Liability (Suncoast Society #33)

Liability (Suncoast Society #33)

Tymber Dalton



Chapter One


“ There are only three ‘secret rules’ you need to worry about in BDSM.” Tony Daniels held up his hand and ticked off each point with a finger as he listed them. “Everyone must be a human, consenting adult. You’d think that’d be a given, but no, sometimes there are idiots who need all three points specifically clarified.”

The class of twenty-two people, and a few scattered others who’d joined them that Saturday night, chuckled in amusement.

Tony continued. “Secondly, everyone must either be having fun or getting what they need from the dynamic or play. And third, no one can be harmed by the play or dynamic.” Tony arched an eyebrow at them. “As opposed to ‘hurt,’ because some people will get a mite pissed off if you don’t hurt them during your play.”

More laughter, louder this time and sounding a bit more comfortable.

“So why do we do it? Well, there are as many reasons as there are people in the lifestyle. There is no easy answer to that question, because everyone’s different, and everyone has their own reasons. We are swimming upstream, here. We aren’t choosing to do this because it’s ‘easy.’ It’s not easy. It’s the difficult path. It probably took most of you a lot of deliberation and thinking to make the choice to come out here tonight. Walking along the straight and narrow path is the easy way, the ‘normal’ way. The socially acceptable way. That’s a no-brainer.

“But we’re not doing that. We could be at the movies or at a sushi bar or at putt-putt golf right now. We’re not. We’re here. Why? Because something inside us needs this, for whatever reason. Some of you might have always felt like this and thought there weren’t others out there like you. Or maybe your life circumstances were such that you couldn’t explore it until now. Or you stumbled across something—a book or movie, whatever—and something so deeply resonated within you that you realized it was something you’d never even known you were missing before. And once you were aware of it, you couldn’t ignore it.”

Mason Lange listened from the back of the social area side of the dungeon. He was seated at a table, next to Tony’s wife and slave, Shayla. He leaned in. Keeping his voice low, he whispered, “Kaden lives on.”

Shayla smiled. “I almost feel like I know him,” she softly replied. “I never met him. I wish I had. I didn’t move down here and meet Tony until a couple of years after Kaden passed.”

“That was Kaden’s newbie talk. Practically verbatim.”

“Marcia and Loren give the same variation of the talk when they teach it.”

“Kaden loved to talk to newbies. He enjoyed sharing this with people who were interested in it.”

Sitting in Venture tonight, it was hard for Mason to believe how far the BDSM club had come in the ten-plus-years since it first opened. He’d been there the night it had started as nothing more than an idea on Kaden and Leah’s pool lanai. He remembered the first night it’d opened, and now to see it expanded, double its original size and thriving, was fantastic.

A living legacy.

Mason had been one of the original Suncoast Society munch group members, around for the club’s opening and a regular attendee until a new job took him out of state. To Nebraska, of all places.

No, wasn’t much of a kink scene there. Not one that he’d found, anyway. Well, not much of a kink scene that had a lot of eligible gay males to whom he was attracted. What he found, however, was a pretty good paying job in IT for the past almost eight years.

The job and benefits, for him, were the only reasons he’d found worth living in Nebraska. He was sure it was a wonderful place, great people, all of that, but not exactly on his bucket list of places to retire to. At the time, he’d wanted the money and the benefits.

That didn’t mean he hadn’t kept a few headhunters in mind over the years. He’d looked for an opportunity to eventually work his way back to Florida. The native Floridian had despised the cold winters with a passion. He’d nearly wrecked the first time he had to drive in snow.

Mason moving back to Florida had kind of torqued Freddie a little bit, but it wasn’t like they’d been married. Hell, they’d only been dating for six months. Mason wasn’t even in love with the guy, much less wanted to live with him. Mason had told Freddie he wouldn’t object to Freddie moving to Florida, but Freddie would have to find his own place to live and a job so he could support himself. It wouldn’t be any charity, and Freddie definitely would not be staying or living with Mason.

Those conditions had sort of pissed Freddie off, which only sealed the deal for Mason. Not that Freddie had come right out and said he was pissed off. No, he’d acted all passive-aggressive and whiny, cycling back and forth between the two, trying to slowly chip away at Mason.

Okay, fine. Hell, Mason could count on both hands with fingers to spare the number of times he’d let Freddie spend the whole night with him, and the guy was going to take ’tude with him?

Nope.

Now that Mason had been back in Florida for two months, Freddie was suddenly hot to trot to find a job there and move. No coincidence that it was supposed to be another wickedly cold winter in Nebraska. He’d done more than hint around a few times already that he’d like to come visit Mason. Mason had quickly shut him down every time.