Midnight Renegade by Anya Summers

1

Six Months Later

They were gone.

Every single Dom up for grabs in the singles event tonight was already engaged with a submissive. One that wasn’t Reegan.

Of all the nights to run late, this one took the cake. Reegan had been looking forward to the Shakespearean singles event for weeks. She had gone so far as to mark it on her calendar with a red heart around the date, and buy herself the sexy medieval knight costume that showcased her legs—what she considered her best feature—to perfection.

But work had disrupted her plans. Again.

She loved her job. She did. But there were times when the demands made of her—and her time—were excessive. As the lead hacker for a top computer think tank with government contracts, there were times when her skills were needed above and beyond those of the rest of the team. NORAD, the Internal Revenue Service, the Pentagon—you name it, she had hacked it, on the legal side of things, to test their security systems. There was nothing she couldn’t hack.

Except for dating.

And having sex on a semi-regular basis with something that wasn’t battery operated.

At this point, Reegan had a war chest full of erotic delights of the electronic variety to keep spicing things up.

But not a single toy provided the true release she craved. She yearned for a good flogging or caning session, to be restrained, and to submit to an enterprising Dom.

Yet as the elevator doors opened to the subterranean lifestyle club, The Eros Pit, she knew she had made the trip for nothing. She should have stayed home, helped herself to a pint of mint chocolate chip, and then had another date with her battery-operated boyfriend.

Nevertheless, as long as she was here, she would treat herself to a much deserved adult beverage before she hailed a Lyft ride and left. After her hellishly frustrating week at work, she had more than earned a drink, many times over.

Reegan loved this club. It was a home away from home. It was a place where she fit. Where her sexual needs and desires weren’t looked upon with derision. Not to mention, she adored the design of the place. It was exotic, with its dark gray hardwood floors, and black shaded walls with erotic-themed art on display. Added to that were the distinct undertones of sensuality, given the symphony of moans, groans, and crackling snaps of leather striking flesh. Above her head, as she beelined her way toward the inky wall bar, were massive chandeliers that spilled muted golden light. The entire nightclub’s décor gave it a gentlemen’s club circa 1890 vibe.

The black Chesterfield sofas that normally seated available Doms were vacant except for the few odd couples involved with one another.

Even the Ryan brothers’ section was nearly empty now that the selection process had concluded, and everyone was participating. Reegan’s bestie, Sophia, was snuggled up with her Dom, Gabe Ryan, owner of the two Eros clubs. Above the subterranean members only Eros Pit was Eternal Eros, for the dabblers in the lifestyle. Gabe and Sophia sat on one of the sofas in Gabe’s private section. Sophia was cuddled on his lap. And damn, but they were in the midst of a hotter than hell liplock that Reegan had no intention of interrupting. They fit together perfectly. Gabe was the epitome of tall, dark, and Irish, with a lovely lilt to his words. And Sophia was beautiful and petite. They were postcard-worthy striking—except for the skimpy dress her bestie had lacquered on. Reegan was thrilled for Sophia, who had been in love with Gabe for months. And it made her heart happy to see her best friend in love with a good man after everything she had been through in her life.

But green-eyed jealousy also made Reegan wonder if she would ever be in love like that.

Computers, coding, hacking, entering in all those computations, building security programs, and taking them down—those were what computed for her. She understood those things. There was a logic to entering lines of code. They were as much a part of her as breathing.

But dating? Love? Romance?

She seemed to be defunct in that department. Some of it was her upbringing—never really fitting in to her parents’ world, while having them heap metric tons of hovering attention upon her. She loved her parents and they her, but as the only child of an east coast power couple she had been smothered by their good intentions. There were days where she still battled with the insecurities that had created. Feeling like she couldn’t hack it in the real world without calling for help. Like she should cave and let her father set her up with a man they considered respectable—which likely meant he was a dud between the sheets.

It left Reegan filled with doubts, and she worried about why she didn’t feel more for the guys she dated. Or why there didn’t seem to be a Dom at the club who turned her head for more than a night. It was like her heart had been constructed wrong.

One only had to ask her ex-boyfriend, Paul. He had been everything Reegan should want—steady, reliable, kind, always willing to put in the effort—and she had still walked away from their relationship six months ago. Because at the end of the day, there hadn’t been the deeper physical connection she craved. She needed passion. Hell, she needed pain. And for all his great qualities, Paul had been about as vanilla as white bread in the bedroom.

Sighing over the state of her life and world, Reegan slid onto a black leather barstool, crossed her legs, and rested her boot-clad foot on the brass footrest of her stool.

Behind the bar tonight, and most nights, was Xavier Campbell. The large Scot topped out at six-five, with a massive broad chest and full beard. His sensual mouth slid into a grin when he spied her.

“Haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays, lass. Where have you been hiding?” His deep bass full of Scots brogue made him doubly attractive. He set a coaster with the club logo on it down in front of her on the inky bar top. His dark eyes assessed her with an interested gleam.

“Work, Master X.” She couldn’t keep the exhausted dejection from her voice. All she wanted was some pain to accompany an orgasm. That was it. Was it too much to ask?

“Weren’t you participating in the singles night?”

She snorted. “I was supposed to, but there was a problem with a program that only I could fix.”

That was part of her problem—being indispensable to her company, and the first person the higher-ups called when there was an issue.

Xavier cast her a smoldering glance filled with appreciation. “Well, if I was off tonight, I would take you for a spin. Especially in that get up you’re wearing. But in lieu of that, I can get you something to drink to satisfy you. What’ll ya have?”

“Something fruity and fun; surprise me.” Reegan liked Xavier. He was rather intense during a scene. She’d enjoyed the few scenes they had done together, and she wouldn’t refuse an offer to scene with him if he had been available tonight. Except, there was nothing deeper than scratching an itch between them, no deeper emotions.

Still, they were friends who appreciated each other for what they were, and had enjoyed each other’s company a time or two. It had been Xavier who had helped calm the storm of Reegan’s emotions and fulfilled her needs after she’d first broken up with Paul.

The two of them didn’t have the connection that Sophia and Gabe did by any means. But Xavier was a good man, and a kinky as hell Dom. She hadn’t sat comfortably for a week after the last time they had scened together.

He cast her a salacious grin, and winked. “I’ve got just the thing for ya, lass.”

She watched him work. The man was downright territorial with the space behind the bar, and there was no movement wasted as he poured, mixed, and stirred, before dispensing the brew into a glass, adding fruit garnishes, and then placing the cocktail glass on the coaster before her.

She quirked a brow at the dark pink liquid with fruit spilling over the side.

“Pomegranate Mojito. If you don’t like it, I can make you something else.”

“No. It looks exactly like what I asked for.” She took a sip, and moaned at the splash of mint with the smooth deep notes of rum and pomegranate juice. It was exactly what she needed after her hellish day.

“It’s just a drink.”

Reegan’s eyes narrowed, and her spine straightened as a man slid onto the stool beside hers. She caught a whiff of his woodsy cologne at his proximity. She wanted to look skyward and question whatever deity existed over her misfortune to be stuck at the bar with him, but refrained, unwilling to give the dratted man any fuel with her response. He was the one man she wanted nothing to do with at all. It was bad enough that he was a member here. But to be forced to interact with him was like entering Dante’s Inferno, because one of them would be burned by the end.

“Well, Xavier knows how to satisfy a woman on every level, including with his drinks.” Reegan toasted the brawny Dom behind the bar.

Xavier winked her way with a seductive smirk, then set a coaster down in front of the man. The one Reegan couldn’t stand. The one who made every hair on her body stand at attention.

Brody Schmidt.

Brody was pure testosterone poured over a body made for sin—broad-shouldered, with a full head of thick dirty blond hair that was long enough for an enterprising woman to run her fingers through or hold on to during an intense moment. His eyes made her think of the rolling green hills that surrounded her parents’ estate with their deep, forest-green shade. They were sharp as blades, and he had no qualms about cutting a person down to size with a mere steely glance.

“What’ll ya have, Brody?” Xavier’s Scots brogue made the question sound decadent.

“Guinness, on tap.” The deep resonance of Brody’s bass was like gongs activating an atavistic response in Reegan’s system. It called forth needs and desires in a way no other man ever had.

She loathed that her body always purred whenever he was near. Especially considering the man had the personality of a turnip. But she couldn’t deny his physical attributes had always stirred her.

“Be right back with that.” Xavier strode away to the tap to build Brody’s Guinness.

She sipped her drink, doing her best to ignore Brody. He was the last person she wanted to see when she was feeling so low and sorry for herself. If he sniffed the weakness, he would needle her until she lost her cool.

“So, what are you supposed to be? Xena Warrior Princess?”

Grinding her teeth, Reegan pasted a forced smile on her face. “I’m a medieval knight. And you? Aren’t you supposed to be with one of the subs from the singles night? Or did she already kick you out of the scene, given your propensity for being an asshole?”

Brody chuckled darkly. “No. My partner for the night had another Dom come charging in.”

“And you conceded?” She shot him a surprised glance. She had known Brody for years. The man never backed down from a challenge or fight.

He shrugged. “Sylvie and Dean seemed to have issues that needed to be worked out. And it was clear to me the moment Dean entered that the little sub only had eyes for him.”

Sylvie and Dean definitely needed to get things off their respective chests after everything they had been through. “Between you and me, they do,” Reegan said. “That was a nice thing you did for them.”

“You seem surprised.”

“That’s because I am. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never associated you with the word nice,” she admitted without the normal sarcastic bite that tended to infuse her interactions with him.

“I can be when it’s warranted.”

“Huh. Never would have figured you were altruistic.” She stared into her drink, toying with the slim straw to occupy her hands.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Doubtful.” There wasn’t much she didn’t know about Brody. But then, they had known each other for over thirteen years. Even with the simmering animosity they tended to display toward one another, she had come to know that he was sexy as sin, a disciplined man with his own company, and had personally taken care of his dying mother until the end. Plus, word around the submissive campfire was that he was a demanding bull of a Dom.

Xavier returned with Brody’s dark beer. After he set it on the coaster, he shot Reegan a lascivious glance. “You know, lass, if you want to wait until I get off my shift tonight, I promise to make it worth your while.”

The big Dom was such a flirt. And she had half a mind to wait, but she would never last that long—at least, not tonight. “Of that I have no doubt, Master X. But you don’t get off until like, what, three? I hate to admit it, but after the day I’ve had, I’ll be asleep well before then. Although, I wouldn’t mind a raincheck.”

“You’ve got it. Let me know if either of you need a refill.” Xavier nodded and walked off to tend to other patrons.

“Were you participating tonight? I didn’t see you in the sub line,” Brody remarked.

“I was supposed to.” And wasn’t that just the kicker. Her life was full of ‘supposed to’s, but work interrupted every time. Maybe it was time to strike out on her own, where she would determine the number of hours she worked. But thinking about the sheer volume of work involved in doing that just made her tired. Perhaps what she really needed was a long vacation away from the daily grind, where all she did was lie on the beach and have wait staff deliver fruity alcoholic drinks.

“And why didn’t you?” he pressed.

She wasn’t sure why he cared. Although it might be he was just making pleasant small talk, since they were the only ones left without a partner tonight.

“Work.” She shrugged with a hearty sigh. “It’s fine. I’m going to have my drink, and head home. You?”

“I’ll likely do the same.”

She lifted her drink in commiserating toast. “It really sucks. I was looking forward to tonight.”

Brody cast her a lopsided grin that was a downright panty-melter, and clinked his glass against hers with a small husky laugh that skittered along her spine. “I hear ya. I’m surprised that you don’t have a Dom you scene with regularly.”

An image of herself restrained to a stockade with Brody wielding a flogger flashed through Reegan’s brain. It ignited a low burn in her abdomen.

Good God! Why was she having sexy thoughts about Brody? Was she just that hard up for an orgasm and some hardcore dominance that anyone would do, even him?

“I work too damn much for that. The money is great but its murder on my social life. What’s your excuse? Why don’t you have a submissive of your very own? I don’t remember you being without a date in college,” she said.

At the mention of their shared past, banked fury blared in his cold stare. “Like you, I tend to put work before anything else.”

The two of them were a pair. She had known Brody since she was eighteen. She had been a freshman to his senior status in college. And they both had made choices along the way that couldn’t be taken back. Back then, she had always acted out when her emotions were damaged. But they’d had that one night, so long ago, that now begged the question: what if? What if he hadn’t ghosted her after the fact? What if she hadn’t taken the hurt of rejection and blasted him any time their paths crossed ever since, creating an enmity that developed a life of its own? Would they have ended up in bed together? Dated each other, even?

“We could scene together.”

At his words, she choked on the sip she had just taken. She sputtered, “What?”

Glancing at him like he had grown three heads, she couldn’t believe the suggestion had even left his mouth. Scene with him? Was the man insane? They could barely tolerate one another, or even stand to be in the same room.

“Am I speaking a foreign language? What part of we should do a scene together did you not understand?” His impassive, blasé stare dared her to deny her hearing was perfect.

“I understood you. I just can’t believe those words left your mouth, and that you’re actually suggesting we scene with each other. Not that I am saying we should, but even if I were to say yes, and that’s a pretty big if, there is nowhere left to scene here in the club,” she blurted without thinking. Then she swallowed the last bit of her drink to hide her embarrassment. How could she say that to him, of all people? Acting like she would be up for a scene with him if the space was available. They weren’t friends, or even frenemies. They had been enemies since her freshman year in college.

Why did Brody want a scene with her in the first place? Was this some kind of twisted joke on his part? She trusted the man as far as she could throw him—which, with a good five inches and easily sixty pounds of muscle on her, wasn’t all that far. Granted, the lack of trust wouldn’t necessarily stop her from agreeing to play with him. Because she knew, in a scene, he could be counted on to put a submissive’s needs before his own. At least, that was what a few of the subs had mentioned.

She stared at the empty glass on the bar. Maybe she should order another round and take Xavier up on his offer. If she was so hard up she was even considering Brody’s shocking overture, she obviously needed a good session with a Dom, and Xavier fit the bill nicely.

Brody tossed a few bills down on the bar—much more than the cost of his drink—and rose from his stool. His hand slid around Reegan’s bicep and tugged her off the barstool. Her response was delayed because of the cocktail flooding her system. She was a lightweight when it came to alcohol. Two drinks, and she was dancing on tabletops. She stumbled and almost tripped over her feet as he dragged her toward the elevator and club exit.

“What the hell are you doing, Brody?” she sputtered, then tried to dig her heels in to stop her forward momentum. But the heels of her thigh-high black boots had no traction whatsoever, and slid over the hardwood flooring with startling ease.

“Taking you to my dungeon for a scene. There’s nowhere else for us to play. Unless you don’t feel up to the challenge?” He finally stopped at the elevator, with her stammering behind him.

Take her to his dungeon? Scene with her?

Holy shit! The man was serious. He wanted to do a scene with her.

Every fiber in Reegan’s being electrified at the thought—although she would deny it on pain of death. Could she do it? Should she? They were about as close to enemies as two people could get. Tonight had been the first conversation with the man in more than a decade that hadn’t been biting and insulting.

The silver doors to the elevator opened. He walked inside the mirrored lift, quirked a brow, and held the doors open for her. His arrogant gaze dared her to run away. But within those forest-green depths, wrapped around the condescension, was flaming lust—for her.

Brody desired her?

But… he didn’t even like her?

Since the first time they had met at that frat party all those years ago, Reegan had always wondered about him, wondered what he would be like in bed. And subsequently, in the years since, he’d become a fully-fledged Dominant. In her book, that little tidbit was a cherry on top of an enticing dessert that she yearned to sample. This was most likely her one chance to discover if all the hostility between them would translate into hotter than hell, no holds barred sex, with a dose of dominance that she craved. It might even provide her with the closure she so desperately needed but had never achieved.

“This doesn’t mean I like you. I still hate you. But it also doesn’t mean we can’t satisfy our needs with each other.” With her head held high, she sailed onto the elevator, questioning whether she had completely lost her mind.

“Likewise, babe.” He barreled into her personal space before the doors finished closing.

Reegan shivered as he backed her up against the wall. Tendrils of longing curled in her belly. When his roughened hand cupped her chin, everything inside her came alive. The callouses on his big square palms scraped gently against her skin, and she felt his touch down to the soles of her boots.

Brody was solid, like a boxer. He wasn’t bulky with muscles, but rangy and firm, with a six-foot frame. The four-inch heels of her boots put Reegan almost at eye level with him. His chiseled jaw was covered with a day’s worth of dark golden stubble, shrouding his firm lips.

He lowered his sensual mouth, eradicating the slim space. She slapped her hands against his chest to stop his forward progression. Beneath her palms, it registered just how solidly built the man was before she blasted him. “What are you doing?”

Brody stilled. Imminent danger swirled in the intimate confines of the elevator. It was as if, with a single hard glare, he damned her and called her ten times a fool when they were both panting with kinetic desire. “Kissing you. Unless you want to call the scene off?”

His gauntlet challenge determined her course of action. It made her reckless, and removed any care for the consequences from her brain. It propelled her to lean into him until their torsos were fully aligned, pressing his oodles of rock hard muscles against the soft lines of her frame, and then she planted her mouth against his.

She figured she would kiss him to seal the deal, and that would be that. Then they could head to his dungeon and get the scene underway.

Yet she should have known that nothing with this man would be simple.

Not even a kiss.

Because the moment he sealed his sensual mouth over hers, and imprisoned her with his hands to angle her face the way he wanted, she lost all train of thought, swamped by the feel of him surrounding her, and plundering the depths of her soul with his dominance.

Kissing Brody was like being hooked up to a bolt of lightning. It was powerful, destroying everything in its wake, unmaking her existence until she would be lucky to remember her own name by the time he finished. Without a doubt, it was the best damn kiss of her life. It fired all her internal combustion engines to nuclear meltdown levels. With his tongue tangling in an erotic, hungry dance with hers, Reegan lost herself in him. All her senses grew intimately attuned to him, like he was her guiding star.

What manner of madness had led her to agree to this with him? And would she even survive a scene with him unscathed?