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?”

knife, we’re done with that analogy. And go back to your

you are seriously worried about being too submissive in a relation-…I’m going, I’m going, stop poking me with your bony fingers.” Grumbling, he

and a swell of affection mingled with need, love mingled with lust,

If we just had these two—our spicy D/s relationship, which we keep at Las Palmas, and our vanilla

die happy if she got to see Griffin

to protect you, make you happy,” he

that was true, because she was about to drop a

have the power. In the vanilla relationship we have equal power.” Finally

blinked. “Uh,

Lion Tail Tech,

what

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

frowning. “In exchange for first right to bid

what’s the name of

“Kapa Capital.”

to shake. “Davina Kapadia, majority shareholder and CEO of

“Holy

than that, I own your ass

I never

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

“Uh, yea…”

“She works for me.”

“So if we break up, or I

replaced 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

say. “Never. I don’t actually have a lot to

assets… That’s what

way

tequila burned her throat. When she set the glass down with a

was such

understand if you don’t want to…I mean it might be weird for you to top me, knowing what

reached for the pitcher again, but he caught her hand, lacing their fingers together. She hadn’t expected that. Could

is a little…unnerving…to think about dating your investor. But that’s how you feel, right? Unnerved, nervous,

the desperate hope

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

so scared I’d just ruined it. I mean I know I had to tell you, once I

and pepper us. Spice us, and sugar us have been together for years, even if we didn’t know about sugar until

as she leaned across to kiss him. She felt him smile against her

her veins, akin to that feeling she got after finally collapsing into her favorite

of the feeling of her nipples rubbing against the lace of her bra,

as the heartless investor, and me 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

his face buried in her pussy. “It’s going to

tinkering with? When I slide it into your pussy and against your 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 foot to force her ankles

out of the booth and caught their

Grif chuckled.

husky and breathy at the same time. “That vibrator thing is salt and pepper. Vanilla

do whatever I need to make you feel safe. Safe and loved.” Grif raised her hand to his

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

going

* * *

check out the bestselling Orchid Club series,

in front of her,

she was

watch,”

the way. He grabbed a stool from nearby, placed it beside her, and

to watch,” she said, but it almost sounded like a question. Like she was

like to watch

“With…me?”

“Are you collared?”

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,

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

you want to

you want to