Page 25 of Under His Command

“Hey, Flynn, it’s me, Cassie. Sorry for the late cancellation, but I’ll have to take a rain check for lunch tomorrow. I have a conference call with Gary to go overthe program one last time. We want to make sure your class will be good to go on Monday. Talk to you soon.”

She lied.

Everything had been checked, double-checked then run one more time; the program was perfect. But it was a believable reason to cancel, and an excellent excuse to avoid seeing him alone. From now on, she’d make sure others were around, at least until she got over her feelings for him. And she admitted it was love because why else would it hurt so damn bad?

She blamed herself, not him, even though all along, she’d tried to deny it. But deep down, she’d hoped for something that wasn’t there, and despite Flynn never having given her any words of encouragement, or hinted by action, she imagined the most precious of all emotions could grow from a seed that didn’t exist.

A watery image of him appeared before her eyes. She’d miss him: her lunch partner, her defender, her first on-base friend, but it was too painful. Maybe between now and seeing him on Monday, she would come up with a plausible reason she was pulling away, although she doubted it.

Never a good liar, as a kid her parents had always known, somehow. She wouldn’t fool Flynn, either; the man was perceptive. But how did she continue a friendship, as if nothing had changed, with a man she loved so deeply that her heart was in pieces?

***

“Ican’t believe youtalked me into this,” she muttered while tugging on her northward migrating hem for the umpteenth time in the last hour. Cassie squirmed on the cool leather, not because it was uncomfortable against the backs of her thighs, but because it was a constant reminder of what she was about to do. She glared at Jules who sat grinning at her from the front seat.

“Quit fidgeting; you look fantastic.”

“What if someone recognizes me?”

“No one will know who you are in that red wig. Besides, who do you know in LA?”

“We’re not from LA!” she reminded her. “What if I run into someone from the base? I’ll have to quit.”

“Cass, in that getup, you are the farthest thing from the girl genius they work with from day-to-day. Besides, the club has nearly five hundred members. For an event such as tonight, almost all of them will be present. Add in the guests, and we’ll be lucky to find each other, let alone run into someone we know.” She turned to her husband for support of her claim. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

Quiet since they’d pick her up almost two hours ago, Colt looked at her in the rearview mirror and agreed. “Even after knowing you for ten years, I wouldn’t have guessed it was you. What’s more, of the five thousand Navy personnel at Coronado, I can count on one hand how many are club members, including me. What are the odds of running into them?”

“Less than 1 percent.”

Jules laughed. “She’s a computer and math whiz, Colt; you had to ask.”

“Will it make you feel better if I tell you two of the five members are on assignment out of the country?”

It did, but only somewhat, as did the fact that in the past six months, working on the same base with Colt, she’d seen him once. Although her interaction with otherswas limited to those rotating through her lab, which was only a small fraction of the five thousand he’d mentioned. “Tell me how this works again.”

Despite having explained numerous times in the past few days, Jules didn’t complain, and answered, yet again, “The whole point of tonight is to bring in new members, mostly new submissives. Many of our longtime members have married and it’s thrown our available sub-to-dom ratio out of whack.”

“Master Eric likes to keep the numbers fairly even,” Colt added.

“Master Eric?”

“The managing partner and the club’s master dom.”

“I used to think he was scary,” Jules remarked, “until he collared Val. Now he smiles more than he scowls. I think she has mellowed him a lot.”

Colt chuckled. “Don’t spread that around, either of you. He’ll kick us all to the curb. Being known as a mellow master would be a major hit to his reputation.”

“I’m not the only one who’s noticed,” she told him as she turned to face forward.

“Let someone else mention it to him, then.”

Cassie listened to this back-and-forth, but not knowing who they spoke of, she tried to get them to refocus. “So, tonight, all potential new members are in designated costumes, right?”

“No,” Jules corrected her. “Only those looking for a partner. You’re supposed to find someone to play with who matches your theme for the night. There are four: doctor and nurse, sheik and harem girl, Tarzan and Jane, and yours, which is a pet for some lucky sub-seeking teacher. I was hoping you’d get carried off over some half-naked hunk’s shoulder, but Colt vetoed the jungle girl because the outfit was too revealing.”

“I didn’t think you’d be comfortable with any of the other options,” he explained, “at least not on your first visit.”

“I appreciate you watching out for me, but I can’t imagine any of the others being worse than this,” she grumbled, once again pulling on the red-and-black plaid skirt.

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