She turned her attention back to Kat, to the cuff around her wrist—identical to Sunny’s except for the fact that it had a myriad of ribbons on it. Red, teal, green and yellow striped—they meant nothing to Sunny. She vaguely recalled the receptionist explaining it to her as she’d signed in, but Sunny hadn’t heard any of it. Her anxiety had been far louder than rules or color coding.
“What do the ribbons mean?” Sunny asked, trying to find something to fill the silence with.
Kat held up her wrist to show the leather cuff with the colored ties. “For members, we use these to identify what people are looking for and what limits they have. We still ask of course, just to make sure, but these make it obvious right from the start. If someone hates something you love, you know it may be a bad fit before even trying. Nothing worse than a hardcore masochist falling for a Soft Dom who doesn’t like to even raise their voice. Makes everyone unhappy when people don’t click.”
Sunny frowned when the explanation didn’t make any sense to her.
Doms never care what their subs want.
However, she kept that to herself. People saw what they wanted, and Kat seemed the type to let romantic notions blind her to the truth. No doubt she’d say the Doms here were different, that they were somehow exempt from the reality Sunny had experienced before. There wasn’t any reason to argue over it, so Sunny let the topic drop.
They went to one of the tables set out with coffee and snacks, and Kat filled a small plate with items for them both. “I love your costume. You sure do fit in with the whole primal and prey thing.”
Andthatmade the damn panic creep up again. She hadn’t thought of the fox asprey. It was a predatory creature, just smaller than some of the others. It seemed others saw it differently.
Kat looked past the table and locked eyes with a man across the room, one who wore a black mask with horns and a smirk. He crooked his finger to call her over. She let out a sigh full of want. “I’ll be right back…” She pulled away before Sunny could answer, leaving Sunny with the plate of food and no backup.
A pit started in Sunny’s stomach at the way Kat had followed the demand, at the memory of how many times Sunny had done the same thing, when she’d dropped everything she’d wanted and done as she’d been told. She remembered a crooked finger, a silent demand that came a split second before anger, before violence.
It sickened her, threatened to drag her under so many worse memories.
“There you are, little fox.” The devil-man from earlier came up from behind Sunny, his voice already tattooed on her brain.
She jumped, those overactive nerves of hers taking over, struggling to separate him from her past.
He’s just a person. You’re fine.
Right, because telling herself that made it reality… Saying it didn’t make her safe, didn’t do anything.
Still, she turned toward him, her shoulders hunched forward in on herself to make herself smaller. “Hello.”
This is why you came. Don’t chicken out now. Just one night.
He smiled, but she couldn’t shake the way her brain screamed danger at her. Whether he was actually dangerous or not didn’t really matter. Her body had decided, and it wasn’t listening to her. It went off history, off what she knew to be true—men, especially dominant men, couldn’t be trusted.
“Why don’t you come on over to the couch there? We can have a talk, get to know each other. I’ve been watching you since you came in, and you look amazing.”
Sunny tried to swallow down her fears, her doubts, but they stuck in her throat. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, unable to shake all the ‘hell no’ swirling in her head. No matter how many times she reminded herself that she was here for this, she couldn’t get herself to agree, to even want to agree.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, the one with the cuff, and tugged gently. “Come on, little sub, I don’t bite too hard—at least not unless you beg.”
Sickness churned in her stomach, the room becoming stifling, the air thinning.
He didn’t yank, didn’t tighten his fingers to the point of pain, didn’t show any sort of violence or anger, yet she couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t stop herself from seeing him as the devil he had dressed as.
She followed, her body frozen and unable to fight back, to just yank and tell him no. What the hell was wrong with her?
Fear.It was what was always wrong with her, that beast she couldn’t kill no matter what she did. Even when she thought she had it under control, it always reared its ugly, unwelcome head and turned her intothis.
“I saw you thesecondyou walked in,” devil-man said. “You look like prey, and I am a man who likes to chase.”
“I’m a man, Sunshine, and I have needs.”The voice that haunted her dreams came back to her. It ran in her head as clear as if the monster from her past stood there right then, and the room blurred.
Just when she was sure she’d pass out, that she’d fall to the floor there in front of everyone, a large hand grasped devil-man’s shoulder.
It wasn’t violent, but it was aclearmessage of stop. “Hold up there, Jordan.”
Devil-man—Jordan?—paused and turned toward the man who’d spoken, someone who made Sunny want to pull even farther back. This new man was tall, his body lean but strong. He wore a silver mask that covered his eyes, and his lips were pressed into a tight, unhappy line.