Chapter 1
one
LOGAN
I crouch low at the corner of a wooden wall and wipe sweat out of my eyes.
The sun’s set but the November day has been unseasonably warm. The heat, combined with the coveralls I’m wearing and the need for stealth as I move through a maze of hedges and walls, have me dripping.
I wipe my hands on my pants, adjust my weapon, and raise my free hand. My teammates, Mac, Sean, Taylor, and Cole, shuffle from their hiding spots and tuck in tight to the corner. They adjust their own weapons. Together, we wait.
I listen, straining to differentiate sounds through the muffling effect of the maze.
There are eight teams out tonight. Too many.
I told Ry it was too many. Too much potential for confusion.
Too much possibility of being caught in friendly fire.
But Ry’s not a military man, so he gave it the thumbs up anyway.
There. Over the city’s night noises, the slough of the breeze, the shuffling of feet, a high, soft giggle. That’s the sound I’ve been listening for.
“Attack!” I yell, willing to lose the element of surprise in favor of the panic my shout will induce in those listening.
I lead my team barreling around the wooden corner, my gun up and firing. A blob of bright pink paint catches a blonde head before it ducks behind an overturned trestle table. The rest of my ammo spatters across the wooden surface uselessly.
Three grinning faces pop up over the edge of the table, guns pointed at me like a firing squad.
“Ambush!” I shout at my team, hoping that at least one of them will make it to safety, even as splats of orange paint pepper the front of my coveralls.
“You’re dead, Daddy!” Emily whoops, as she continues to fire.
I sit down in disgust. Mac plops into the grass next to me, scooping fluorescent orange paint out of his ear.
“I’m still going to beat her ass tonight,” he tells me, tipping his head at his blue-haired submissive, who is still firing over our heads.
“Definitely. Rampant insubordination.”
Mac chuckles and lies back in the grass, probably smearing paint all up his back. Since I’m going to need a shower anyway, I join him in staring up at the night sky. A few stars pierce the city’s light pollution and I smile up at them, happy despite my team’s route.
“This doesn’t suck, son,” he says to me.
“I led us straight into an ambush,” I answer. “Kinda sucks.”
Mac laughs. “Faster the game’s over, faster I get to fuck my girl’s cute little ass. Win-win.”
“Now that is the honest truth.” I lift my head to see what my girl’s doing but she’s ducked back behind the trestle to avoid a volley of glowing green paint coming from my left. “Give ‘em hell, Emmy,” I shout, to encourage her.
“I got this, Daddy!”
I lie back, chuckling.
“You staying the night?” Mac asks me. He shifts, getting more comfortable on the grass, steepling his fingers over his chest. The dim light from electric lanterns and fairy lights strung up around the maze illuminates his craggy profile.
I know Mac’s face almost as well as I know my own.
This man I served under, sweated under, bled under.
Now he lives under my roof. Eats at my table.
Plays at my club. I can never repay Mac for what he’s given me but it’s a start.
“Yeah. Committee meeting in the morning.”
“Ah,” he says, like he’s forgotten. I know he hasn’t. His membership application is in front of the committee tomorrow.
“You’ll pass,” I reassure him.
Mac’s profile shifts, white teeth gleaming in the low light, as he grins. “You’ve made sure of that, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
There are things I leave to chance. Not many, I admit.
I’m a controlling bastard. But the happiness of the people who mean the most to me?
No. I make sure of that. Mac wants to be a part of the club that’s so central to my life.
He’s got the experience, and the money. He’d have been a shoo-in if we’d both been smarter and done things a little differently over the last few months.
If I hadn’t levied a financial penalty while punishing one of the house submissives for bullying my little girl.
If Mac hadn’t claimed and collared Brenna, who I can hear laughing her head off with Emily, for his own.
More than one member is salty that he plucked her out of the pool of house subs.
I’ve had to make a bad bargain and call in several favors. But I have enough votes.
I’ve made sure of it.
Mac grunts. “What time’ll you be done?”
“Zero nine hundred.” By which time he’ll be a full member. “Meet us in the buffet at zero nine thirty?”
I need a half-hour to dress my little girl. And maybe give her an orgasm if she’s a needy baby.
“Roger that.”
“Speaking of which, you’ll need to set up your own account for club expenses. Time to stop sponging off me.”
Mac chuckles. “Guess I’ll have to make the most of it tonight. Room’s got a mini-bar.”
“If you charge fucking fifteen-dollar bottles of water to my account, I’m tacking it on to your rent.”
Not that I’ve let him pay rent, nor will I.
“Language, Daddy!” Emily shouts over another wet volley.
Mac joins me in laughing.
By dint of my team-mate, Sean, being a far sneakier bastard than I’d given him credit for, our team actually wins.
Emily’s band of submissives is the second-to-last knocked out.
Once her cute, pink coveralls are spattered with paint, Emily trots over and flops on top of me for a cuddle.
Mac’s girl and the three other members of their team, Fleur, Lucy, and Austin, join us.
A happy, wiggly pile of submissives is a fine blanket against the rapidly cooling evening.
When Sean finally takes out the last opponent, he and his submissive join our pile.
Sean gives his subbie a couple of token swats with the game’s prize: a golden leather paddle.
He passes the paddle to me, and I line up Emily, Fleur, Lucy, and Austin to give them each a celebratory smack.
When I hand the paddle off to him, Mac stretches Brenna over his knee and gives her a much longer paddling, while she writhes and stuffs her knuckles in her mouth to keep from making so much noise the club’s neighbors complain.
While the club building is heavily soundproofed, we’re playing in the courtyard which is open to the sky.
Once Brenna’s howled through a knuckle-muffled orgasm, Mac tosses the paddle back to Sean, throws Brenna over his shoulder, and heads inside. I pull Emily into my lap and tickle her under the chin.
“Ready to call it a night, my baby?”
She looks up at me, her big eyes luminous in her pale face. “Austin and Hunter have challenged my title, Daddy.”
Ah, the ongoing Hearts War between my little girl and the house subs who taught her the card game and have been losing to her ever since.
“Mmm, I think they’re going to have to wait for another night. Unless you want to miss out on a good-girl spanking.”
“A champion has to defend her crown.” Her plush, lower lip trembles. “But I really don’t want to miss out on a good-girl spanking.”
I chuckle and kiss the tip of her nose.
“How about this? Invite Austin and Hunter over on Saturday for a Hearts Battle Royale. You three can play all afternoon. Daddy will cook tea.”
The big eyes get even bigger. “Daddy will cook?”
“Daddy somehow managed before you came along, little girl.”
Austin, who is lying on the grass with Fleur under one arm and Lucy under another, snorts. “On microwave dinners.”
I kick him playfully. “Quiet, you.”
“I’ll bring Aunt Pearl’s Banoffee Pie,” he offers. “Hunt and I both have Saturday off.”
“Is that a deal, little girl? Can you wait to defend your title until Saturday?”
She immediately lifts her pinkie finger. “Deal.”
I shake her pinkie with mine before I draw her in for a deep kiss.
I barely take my mouth off hers as we wind our way through the club to the room I’ve reserved for the night.
The Blue Harem room is my favorite dungeon in the club, although the Nursery we’re building is likely to replace that.
The only downside to the Blue Harem room is that it doesn’t have an attached bathroom.
Few of the dungeons do except the medical suite, which is semi-perpetually booked out.
Because I knew our play today would be messy, I reserved a room on the third floor. It’s the “pink boudoir” room and has all the elements of a terribly cheesy Vegas honeymoon hotel, right down to the heart-shaped bed. Most importantly, though, there’s a two-person hot tub in the attached bath.
Emily clings to me like the cutest baby koala as I carry her to the bathroom, dropping our overnight bags by the door.
I’ll unpack later. I strip off our paint-covered overalls and the street clothes we’ve worn beneath.
Some of the paint is still wet, so I make sure to use it to daub hearts on my baby doll’s butt-cheeks while I’m taking off her white knickers.
That gets me a cute squeal that I muffle with my mouth as I pick her up and climb into the hot tub with her.
Kissing my little girl is an addiction I don’t want to break.
Once we’re in the hot water, I turn Emily around in my lap and braid her hair, taking my time to rub my fingertips over her scalp. She dissolves into a floppy koala, still clinging to me with her foot adorably hooked behind my calf. I love the points of connection she always creates between us.
I nibble her neck and the soft shell of her ear as I rub my hands over her.
Sure, it gets the paint off but I’m really sensitizing her skin, warming her up for our lovemaking.
Emily reciprocates sweetly, rubbing her foot up and down my calf, wriggling when I find a particularly sensitive spot on her neck so her soft bottom grinds over my lap.
“Who is this clean little girl?” I ask when I’m ready to move from the bath to the bed.
“You, Daddy,” my clean, floppy koala answers, lazily trailing her toes up and down my calf.