Page 57 of To Catch a Sub

“He’s—”

“He’s what? Touching her hand?”

In the vanilla world, strangers and new acquaintance rarely deliberately touched one another. Hell, even among friends most people kept to themselves.

Here in the club, it was different—there was lots of casual touching even outside of scenes. They’d debated having a formal rule about any exposed skin being fair game, but in the end opted for minimal rules in the club, the number one rule being that the Dom on duty’s word was law. Nothing about what Master Red was doing called for intervention.

But Colette is mine.

To protect. She sure as fuck wasn’t his sub.

If he went over there now, it would be a lie, because she didn’t need protecting in this situation. Landon knew exactly who Aquilinus was, and he had no connection to art, antiques, gems, or human trafficking.

He wasn’t a threat to Colette.

Landon forced himself to relax. She’d made it very clear that she didn’t want him topping her, and she was as safe as she could be as long as she was inside the private club.

Ten meters away, Master Red took Colette’s tray, setting it aside. Colette shifted from a crouch to kneel on the floor at Master Red’s feet.

Fuck.

Landon turned away. “I’ll watch the door.”

He had no claim on her, she’d made that perfectly fucking clear.

But he couldn’t bear to watch her scene with someone else.

* * *

“You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Colette’s calves and thighs were screaming after hours of crouching, so she knelt, her hand trapped in place under the Dom’s.

“Yes, it’s my first night, Sir.” She hadn’t been given any formal instructions about how to address members, but it felt wrong not to add a title when addressing the Doms. She’d accidentally addressed a few subs as Sir or Ma’am too, but better safe than sorry.

“I’m Master Red. I was one of their first members.”

At that, Colette studied his face. Was he Interpol too? She would never ask, and his expression gave her no hints.

He had gray hair with just a few traces of brown remaining, and the thick build of a man who’d been heavily muscled when younger. Rather than leather, he wore expensive looking slacks and a button-down shirt open at the throat.

He reminded her of Nilus.

The only real similarities were age and being dominant, but given the internal war she was waging, that was enough.

She’d known at the start of the night that being around BDSM play would make her crave to experience it herself. She wasn’t voyeur enough to derive pleasure and satisfaction from watching alone.

It was harder than she’d imagined. Every time a Dom or Domme—though this club leaned heavily towards masculine tops and feminine bottoms—looked at her, she fought the urge to kneel and beg them to use her.

The only thing that had stopped her so far was the discomfort that thought brought, because while her needs demanded that she submit to anyone who would use her, her mind rejected the idea of anyone but Landon as her Master.

She looked over, briefly panicking when she saw Rolf standing where Landon had been. Rolf as a Dom was a revelation—intense and hot, rather than cold and calm. She’d seen him casually haul a woman up onto the bar the way he had with Baby, then force her to lie back, head hanging over the bar, as he spread her thighs and buried his face in her pussy. When Rolf was on the floor, he was constantly touching everyone—a hand on a Dom’s shoulder, a stroke to a sub’s head or bare breasts.

Seeing that hadn’t changed her mind about wearing one of Rolf’s collars, but her throat felt distressingly bare.

“Thief,” Master Red said, pulling her attention back to him.

“Sir?”