Checklist J, K, L

Davina tensed when he called bullshit. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“No, don’t pull back behind your walls.”

“Then don’t call something bullshit until I finish explaining it.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Davina rolled her shoulders in an effort to relieve the tension. Trying to explain what she felt, and what she needed, was hard when it was more of an amorphous idea than a clearly delineated thought.

Looking around the table, she picked up two similar sized bottles of hot sauce. “This is us at Las Palmas.” She set the bottles down, then picked up the salt and pepper shakers. “And this is us trying to have a relationship.” She set these down a few inches from the hot sauce pair.

“I need to know that these things can stay separate.” She put her hands on the outside of the various condiments and started scooting them across the table towards one another.

Grif slid his knife into the narrow gap, stopping the forward progress. “We need a barrier. This knife.”

“Yes. Like I was saying, if we do one or the other, we remove the need for the knife.” She picked up the salt and pepper shakers and the knife, leaving only the hot sauce on the table.

Grif took them from her, setting them back down. “I love you, Davina. If…doing both will hurt you, then we’ll pick one or the other, but damn it, I want more than that. I want to fall asleep next to you, and judge your Netflix queue, and see shitty movies and show you stuff I invent, and…” He waved his hands in the air. “Life. I want to do life stuff with you.”

Davina had to swallow past the lump of emotion in her throat. “I want that too, but I’m so scared.”

Grif got up and came around to her side of the table, sliding onto the bench seat beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “We’ll figure this out. We just need a knife.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Hey, wait, we already have a knife. Las Palmas is the knife. The Tabasco sauces only exist at Las Palmas.”

“And if we were actual little glass containers, that would work, but we’re not. I don’t trust that the D/s relationship won’t spill over. It will start small. As a joke when I beat you at a game of Mario Kart, you’ll threaten to spank me.”

“First of all, you’d never beat me at Mario Kart, but go on.”

“Then we’d have a fight, a real fight, and you wouldn’t even mean to, but your voice would change, and it would be your Dom voice, your Master voice, and I’d give in.”

“I would never do that, Davina. You know me.”

“You wouldn’t mean to,” she whispered. “I know that, but if we have equal power here—” She pointed to the salt and pepper, then to the hot sauce, “but here it’s a power exchange, no matter what we do, the scales will always be uneven.”

“So the knife needs to be a way for you to have more power? That’s easy. We switch off who’s the top at Las Palmas. I’ll sub for you every other month.”

Davina’s heart lurched. “That is so sweet, but now that I know how good it feels to call you Master, there’s no going back.”

“If you tell me that we can’t be together within an hour of telling me you love me, I’m going to…I don’t know what. Davina, please. There’s a solution. We’ll find the knife, together.”

He’d been her sexual partner for years, and in that time he’d been a good partner, kind and adventurous, fun and intense. “I love you, Grif. And I think I’ve loved you for far longer than I’ve realized.”

“And I love you. It’s nice to say it. Even better to hold you while I say it.”

He captured her lips in a gentle kiss. He tasted like salt and tequila, and smelled wonderfully familiar.

“I’m scared,” she whispered as they broke apart.

“All we can do is try.”

“I lost myself the last time I let a D/s relationship spill over.”

“I do not want that, at all. And I don’t mean to dismiss what happened to you in the past. Hey, unrelated question, what’s Vance’s last name?”

“Don’t worry, I bought his company, liquidated it, and orchestrated it so he went bankrupt.”

Grif twisted so he could face her. “Uh, what was that?”

Her phone chimed. Davina picked it up, checked the message, and smiled. “I think I found our knife.”

“I am very confused, but you’re smiling, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign.”

“A very good sign.” She plucked one white and one yellow sugar packet from the sweetener options.

“There’s a third version of us?”

“Yes.” She set the knife aside, then positioned the sugar packets on the other side of the salt and pepper, so each of the sets was in a line.

“If those are the knife, shouldn’t they go in the middle?”

analogy. And go back to

your bony fingers.” Grumbling, he returned to his

mingled with

said. “It’s all about balance. You’re probably right. If we just had these two—our spicy D/s relationship, which we keep at Las Palmas, and our vanilla relationship, we would probably be fine. You’re not Vance, and I’m not the same woman I

She would die happy if she got to see Griffin look at her like

do anything to protect you, make you happy,” he

true, because she was

the vanilla relationship we have equal power.” Finally she pointed to the sugar packets. “But in our professional lives, I have the

“Uh,

Tail Tech,

what

venture capital firm, right? I’m guessing they essentially pay your living

right to bid on anything I invent that isn’t under

the name of

“Kapa Capital.”

to shake. “Davina

round. “Holy shit.

that, I own your ass

But I never met

the firm invests in. I only thought to check because the name—Lion Tail—is so unique I recognized it. You

“Uh, yea…”

“She works for me.”

“So if we break up, or I piss you off, you

by anxiety. She’d been so caught up in the release of anxiety when she realized she’d be in a position of power, that she had that safety net that assured her she wouldn’t end up losing

I don’t actually have a lot

assets… That’s what

that all wrong, and from the way he was looking at her,

then chugged it, grimacing as the tequila burned her throat. When she set the glass down with a snap, Grif was looking at

such a

said. “Unless that’s gone too. I can understand if you don’t want to…I

but he caught her hand, lacing their fingers together. She hadn’t expected that. Could he feel the way her hands

display. “You’re right, it is a little…unnerving…to think

nodded, swallowing against the desperate hope his words

“If knowing that you have power over me in the sugar area is what makes you feel safe enough to be in a relationship with me at salt and pepper, and submit to

laughed softly and closed her eyes. “I was so scared I’d just ruined it. I mean I know I had to tell you, once I guessed who you were, but I thought I’d

just the start of us. Or at least the salt and pepper us. Spice us, and sugar us have been together for years, even if we

up, thighs bumping the table as she leaned across to kiss him. She felt him smile

flowing through her veins, akin to that feeling she got

of the feeling of her nipples rubbing against the lace of

as the overworked inventor, begging for just a little more time to make his wonderful new invention work, and you make me get on my knees to beg you, and then you pull up your skirt and

“It’s going

clit—” He raised his leg, bracing his foot beside her on the bench so she couldn’t get out. “When I flip the switch that will track your heartbeat, ramping up the vibration until you’re right on the edge of coming…” He used his other

the booth and caught

Grif chuckled.

same time. “That vibrator thing is salt and pepper. Vanilla people

play with the Tabasco. I’m going to do whatever I need to make you feel safe.

the answers, and there were more things about their relationship—or relationships—that could go wrong than right, but when Grif reached across the

going

* * *

out the bestselling Orchid Club

stopped in front of her, the toes of his shoes mere

but if she was with another Master, he

just here to watch,”

options, then pushed the couch she was kneeling behind out of the way. He grabbed a stool from

allowed to watch,” she said, but it almost sounded like

like to

“With…me?”

“Are you collared?”

her by surprise, because she looked up, for the first time meeting his gaze. Her face was lovely, if not exactly classically beautiful. She had eyes the color of melted chocolate, and in the dim light they seemed fathomless. She looked at him searchingly, and with such intensity that he sat back, almost

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

you want to know if I’m

to