Page 55 of Daddy P.I. 3.0

“Master Rob’s been asking to do scenes with me more an’ more. He said we should start talkin’ about being exclusive. I wanted to reach that goal before things got serious with Rob. Now I wish I’d just let it be.”

Mac reaches out and takes Shannie’s other hand. “Did something bad happen with Rob?” Mac asks.

Shannie shakes her head, her black braids swishing over her shoulders. “I haven’t been able to tell him about this, though. I think ... he’d take it wrong.”

“How would he take it wrong?” I ask.

“He’d be angry at Ty and Hart. It wasn’t their fault. I didn’t use my safe word. If I had, they’d have stopped.”

Mac rubs the back of Shannie’s hand with his thumb. “Did they take a scene too far?” he asks, his voice going rough.

She shakes her head. “They were doing what we’d agreed on.”

Mac and I are both silent for a beat, waiting for Shannie to continue. When she sits sad and slumped, tears dripping off her chin, I prompt, “Did you stop wanting the scene? Shannie, you have to communicate with your Doms?—”

A grunt from Mac shuts me up.

“Shannie, I can see you’re scared,” Mac says. “What’s more, I can see you’re shamed by whatever happened. If the scene went too far, that’s on your Doms. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Can Doms get scared, too?” Shannie asks.

“Yes, we can,” I say, trying to recover from my fumble. “I’m scared right now.”

Her dark eyes flash to me. “You are?”

“I’m scared of failing you. I’m ashamed I have in the past,” I admit. “I want to do better. I want to make sure you feel safe at Blunts.”

She sniffles.

Mac spreads his impressive wingspan, snags a box of tissues off my desk, and offers the box to Shannie. She blows her nose and then takes our hands again. “I don’t feel safe at Blunts anymore,” she says, her voice so small and soft it makes my stomach roil.

“Why, Shannie?” I ask.

“The scene with Masters Ty and Hart, it was an open scene,” she whispers. “When they started the scene, it was with a paddling. Master Javier and a couple other masters were watching. There were some men I didn’t recognize, too. People came and went while I was bein’ paddled. I wasn’t paying much attention to them. I was in subspace for part of it.”

She stops and picks up the tissue in her lap, wipes her eyes and blows her nose, before continuing, knotting the tissue between her fingers. “They moved me to the bed. Master Ty wasbehind me. Master Hart was in front of me. They was ... both ... you know.”

Shannie’s soft, Southern twang becomes more and more pronounced as she speaks. When she was in training, I loved hearing her twang because it meant she was relaxed in the scene. That’s not what this is. She’s pulling back, drawing into her roots, to protect herself.

“They took you at the same time?” I ask.

She nods. “I wasn’t really paying attention to who else was in the room until I began hearing the voices. They weren’t talking. It was more like ... chanting. They were gathered around the bed, real close.” She drops her head and stares at the tissue in her hands. “The things they was sayin’. So hateful. I doan mind dirty talk in the moment but that’s not what this was. It was like they were tryin’ to spur Ty an’ Hart on. To be rougher. To be mean and hateful like them.”

I take one of her hands again. “I’m sorry, Shannie.”

She twitches her head to the side like she’s shaking off my words. “They all began sayin’ the same thing. Chantin’ it. ‘Split her, split her, split her.’ I got real scared. Scareder than I’d been since I came to New York. Master Hart was bein’ rough with my throat. Really poundin’ at it. I’m okay with that usually. But it felt like he was movin’ to their chant, like he was caught up in it, an’ I didn’t know if I could stop him.”

“The most important part of being a Dom is being in control,” I say. “Did you feel Ty and Hart were in control?”

Shannie shakes her head. “Not really. I felt like if they went along with it, it’d be okay but if they stopped or told ‘em to stop chantin’, it would turn ugly real fast. They felt ... I don’t know how to describe it right but it felt like they were bigger than us. Like they were a group an’ we were just us, too small to stand against them.”

“I’m sorry you ever felt that way, Shannie,” I say, shame curdlingmygut. No submissive should ever feel that unsafe. “Who were the people chanting?”

“I didn’t know them. They were with Master Drew when they came in but he left.”

“Heleftguests alone with you in a scene?” Mac growls.

“Ty and Hart were there,” I offer, knowing there’s no club rule about leaving guests with other members.

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