Penny relaxed back against Damon. Every now and then he would point out something Simon was doing and why he was doing it. He seemed very dismissive of the fact that she was wearing heavy leggings.

Chelsea was wrong, she realized as she glanced around the crowd. No one would judge her. There wasn’t a single perfect body in the building. Most of the men had scars. It did nothing to take away from their attractiveness. If anything, Penny found she liked them. It let her know these were men who had fought.

Many of the women would be considered overweight by society standards, but their Doms seemed to like them that way. Chelsea had a few curves, but she wasn’t heavy. She was a pretty woman, especially when she smiled. No one would make fun of her for her scars. Not here.

Yet she clung to those leggings, even when she was willing to take off her shirt to be tied down.

Simon finally placed the flogger on the table and went to untie her.

“Charlie,” Ian barked his warning as his wife stepped away from him.

“It’s only if she needs me.” Charlotte moved forward, clutching Penny’s hand.

As they moved closer, she could hear Simon talking in low tones as his hand found Chelsea’s hair, stroking her. “You did so well, love. So well.”

Chelsea seemed to be shaking herself back to consciousness. “Oh, is it over already?”

Simon chuckled. “Of course not. I need to take a look at your back. I need to make sure I didn’t leave marks. Let me take you to the aftercare room and give you a good rubdown. You’ll sleep so well.”

Chelsea shook her head. “No. I feel fine. Better than fine actually. You’re very good at what you do.”

His hand tightened in her hair. “Do you know how much better this could be if you let it? Do you know how I could make you feel? Give over to me, Chelsea. Let me take over. You won’t regret it. I can make you feel so much.”

Penny wanted to move away, to give them this intimate moment, but Charlotte wouldn’t move.

Chelsea shook her head and started to pull at the bindings that wrapped around her wrists. “No. Let me out. I want out now. I don’t want aftercare. I don’t need it.”

“Chelsea,” Simon started.

“Get me out of these, Weston. I’m done.” Her voice rose, losing the dreamy quality she’d had before and becoming panic tinged. “Charlotte!”

“I’m sorry, Simon.” Charlotte moved in, her hands going up to untie her sister.

Simon stepped back, his face going blank. He began cleaning up, ignoring the woman he’d just lavished so much time on.

And when she likely thought no one was looking, Chelsea turned and stared at Simon’s back, longing plain on her face.

So afraid. She was so afraid. It was plain for Penny to see because she’d been there. She’d been mad about Damon Knight for years and she was sure she’d had that very look on her face a million times when he walked across the room, paying her absolutely no mind.

She had this chance. She wouldn’t get it again.

Where had Damon gone? She looked and he’d moved with Ian into the bar. The two men were sitting together, Ian’s brow furrowed, his agitation obvious.

She walked back to him, dropping to her knees and taking her place at his feet. A week ago, she would likely have been horrified by the idea, but it didn’t make her less of a woman. Kneeling at her lover’s feet didn’t mean she was a doormat. It was play and an offering of sorts. It meant she was willing to be what he needed her to be.

He looked down at her, his eyes widening slightly, and then his hand came out to touch her hair.

The power exchange was just that, she realized. She didn’t have to give up herself. She exchanged one power for another.

Penny wrapped her arms around his leg and felt him relax. He guided her head to his lap and continued to talk.

Penny rested against him, promising herself it wouldn’t be the last time.

* * *

Damon petted his sub, allowing the peace he always seemed to feel when she was being sweet and submissive to wash over him.

Ian, on the other hand, was obviously not feeling his calm.

“She shouldn’t interrupt him. I’ve warned her time and time again. I’m going to spank her ass silly. She won’t be able to sit for a week. What’s the worst torture device you have? Come on, man. You’ve got to have something really good. You’re British. You still have actual dungeons.”

He let his hand play in the softness of Penelope’s hair. “Your sister-in-law obviously has problems that she isn’t ready to deal with.”

“Because Charlie won’t let her. I swear sometimes she treats Chelsea like her toddler instead of her twenty-seven-year-old sister.” He sat back. “Simon could do her a world of good.”

The way Penelope was doing him a world of good. But then he and Chelsea had the same problems. “It only works if she lets him.”

He understood Chelsea’s issues. He couldn’t allow that trust and affection to truly grow between them because it would be that much harder to break from her when the time came.

He wasn’t sure how he would handle seeing her at the office. What the hell would he do when she eventually found a smart man and settled down? Would he catch a glimpse of pictures of her husband on her desk? Her children?

He didn’t even want children. He’d always known he wouldn’t have any. The world was too cruel, too mercurial, to bring something as vulnerable as a child into it. No, he wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t even consider it. Still, he wondered what her children would look like. Serious girls with her sweet face and smart mind.

Dumb boys who needed their mother to keep them in line because their father would rather play with them. Like he hadn’t been able to play as a child.

He shook off the ridiculous maudlin thoughts.

“Don’t spank her too hard,” Damon said, his eyes going back to Weston. He was cleaning up his scene space, his spine perfectly straight and not a hint of expression on his face. Poor bugger seemed to have fallen for the wrong girl.

Of course, he could say the same thing for his Penelope. She’d fallen for the wrong man. At least he thought she’d fallen for him. Sometimes he couldn’t tell. Sometimes he thought she might be perfectly happy to get rid of him at the end of the operation.

Until he commanded her to come to him and she went with such open willingness that he felt like fucking her was finally being home. Sliding into her body was like finding his place in the world.

Ian ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I know. We have to get on the boat tomorrow and I need her fully functional. I thought this would be fun, man.” He huffed a little. “I thought it would be like a second honeymoon. Then you have to fuck it all up by having a crazy stalker asshole. Kill him when you get the chance because it’s screwing with my sex life.”

Trust Tag to make him chuckle. Still, it was easy to see the man had changed. He gave a damn about the people around him. Damon remembered when he was cold, calculating. Tag laughed now. He joked. He had a life.

Was there a life out there for him, too?

“What scene are you running tonight with blondie there? By the way, you look lovely, dear.” For all Tag’s crudeness, he’d always been kind to subs.

“Thank you, Sir.” Her arms tightened around his legs. “Was I not supposed to talk? Are we in high protocol?”

He hadn’t spent enough time with her. He knew it. He’d spent all his time getting his cock inside her and not enough time preparing her. “Calm down, love. We’re going in as a fairly new couple. Ian and Charlotte are going to pose as our sponsors. If anyone asks, we’re still feeling our way. It means that we might have to go to some of the seminars.”

Tag snorted a little. “I can’t wait to see you in Protocol 101 or Plug Your Sub’s Ass in Ten Easy Ways.”

“Why on earth would they want to make it easy?” A good plugging should be work.

“What?” Penelope’s head came off his lap.

He eased her back down. Actually, it might be fun to shock her a bit. “I signed us up for Extreme Figging.”

“I know what that is, Damon. You are not shoving ginger up my bum.”

They had to get a few things straight. He might not have spent enough time with her, but he’d been very plain in his rules. One of them was never to tell him what he couldn’t do, and certainly not in his own bloody club. “Over my lap right now.”

Her head came up, a gorgeous pout on her mouth. “I’m sorry, Master. I meant to say that I don’t think I would enjoy having ginger shoved up my bum and could we please talk about it?”

Not working on him. “If that’s what you meant, then that’s what you should have said. Do I treat you with disrespect in front of our friends? Do you know the rules about how to act when we’re on a dungeon floor?”

She nodded, already sniffling a little. God, she was beautiful. “Yes.”

“What will happen if you do that on the boat?”

“Damn it.” She shook her head. “And now I cursed. It would blow our cover or at the very least draw unwanted attention to us. I’m sorry, Damon.”

“I’m not going to spank you for cursing, love. It would be the height of hypocrisy. I curse quite a bit myself, but try to keep it to a minimum while we’re working and certainly when we’re playing. And yes, it would draw attention to us. So over my lap. It’s a count of twenty.”

“But I apologized.”

“And you can do so again after you’ve received my discipline.” He kept his tone quiet but firm. She was nervous about being in public. He knew damn well she wasn’t scared of the bloody spanking. He’d spanked her several times and every one ended in his cock up her cunt and her screaming out his name. No. She was looking around. Just because Charlotte had talked her into a new wardrobe that showed far too much of her breasts didn’t change the fact that she was nervous. Being naked for him was one thing. He was her lover. This was public punishment, and she’d better bloody get used to it.

Tag didn’t make things easy on her. He simply grinned her way and waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. “I’m looking forward to watching.”

“What are you doing, you pervert?” His wife walked up, her heels clacking against the stone floor. “Are you two being mean to Penny?”

He wasn’t having a bloody minute of that garbage. There was no way he was going to spend the evening placating his sub’s friend. He was grateful to Charlotte for befriending Penelope, but she tended to stick her nose in where it absolutely didn’t belong. “Tag, forget what I said about not spanking her. If she interferes with me the way she did Weston, I’ll chuck you both out of this club and you can spend the night on the street for all I’ll care.”

Tag reached out and grabbed his wife’s hand, and she was over his lap in a heartbeat, his hand raining down on her bum. “I’ve given you an enormous amount of rope, baby, and you are hanging yourself with it. Do you come between a Dom and his sub?”

“She isn’t his sub.” Charlotte’s breath hitched as Ian’s hand came down on her ass. “Chelsea isn’t Simon’s.”

“And she never will be because big sister likes to interfere. She had a safe word. She could have used it. What did you think he was going to do to her?”

The Taggarts continued, dealing with their family drama through spanking. He had his own domestic dispute.

Damon patted his lap. “We’re up to thirty now. Every second you delay adds to the punishment. We have a long ride to Dover in the morning. You can be as uncomfortable as your stubbornness allows.”

She nearly jumped in his lap, but then he noticed that when Penelope finally decided to do something, she tended to leap in with both feet. He had to catch her or she likely would have rolled right off his lap and onto the floor. He found himself with an armful of Penelope, and he’d been right about how lovely she would look in a thong. Her cheeks were round, and he couldn’t help but lay his hands on them and give them a nice squeeze.

He brought his hand down in a sharp arc, enjoying the sound of the smack and the little squeal that came after. He rained down on her, keeping a careful count. He’d told her thirty. She’d done her level best not to make it thirty-one, so she would only get thirty.

But he could spank her all night, really. He laid them all over her cheeks, snapping the string of her thong in between spanks. Her skin got a hot pink sheen to it and she clutched at his ankles, her breath coming out in sexy pants.

He let his hand work, delivering discipline to her arse and the curvy backs of her legs. He stopped when he reached thirty and held his palm flat on the last place he’d spanked, keeping the heat against her flesh. It was definitely time to get her more used to public sex.