Masters of Control (Masters of Marquis Boxsets #2)

Prologue – 6 Months Ago

Samantha

“You! What are you doing here?”

Samantha froze at the hostile tone, all the feelings of being an imposter, of being in the wrong place, of trying to pretend she was something that she wasn’t, reared up and made her want to turn and run right back out the door.

I’m not really a Dominant. I don’t belong here.

No one else gets to decide that but me.

The voice in her head was immediately countered by another voice, a voice she respected, and a voice she’d been hearing a lot more often in her head when her own internal voice got out of control.

Mistress Olivia was a force to be reckoned with, and Sam heard her sardonic tones every time her own uncertainties got too loud.

She blinked and her eyes narrowed on the incredibly attractive black man who had spoken, the one who was staring at her in shock. There was something incredibly familiar about him…

Sam’s stomach turned over.

Now she really did feel like running out of the room. She just wanted to learn how to be a Dominatrix—at least get a feel for the Dom side of things because she hadn’t quite felt like she fit in as a submissive—not be confronted by a ghost of high school past.

Either way, she had never let Quinton Bright boss her around in high school, and she wasn’t about to start now.

He might be the last person she’d expected to find in Marquis’ How-to-Dom class, but she wasn’t going to let his presence stop her from getting what she wanted. Just as she hadn’t in high school.

“Excuse me, Quinton?” She hid her satisfaction at his flinch. Still didn’t like his name, huh? “I’m a member. What are you doing here?”

As soon as the question was out of her mouth she wanted to wince because duh… what else would he be doing at a kink club’s Introduction to Dominance class other than learning how to be a Dom? Could she have asked a more inane question?

Not that she let it show on her face.

Channeling her inner Olivia, she drew herself up, keeping her expression coldly impassive and doing her best to slow her pounding heart rate. Brushing her hands over the blue skirt of her dress, at least she knew she looked damn good.

“Quinton?” The dark-haired girl behind Q looked both interested and amused at the confrontation going down in front of her. Samantha had seen her around Stronghold, Marquis’ sister club, though she hadn’t seen Q. What was her name? Iris. That was it.

“Don’t call me that, Samwise,” Q snapped.

Oh, he did not. Sam glared at him, her hands automatically going to her hips.

Olivia wouldn’t run screaming just because someone brought up a crappy high school nickname that had been used to taunt her.

So, what if she was a bigger girl? She still loved potatoes, nearly as much as she’d hated that stupid nickname, and she was well past the age where she was going to let anyone make her feel bad about it.

“Then don’t call me that stupid nickname.

We’re not in high school anymore. Grow up.

” There, that had told him. She couldn’t help muttering, “Ass” under her breath.

Yeah, she might have started it, but there was a difference between calling someone by their actual legal name, no matter how much they didn’t like it, and using a taunting nickname.

Especially since she knew he’d hated being called “Quinton” in high school was he’d hated being teased about being a nerd. “Quinton” sounded like a nerd name, he’d said. Even though he’d been a nerd, he hadn’t embraced it the way she had.

He looked even better than he had back then.

His close-cropped black hair was similar to the cut he’d had in high school, but the scrawny limbs had been filled out with what looked like pure muscle bulging under his t-shirt.

The shirt said, “One Lab Accident Away from Being a Supervillain,” so he seemed to be more comfortable with his nerd side.

Which wasn’t too surprising. Being a nerd had somehow become cool since they were in high school. Sam was still trying to reconcile that with her memories of being teased for knowing anything about superheroes and Game of Thrones.

It would have been nice if he hadn’t grown up to be quite so hot, but at least she knew she looked good, too.

She’d dressed the part today, going for the pin-up look, which made the most of her curves, with a blue dress and a wide red belt that cinched in her waist an extra inch or so.

While she might not be exactly an hourglass without a corset, she could make herself look more like one.

“I take it you two know each other?” That question came from Chef Nick, whom Sam immediately recognized. He was the head chef at the restaurant downstairs.

Marquis operated as a regular restaurant on its first floor and a kinky hotel on its second.

Sam loved coming here. Not that she didn’t love Stronghold, which had been the first club before Marquis was built, but she’d spent more time here.

Marquis made her feel classy, elegant, and…

hot. She liked that she could hang out at the bar downstairs without feeling self-conscious about who was checking her out and who wasn’t.

Stronghold’s bar was full of Dominants who decided whether to ask one of the submissives hanging out in the Lounge area to play.

Sure, there was some crossover, especially among couples, but for the most part, they stayed well apart.

Sam never felt as though she fit in with either side, so Marquis—with its mix of kinksters and totally vanilla people who had no idea about Marquis’ naughty side—suited her better.

Not answering, Q turned around and sat down, as though she wasn’t even there. Samantha had to blink back the tears that threatened to surge upward. Yeah, that was a little too reminiscent of their past.

High school had been a decade ago, though. Shouldn’t they be able to put their past behind them?

“Hi, I’m Nick,” the chef said, waving when Samantha didn’t move closer. “This is my girlfriend, Avery, and that’s Iris.”

“I’m single and ready to mingle,” Iris said with a friendly grin. Samantha made herself smile, but her stomach turned over again when she realized there was a good chance, she was going to have to watch Q play—scene—with another submissive during training.

Not over a high school crush, huh? Pathetic.

Yeah, it really was since she hadn’t seen him since graduation. It wasn’t that she wasn’t over a silly little crush, she just had some what-if thoughts. Not regrets exactly, just curiosity over the path not taken.

Not that it was worth dwelling on.

I’m not that girl anymore.

“I’m Samantha, but I go by Sam,” she said, giving herself a mental shake, trying to make her wayward emotions straighten out.

“Welcome to the party.” Iris seemed completely unperturbed by the interaction between Q and Sam, which was good, though Nick and Avery appeared to be a little uncomfortable.

Hopefully, the introductions would get them all past that, though by sitting so far away from Q, she’d also put a bunch of space between her and them.

Ugh.

At least they knew what she liked to be called, so hopefully, things would get less awkward. Samantha had always felt too formal. She’d liked the more casual Sam, even when kids had teased her about it being boyish.

Friendlier.

Hopefully.

She’d hated Samwise. Just because she’d loved Lord of the Rings didn’t mean she’d wanted to be known as the fat hobbit. She’d been too tall to be a hobbit, anyway.

Thank you, Q, for sticking me with that name.

It grated that it still had the ability to get under her skin a decade later.

The room had been set up with a small semi-circle of chairs around the circular stage in the center of the room.

The booths that were used for dinner, eating, and watching the stage shows were along the edges of the room, their heavy curtains currently drawn.

Samantha recognized the setup from when she’d taken the subbie class.

The stage was where demonstrations were done and on weekend nights, actual kinky sex shows happened for the titillation of the watching diners.

Sam had come once with one of the girls from the submissives class.

She and Morgan weren’t besties or anything, but they’d formed a friendship, despite their differences.

It hadn’t been the same as seeing a show with someone she was actually interested in, which was still on her list of ‘things I want to do sometime soon.’

Finding someone she was interested in romantically would be step number one. Maybe she’d have better luck finding a submissive than a Dominant. That’s why she was here. Olivia thought Sam might be a ‘switch,’ someone who could do either or both.

Sam was willing to explore. She loved being a submissive a lot of the times, but sometimes, it just didn’t suit how she felt.

She wasn’t a brat, which someone had suggested.

It had taken Morgan pointing out Sam sometimes acted like a Dominant when a Dom was trying to scene with her.

Sam had decided to talk things out with Olivia.

“Okay, everybody’s here!” Freddy’s cheerful voice filled the room as the entrance door opened again. Sam twisted around in her seat to see the flamboyant submissive, who also ran the host station at Marquis, and was apparently a shark of a divorce lawyer by day.

Freddy had volunteered to be her submissive for the class. Samantha liked him a lot, but there wasn’t a spark between them. Still, she had someone to practice on. She occasionally found women attractive, but not enough to consider herself bisexual, and she really preferred men.

Freddy was also smart as hell. Sam saw his eyes flit around them, taking in where everyone was seated, and he frowned for a fraction of a second before his smile returned.

She knew that meant he would be questioning her about it later.

She would have to think of something to tell him other than “I had a crush on a boy in high school, and ten years later I didn’t want to sit too close to him. ”

Behind Freddy was Morgan and a huge man well over six feet, considering Morgan came up to his chin in heels.

Morgan and Sam were both taller than average, so Sam was sure she would feel petite standing next to him.

Morgan was a stunning redhead with a model’s body, while Sam was blonde and ‘pleasantly plump,’ as her mom liked to say.

They went through another quick round of introductions while Freddy went to get Master Law and Mistress Julie, who would be teaching the class.

Sam wished Mistress Olivia was instructing since she didn’t know Mistress Julie.

She’d hoped for some mentorship, but she knew Olivia was busy running Marquis.

Plus, Olivia’s boyfriend and submissive was Nick’s older brother, so she didn’t think Olivia would jump to teach this particular class, even if she didn’t have a huge workload.

Morgan sat next to Samantha, giving her a bright smile, while Connor sat down next to Morgan. It wasn’t as if people were choosing sides, but Samantha felt a little better having people next to her.

If Morgan and Connor had left the seat beside her for Freddy, it would have been understandable, yet also made her feel like even more of an outsider. Not that it was anyone’s fault. She’d chosen her own seat.

Just once, she wished she could feel like she was making the right decisions instead of floundering like a fish out of water.

It was going to be an interesting class.