Page 3 of T is for…

Tara nodded once. “Don’t ‘work’ on the weekend for me.” The emphasis on the word work was subtle but there. Nathan wasn’t actually working next weekend. This was the code they used to check when the other one planned to be at the club. Saying you were working gave the other person the green light to come.

“I’m not planning to come for…a bit,” Tara added.

If she’d been talking about anything else, he would have asked her about that vague statement. As it was, he merely nodded. “Sounds good.”

For years they’d managed to make sure they weren’t here at the same time.

Tonight was different, and they didn’t have a choice about it.

The club overseers had called a mandatory all-member meeting. Nathan had been stressed about seeing Tara at the club since the encrypted email announcement arrived in his in-box, and had hoped to arrive early and avoid seeing her.

Fate had other plans, and they’d met in the parking lot, just steps from the front door.

Tara, in her normal calm, competent way, problem-solved and bypassed any awkwardness by casually walking in and then pulling out her tablet to show him her latest project.

But now the awkwardness was creeping back as they stood there, both holding their bags.

“After-work drinks on Tuesday so you can show me the rest?” he asked in mild desperation.

“Sounds good. I’ll text you on Monday.”

“Monday,” he agreed, hanging back as she headed down the foyer and into the Subs’s Garden.

Even thinking the word “sub” in connection to Tara made him twitch, so Nathan turned, making his way to the Den, which served as the locker room and lounge for the Doms, Masters, and Owners of Las Palmas.

Nathan would avoid even looking at Tara during this all-club meeting, and then he’d leave and never, ever, think about the fact that his best friend was a sexual submissive ever again.

He didn’t know the overseers weren’t going to give him a choice.

Nathan considered himself an easygoing guy, who preferred calm and logical interactions.

Right now, he was neither calm nor thinking logically. He was planning to throw Mistress Faith through a fucking window.

Not that there was a window in the small “tack room,” but he’d find one if needed.

“Nathan—”

“No fucking way.” Nathan shook the envelope he’d been given thirty minutes ago in her face.

The envelope was a dossier on his assigned sub partner for the club’s new, mandatory, “game.” An assignment that had been set by the overseers, who included Mistress Faith.

“Anyone but her,” he snapped.

Mistress Faith raised a brow. “I’m insulted on Tara’s behalf.”

Hearing her name sent a fresh jolt of…something…through Nathan.

“Give me a different partner,” he demanded, once more shaking the envelope. Inside was copy of Tara’s BDSM checklist. A complete accounting of every kinky, toy, and scenario she liked, wanted to try, or had as a hard limit.

Nathan’s heart had stopped—and luckily restarted without the assistance of any implantable cardiac device—when he saw who’d they’d assigned to be his submissive.

Tara.

They expected him to scene with Tara. To dominate her. Touch her. Use her.

His best friend of twenty years.

Nathan willed his mind blank, refusing to picture her as a sub, let alone his sub.

---