Page 28 of S is for…

They drank in silence through the darkest part of the night, and the sky to the east, above the canyon tops, was lightening to gray before a third set of footsteps made a now-sauced Peter look up.

“Fuck,” Julen breathed.

“No fucking way,” Peter added as Lihn walked up.

Lihn looked at each of them in turn, brows rising as he checked out the scattering of empty beer bottles on the car trunk behind them and the open whiskey Peter was passing to Julen.

Lihn had a sort of knowing look as he assessed them.If Peter had been sober, he might have resented that.Instead, Peter smacked Julen with the back of his hand and made a gimme motion with his fingers.

Julen grunted, took a swig, then passed the bottle back.

Lihn cleared his throat.“Gentlemen, we fucked up.”

Chapter8

Lihn, Julen, Peter, and Joni, Laney, Diann

Five hoursand many cups of coffee later, Peter and Julen were, if not precisely sober, coherent enough to have a conversation.

Lihn called the subs.

He didn’t know if they were still in the club.They may have gone home, and based on the somewhat stilted descriptions of the other scenes from Julen and Peter, he wouldn’t be surprised if Laney and Diann had walked straight from their scenes to their cars.

He hoped that wasn’t the case for Diann, because given Peter’s description, she’d needed aftercare.

However the need for aftercare didn’t trump a safe word.Didn’t give a Dom the right to stop a sub from leaving, even if the top knew the sub needed physical as well as emotional aftercare.

Nothing trumped a safe word.

It was why he’d helped Joni out of the sleep sack as quickly as possible, and then gotten out of her way when she said she was leaving.Lihn had to back up against the wall, hands behind himself to keep from reaching out to her.

He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong, and the not knowing was killing him.It was very possible that the scene he planned was the reason she suddenly discovered she was claustrophobic.

Not exactly a fun discovery.Las Palmas was for finding new kinks, not new phobias.

It was morning, and despite the fact that the club was full to capacity this weekend, right now it was nearly deserted.A few people were in the dining room, and occasionally a playroom door would open and a sub wrapped in a robe or blanket would emerge, their top at their side.

Lihn, Peter, and Julen had set up camp in the Sub Rosa Court while they waited to see if their subs were still here and would answer the summons.

The Sub Rosa Court was more verdant than the others, with wild desert roses climbing up posts and through suspended lattices overhead.Massive clay pots filled with palms and star jasmine helped section the space, with the greenery breaking the courtyard up into small seating areas with occasional open areas where a scene could take place.

They waited in the largest of the furniture groupings—a set of elegant outdoor furniture which wouldn’t have looked out of place on a backyard patio.Two loveseats and two armchairs sat in a ring around a low coffee table.

When they first got here, each of them had puttered around, though Lihn was sure the other men would object to the word “putter.”

Peter had grabbed a stack of thick woven blankets and set them on the table.Julen had gone for boxes of tissues and bottles of water.At this point, with so many hours having passed, the women had undoubtedly performed some level of self-aftercare, which most likely included hydrating, snuggling up and getting warm, and probably a snack, rendering the prep unnecessary.

Hence, puttering.

Undoubtedly Peter and Julen both felt the same thing Lihn did—an aborted need to take care of their sub.Most Doms were nurturers or caretakers to some degree, even if it wasn’t enough for them to qualify as a “service top.”That care-taking urge had been arrested by the abrupt end to the scenes, and the small acts of gathering blankets and water bottles were a clear reminder that aftercare was necessary for both parties.Sometimes being a Dom meant doing things to another person that, out of context and without consent, were abhorrent.Balancing that scale with care-taking helped offset the emotional acidity Doms often experienced.

Peter and Julen both clearly felt bad, and knew, in Peter’s case, or suspected, in Julen’s case, why their sub had safe worded out of the scene.

Lihn too felt bad, but more than anything he felt a burning desire to understand why.Why had she used her safe word?Claustrophobia was a guess, nothing more, and not even a good guess, unless Joni was a master at hiding her panic.

She’d seemed perfectly calm when she’d said “pineapple”—no distress, no panic.Not that he wanted her panicked or distressed—that was the last thing he wanted.But the need to understand burned in him, had him bouncing one leg as they waited to see if the women would respond to the summons.

The sound of footsteps had all three men sitting up.

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