draft of this book ended with chapter ten.
Then some very smart, wonderful people, including both fellow authors and my lovely, patient final line editor, informed me that the end of this book was heartbreaking and that they would be reporting me to the authorities for reader abuse.
Wanting to avoid being tarred and feathered, thrown in naughty author jail, etc, I wrote and included epilogue one. If you want this to be erotica, feel free to ignore epilogue one. If you want a little more happy ever after…well then the epilogue is for you.
Either way, I hope you enjoyed this book. If you’d like to discuss with like-minded readers, you can join the Checklist Club facebook group.
And if you’re looking for some recommendations for what to read next, check out these series.
For BDSM club-based books that are definitely romance: Orchid Club trilogies.
For BDSM with a rockabilly vibe: Undone Lovers.
For secret club romantic suspense, try the Trinity Masters and Masters’s Admiralty series I co-write with Mari Carr.
I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.
~Lila
About the Author
Lila Dubois is an award winning, multi-published, bestselling author of erotic, paranormal and fantasy romance.
Her book “J is for…”, the tenth book in the bestselling checklist series, won the 2019 National Readers’ Choice Award. Additionally, she’s been nominated for the RT Book Reviews Erotic Novella of the Year for “Undone Rebel” and the Golden Flogger.
Having spent extensive time in France, Egypt, Turkey, Ireland, and England Lila speaks five languages, none of them (including English) fluently. Lila lives in California with her own Irish Farm Boy and loves receiving email from readers.
Visit Lila online:
www.liladubois.net
[email protected]
The Orchid Club Series
The San Francisco Trilogy
If Cinderella was a sub…
San Francisco Longing
San Francisco Lost
San Francisco Love
The Paris Trilogy
Her ex is the only Dom who could give her what she really needs…
Paris Pleasure
Paris Punishment
Paris Promise
The Vienna Trilogy
He’s her mark…and her Dom.
Vienna Betrayal
Vienna Bargain
Vienna Bliss
Excerpt from Vienna Betrayal
She’d never been flogged like this, with quick fast blows. Instead of the warm thumps, the strikes were sharp, the sensation closer to the sting of a crop, but with a multilayered sound as each tail hit at a slightly different time.
And it hurt. Wonderfully. Terribly. She cried out, rounding her shoulders as her breasts started to burn with heat, the sting not having time to fade before he struck her again.
“Shoulders back,” he commanded.
“I…I…”
“Give me your breasts. They are mine to abuse tonight.”
His perverse command made her shiver in need. She needed this, deserved it. How had she forgotten how good it could be to submit?
Years ago she’d been so heavily into BDSM that she’d actually hosted a monthly munch—a BDSM meet and greet.
Then she’d grown restless and slowly drifted away from the community and the lifestyle, taking with her everything she’d learned about how complex a person’s sexuality could be, and how universal the desire for connection was, even if that connection was found on opposite ends of a whip.
The flogger never stopped, and she lost track of time. The sound of each strike was like a metronome, relentless and mesmerizing. Her breasts ached. She felt swollen and tender, each blow a warm sting.
The pattern broke, the flogger not striking her left breast when it should have.
“We’ll pause for a moment.”
Alexander casually bounced the flogger against his leg, the only sign of impatience during the small intermission.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Their gazes collided, and for a moment Alena was sure he could see the truth. The truth of why she was here, what she wanted from him.
Anxiety flashed through her, cold and sobering.
Alexander simply nodded, then leaned in, examining her breasts. He used the butt of the crop handle to lift each breast in turn, examining the underside.
“Your skin marks beautifully. No bruises of course, but you will be pink for several hours.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
The words were automatic, almost habitual.
As if Alexander had pulled that buried submissive part of her forward in the space of an hour.
This was a terrible mistake. There was a piece in play she hadn’t seen, and that piece, her long forgotten submissive needs, bolstered by the sexual chemistry between them, had knocked her back several moves.
This plan had seemed perfect, both because it was one of the only ways she could gain access to him, and because she was an experienced submissive. It was an approach no normal person would have dared, unless they were so ignorant of what BDSM was that they walked in blind and ignorant.
Alena’s life had never been normal. At best it had been interesting, and at worst traumatic. She was who she was, and did what she did, because of it.
“We’ll continue.”
The flogger swished through the air, finding the rhythm once more.
Instead of her breasts he focused on her thighs and hips.
Thwack. Right hip.
Thwack. Left thigh.
Thwack. Right hip.
