Page 23 of A Billionaire Dom

Davin

Why hadn’tI kissed her goodnight?

Or more.

That thought had been going around in my head from the moment I’d gotten in my car Wednesday night and driven away from the restaurant. I’d enjoyed dinner with Linsey more than I’d enjoyed a meal with any other woman in a long time.

The conversation had been easy, and neither of us had taken offense when we’d steered away from one topic or another. The current between us had buzzed bright and hot. The few times we’d touched – a brush of our fingers here, a bump of my arm against hers when we walked – had felt like a jolt of static electricity.

Despite all that, when we’d finished our decadent desserts, I’d walked her to her car and said goodbye. I’d kissed her cheek in greeting when I’d seen her in the lobby at work, but I hadn’t even managed anything like that before walking away. I felt like I was thirteen again, taking Catriona Wheeler back to her dad’s car after we went to the movies.

I didn’t like being flustered, especially not when it came to women, and that had thrown off the rest of my week. I hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything. Little things that shouldn’t have even caught my notice annoyed me. Things that should have brought me relief barely registered.

Yesterday afternoon, the detectives had come back to my office with good news. The two men who had gone after Linsey had disappeared. Apparently, when the detectives had mentioned a good case for both self-defense and defense of another, then added that if a civil case was pursued, I could possibly countersue for slander, both men had left against medical advice and completely vanished.

I was glad for the positive outcome being reached without a lot of legal hassle, but I was still restless. Unsettled. Off-balance. Like something had happened that had completely thrown my life out of whack.

I wanted to be able to blame it on a phone call I’d gotten from my younger brother, Damon, a few hours ago, asking if I was a member at Euphoria. He’d accidentally discovered my ‘playroom’ recently, and I’d told him that I went to a club in Houston, but I hadn’t given him a name.

He’d asked the usual curious but polite questions, but at the time, I hadn’t even considered that his interest might be anything more than wanting to get his mind off his budding relationship with Jae.

Apparently, my brother had been doing some of his own research since then, and that was why I was currently filling out the necessary form to bring Damon and his girlfriend, Jae, in as my guests. Both of them looked a little nervous, but they were hiding it well, Jae a little less so than my brother.

I’d been the same way when I’d gone to my first club, and that’d been just around the time things in the BDSM world had exploded into the mainstream. People in my world had various opinions of whether or not that was a good thing, or if it was accurately represented, but I stayed out of those types of debates.

In my opinion, as long as it was consensual and safe, it wasn’t anyone’s business to police or judge what others were doing or thinking. And it wasn’t on any of us in this lifestyle to meet the expectations of those who’d only gotten their information from fiction.

I’d had that talk with both Damon and Jae before I’d brought them here, making sure they understood the reality of what they’d experience versus how it was often portrayed in fiction. I knew Damon well enough to know that he’d probably already figured it out, but the last thing I wanted was for either one to be so uncomfortable that they felt weird around me afterward. If they didn’t like it, that was fine, but I didn’t want to fuck up my relationship with my brother.

“Here are your visitor passes.” I handed the pins to them.

“Really?” Damon looked at the gold and blackEpin.

“It’s how people know who to look out for as much as anything else,” I explained. “The club usually does a good job of weeding out the assholes, but some slip through, and some know how to get close to the line without crossing it. Members make sure visitors aren’t taken advantage of.”

Damon helped Jae clip the pin where it would be the most visible and then tucked some of her dark hair behind her ear. The gesture made my stomach clench. The two hadn’t known each other long at all, and they kept looking at each other like no one else existed. And it wasn’t just the ‘first lust’ sort of looking, either. What those two had went beyond mere physical attraction. I’d seen it with my youngest brother, Deklin, and his fiancée, Sofi, too.

How had both of my brothers found the same thing over the course of just a couple months? It didn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t have been possible.

Yet the evidence was staring me right in the face.

They were in love.

As we went through the second set of doors, I pushed those thoughts aside. If they were happy, I was happy for them, but I wasn’t looking for the same thing. I wasn’t interested in love. Coming here wasn’t about love, at least not for me.

“Let’s go to the bar,” I suggested. “We can get a drink, and you can take a look around without being in the middle of everything. It can be a little overwhelming at first.”

Damon took Jae’s hand, the easy smile on his face hiding the hint of anxiety in his eyes. It was strange. I’d always been the big brother, but Damon had never seemed to really need me to take care of him. There were three years between us, but he and I had always seemed more like we were both the oldest. I took care of Dad and the business. Damon took care of Deklin. At least until we grew up, and at that point, we’d all taken care of ourselves.

This was the first time I’d ever really felt like he needed my help, even if it was with something fairly simple.

“I like the music,” Jae said with a grin. Her pale eyes shone with humor, and I realized that the song that’d just come on was one of Holden’s hits.

“I have to admit,” I said, chuckling, “it’s a bit disconcerting, being in the middle of something sexual, and having your little brother’s voice suddenly come over the speakers.”

Damon laughed and leaned down to whisper something in Jae’s ear. Judging by the way her face flooded with color, I assumed it was something pretty dirty. My admiration for her grew when she said something back that made his eyes light up with heat and happiness.

A spark of something unfamiliar flickered inside me.

Was I…jealous?

“What can I get for you?” The bartender was new and blonde. A gorgeous blonde with a tongue stud and a leather corset. And the way she was looking at me made me think she was offering more than a drink.

Except I wasn’t interested.

Dammit. Not again.

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