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  COPYRIGHT

  Published by:

  Farm Boy Press,

  Sacramento, California, United States of America.

  First electronic edition: January, 2022

  This edition: January 21, 2022

  Copyright © 2022 by Lila Dubois, all rights reserved.

  Cover design by Lila Dubois

  Copyedits by Fedora Chen

  Book formatted by Farm Boy Press

  ISBN: 978-1-941641-66-8 ebook

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s note:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  CONTENTS

  Trigger Warnings

  O is for…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  A note from Lila

  About the Author

  The BDSM Checklist Series

  The Orchid Club Series

  Also by Lila Dubois

  For Fedora

  Thanks for always making me look, and sound, good.

  For Gabriela and Fern

  Thank you for dealing with the caulk and clip.

  For everyone who ever felt forgettable.

  TRIGGER WARNINGS

  THE CHECKLIST SERIES IS FOR MATURE READERS AND ALL BOOKS CONTAIN EXPLICIT SEX.

  For a complete list of additional trigger warnings for this title please visit www.trigger.liladubois.net

  O IS FOR…

  CHAPTER 1

  The waiting, the anticipation, was part of the game.

  Sarah slid into a chair in the Subs’ Garden, joining a small cluster of submissives who, like her, were slightly stunned by the club’s new “game.”

  Anna was already in her seat, staring into middle distance and looking a little ill.

  “What do you think?” Sarah asked the other sub, curious to know how Anna in particular was taking the announcement. The club overseers had just announced a mandatory new “game.”

  A game in which everyone was being assigned a partner or partners and a letter of the alphabet.

  “I…I don’t know.” Anna sucked in a breath, held it, then blew it out slowly.

  Sarah frowned. Anna looked worried, but she had no reason to be. Anna had a Dom, a man who cared for her, mastered her, used her in all the ways a sub longed to be used.

  Unlike Sarah, when Anna got to the club, she knew who she was going to be playing with…or more accurately who would be playing with her.

  Sarah got to go through the gut-churning, anxiety-inducing process of finding an available and willing partner each time she came to the club.

  Looking at Anna’s worried face, Sarah blinked as something occurred to her.

  “Are you and Master Jensen bonded?”

  Anna turned wide eyes on her. “No.”

  Sarah winced.

  The club—technically called Las Palmas Oscuras, but referred to as Las Palmas by members—had its own rules and terms. BDSM meant many different things to different people, and this particular club had far fewer rules than the few public clubs she’d joined when first exploring her kinks. While some clubs, and a lot of erotic fiction, used collaring and being collared as a term to indicate a commitment between partners, at Las Palmas committed couples were “bonded.”

  The rules of the new game explicitly stated that anyone who wasn’t in a bonded relationship would be assigned a partner.

  That meant Anna wasn’t going to be scening with Jensen.

  “You think he’ll be okay with someone else playing with you?” she asked. Anna and Jensen were in a romantic relationship outside of the club, as well as being in a Dom/sub relationship.

  “No. Not in the least,” Anna replied.

  Sarah’s skin tingled and tightened. She imagined Jensen’s anger at having Anna taken away from him. He’d be jealous, and that would make him possessive. He’d probably fight to make sure no one else touched her.

  The logical side of her brain informed her that what the overseers were doing was unexpected and maybe overstepping.

  But she’d left that part of herself in the locker along with her street clothes.

  Instead, each breath warmed her just a little bit more, as if the air passing over her lips and tongue was a form of foreplay. A brief, vivid fantasy took over. She imagined herself on her knees, submitting to a shadowy stranger. In the fantasy she was scared, but aroused. She’d submit because she had to, because as a submissive she had no choice but to obey.

  Reality tried to intrude and insist that that wasn’t how BDSM worked but she told herself to shut the hell up and not ruin this.

  Then, the door to the dungeon opened—because of course she was being held in a dungeon—and her real master charged into the room. His face was shadowy too, since he was only a figment of her imagination.

  Her shadowy Master was her rescuer, but no white knight. He fought the dastardly Master who’d tried to steal her away, with his bare hands. No, wait, maybe they both had swords. Yea, that was it.

  Her Master defeated the other man, who lay on the ground, panting and naked (because why not?), gazing at her with possessive longing, his rage and despair that he wouldn’t get a chance to taste her submission written on every line of his face.

  Then her Master scooped her into his arms, carrying her to safety.

  No, not safety, because that wasn’t what she wanted.

  He carried her back to his room…no, castle. Wait, no, lair. Yea, he carried her back to his lair, kissing her before letting her slide down his hot, sweaty body.

  When her feet hit the floor she dropped to her knees, knowing that he’d need her submissiveness now more than ever.

  “You deserve to be punished.”

  “I didn’t go willingly, Master.”

  “But you would have submitted to him, wouldn’t you?”

  “You trained me to be a good sub. Should I have been disobedient?”

  “No.” In her fantasy his hand was hard, cruel as he gripped her chin, forced her face up. “But remember you’re mine. And only mine.”

  The arrival of another sub knocked Sarah out of her barbarian Dom fantasy. Mae was perched on the arm of Anna’s chair, her hair a beautiful fall of red curls, one perfect breast exposed by the robe she wore, which had slid off one shoulder.

  Sarah crossed her arms over her own bare breasts—her outfit for the night was high-waisted leather panties, the top of which were tight enough to constrict like a corset. She’d chosen to forgo a bra or shirt, so when she crossed her arms, she grazed her nipples, which were tight in reaction to
the vivid fantasy.

  Taking a breath, she forced herself to calm down, focusing on the conversation with the other subs to help pass the time. They chatted, trying to remember the items on the checklist each member had to fill out when they’d joined. Then Anna was called away, a feminine voice telling her to go to the Orion Room—one of the playrooms in the Constellation Court.

  Sarah watched Anna walk away, heel bouncing nervously. But she didn’t need to be nervous. She’d be called soon.

  The waiting, the anticipation, was part of the game.

  Devin crouched low, using a mirror to check around the corner before leading his team across a narrow alley. Another pause, quick check, then they were moving out onto the deserted street.

  They hadn’t been able to reach their target by car thanks to a makeshift blockade a kilometer back, so they’d suited up, checked in with the communications office, and set out on foot. Gunfire was distant but not far enough away.

  This rescue operation was time sensitive, technically difficult, and risk-heavy due to a high number of unknowns. His favorite type of job.

  His shoulders twitched with the feeling of being watched from above, but he kept his focus on the target, knowing someone else in his team would be scanning the windows for any threat.

  They reached their target without incident, the building seemingly no different than those around it except for the flags. Despite the fact that the city’s police force was currently fighting off an attack by an armed extremist group, the flags of four different nations were still hanging above the door.

  Dev grimaced, wondering why they hadn’t been removed. The communications team would have advised them to remove those, but communication had been spotty. Apparently the message hadn’t gotten through, so the three-story flat-fronted building had what was essentially a neon sign announcing that there were soft, high-valuable targets inside.

  Those flags also told him that it was possible that other pieces of information hadn’t gotten through. Did the targets know the pre-arranged signal? He was about to find out.

  Dev pressed his back against the wall then motioned the rest of his five-man squad forward, their faces barely visible thanks to the predawn light which didn’t filter down into the narrow valley created by the three-story buildings that lined both sides of the street.

  One slung his gun—loaded with less lethal ammunition—around his back, freeing up his hands. Dev held up a fist, fingers moving in a few short gestures, communicating his intent. He slid closer to the door, then reached over and knocked out the prearranged signal that would tell the people inside it was safe to open the door. Tell them that their ride was here. Three quick knocks, three spaced out, then three more quick.

  S. O. S.

  Even if the communications team hadn’t been able to get word to their target as to what the signal was, hopefully they recognized Morse code.

  They held silent—save for the distant sound of the firefight—for a count of sixty, but there was no response, so Devin repeated the knock.

  S. O. S.

  Another count of sixty with no response. Devin held up his hand, once again communicating silently with his team. The three on the other side of the door moved. The man with the gun slung across his back made a stirrup out of his hands and boosted one of the others up to the second floor window holding him in place as the man tried to quietly pry open the wooden shutters that had been pulled closed and undoubtedly locked from within. The third man swiveled to block access to the two men working on a second-story entry point, protecting them while they were vulnerable. The fifth man, on the same side of the door as Dev, dropped to a knee and pulled out a small comm unit, relating via text that they’d reached the building, but couldn’t make contact.

  Dev’s eyes scanned the street and he assessed whether the sound of gunfire was coming closer or moving further away from their current position. Across from him, the man dropped down, shaking his head then pointing to his pack where he carried tools he could use to break open the shutters.

  Dev shook his head. If they had to force entry, the chances of something going bad rose astronomically. It was possible their target was still inside, but hadn’t recognized the signal. If that was the case, if they did a forced breach the target might react with violence, putting his team in danger. Dev had one other thing he wanted to try, before he risked any of his men by going ahead with the breach.

  Dev reached out to knock once more, but this time a very different pattern.

  Tap. Tap. Taptaptap. Tap. Tap.

  Shave and a haircut…

  A moment later there was an answering quiet tap tap. Dev grinned and across from him, his second in command shook his head in rueful disbelief.

  “Really?” John, the man behind him, muttered. “That worked?”

  They might rib him but his team appreciated Dev’s outside-the-box thinking and the fact that he could make sure they did their job, and do it well, with the least possible amount of violence. Management liked him because Dev’s methods usually had less property damage than methods used by other teams.

  And since the company usually insured both the people and the buildings and equipment inside those buildings, lack of property damage kept that bottom line in the black.

  The door opened, and Dev held out a hand, his ID already in his palm. The door opened wider. His team slid into the building.

  The rumpled-looking man who’d opened the door blinked at them, seeming a bit stunned. Given who he was and what he was doing here, he might have been in shock. Normal people often went into a form of denial when faced with mortal peril.

  “Where is everyone else?” Dev asked.

  “Here.” A tall woman with curly hair appeared in the hall. “You’re…” she hesitated, as if scared to ask the question.

  Others came out from behind her. Dev recognized most of them from the ID photos that had been part of the mission dossier. He did a quick headcount. All six were present and accounted for. Two professors and four grad students, heralding from four countries and two different universities. Both academic institutions in question had insured this archaeology dig team with his company. And that meant that when the city had come under siege, his team had been dispatched to repatriate the archaeologists.

  Dev took off his helmet, smiled. He needed these people calm and trusting. After a moment, several returned his smile.

  Behind him, John murmured, “They’re through.”

  Good. They’d left two members of the team with the armored vehicles. Dev had tasked them with finding a way to get the transport to the dig house. This was going to be a hell of a lot easier if they didn’t have to walk six academic civilians back to where they’d had to bail on the vehicles.

  “Us?” Dev widened his smile into a grin. “We’re your ride.”

  That startled a laugh out of one young woman.

  “You’re here to…rescue us.” The man who’d answered the door, one of the professors, said slowly.

  “Everyone have their passports? Hold ’em up.”

  One by one, each person held up their passport. That piece of information had made it through.

  Dev motioned towards the door, and two of his men slipped out to wait for their rides. Then he scanned the group of six once again. Most were visibly more relaxed than they’d been a moment ago, and several returned his smile.

  “That’s right, friends. I’m your knight in…” he looked down at himself, mock frowned. “Uh, urban camo and Kevlar.”

  Seven hours later, after successfully evacuating his targets over three hundred miles to the closest major urban center, and getting them checked in at the same secure airport hotel he and his men were staying at, Dev went to his room and flopped down on the bed to kill a few hours scrolling on his phone.

  He idly checked his email, raising a brow when he saw a few messages from Las Palmas. The encrypted communications took a few minutes to open, but once they did, he saw first the summons about a meeting that he’d definite
ly missed. Despite the dire threats of losing membership if they didn’t attend, Dev wasn’t worried. The overseers knew what he did for a living, and that consequently he was hard to reach. It had been months since he’d been home in L.A. and weeks since he’d had the opportunity to just chill and read his messages.

  There was a follow up email from several days ago that outlined what had been said at the meeting. A game. A game designed specifically to get them to push themselves.

  Something dark and dangerous tightened in his gut. If the people he’d just helped rescue could have seen his face right at that moment they wouldn’t have recognized him. Wouldn’t have seen the smiling man who’d managed to put them at ease, made them feel safe, even while the sounds of gunfire echoed around them.

  Because despite what Devin did for a living, if life was a story, a book with no shades of gray, where the heroes wore white and fought for noble causes, Dev would be clothed in dark robes and his theme music would be in a minor key.

  Devin Rinaldo was no one’s knight in shining armor.

  It stopped feeling like waiting after the first evening.

  The excited, nervous anticipation had worn off as everyone but her was called. Now Sarah was left with a heavy, sinking embarrassment.

  She could have left the Subs’ Garden. Could have gone out to see what was happening and watch the scenes that were no doubt taking place. Instead she stayed, slipping on her favorite MissyMaven sheer pink robe, which absolutely didn’t go with the black leather corset panties.