TEASER TUESDAY! Our first look at Switch Play... it's the whole prologue! I've had a lot of people ask about switches - either wanting to know more about them or wanting them to have more representation, and I've had such a good time writing this book. It's with the editor right now so this little teaser is unedited, but I hope you enjoy!
Prologue – 6 Months Ago
Samantha
“You! What are you doing here?”
Samantha froze at the hostile tone, all her feelings of
being an imposter, of being in the wrong place, of trying to pretend she was
something that she wasn’t, reared up and made her want to turn and run right
back out the door.
I’m not really a dominant. I don’t belong here.
No one else gets to decide that but me.
The voice in her head was immediately countered by another
voice, a voice she respected, and a voice that she’d been hearing a lot more
often in her head when her own internal voice got out of control. Mistress
Olivia was a force to be reckoned with and Sam had started hearing her sardonic
tones every time her own uncertainties got too loud.
She blinked and her eyes narrowed at the incredibly
attractive black man who had spoken, the one who was staring at her in complete
shock. There was something incredibly familiar about him… Sam’s stomach turned
over.
Now she really did feel like running out of the room. She
just wanted to learn how to be a Dominatrix, or a least get a feel for the Dom
side of things because she hadn’t quite felt like she fit in as a submissive,
not be confronted with a ghost of high school past.
Either way, she had never let Quinton Bright boss her
around in high school and she wasn’t about to start now. He might be the last
person she’d expected to find in Marquis’ How-to-Dom class but she wasn’t going
to let his presence stop her from getting what she wanted. Just like she hadn’t
in high school.
“Excuse me, Quinton?” She hid her satisfaction at his
flinch. Still didn’t like his name, huh? “I’m a member. What are you
doing here?”
As soon as the question was out of her mouth she wanted to
wince, because duh – what else would he be doing at a kink club’s Introduction
to Dominance class other than learn how to be a Dom? Could she have asked a
more inane question?
Not that she let it show on her face.
Channeling her inner Olivia, she drew herself up, keeping
her expression coldly impassive and doing her best to slow her pounding heart
rate. Brushing her hands over the blue skirt of her dress, at least she knew
she looked damn good.
“Quinton?” The dark-haired girl behind Q looked both
interested and amused at the confrontation that was going down in front of her.
Samantha had seen her around Stronghold, Marquis’ sister club, before though
she hadn’t seen Q. What was her name? Iris. That was it.
“Don’t call me that, Samwise,” Q snapped.
Oh, he did not. Sam glared at him, her hands automatically
going to her hips. Olivia wouldn’t run screaming just because someone brought
up a crappy high school nickname that had been used to taunt her. So what if
she was a bigger girl? She still loved potatoes, nearly as much as she’d hated
that stupid nickname, and she was well past the age where she was going to let
anyone make her feel bad about it.
“Then don’t call me that stupid nickname. We’re not in high
school anymore. Grow up.” There, that had told him. She couldn’t help but
mutter ‘ass’ under her breath.
Yeah she might have started it, but there was a difference
between calling someone by their actual legal name, no matter how much they
didn’t like it, and using a taunting nickname.
Especially since she knew the whole reason he’d hated being
called “Quinton” had been because he’d hated being teased about being a nerd in
high school. “Quinton” sounded like a nerd name, he’d said. Even though he’d
been a nerd, he hadn’t embraced it the way she had.
He looked even better than he had back then. His close-cropped
black hair was similar to the cut he’d had in high school, but the scrawny
limbs had been filled out with what looked like pure muscle bulging under his
t-shirt. The shirt said “One Lab Accident Away from Being a Supervillain” so he
seemed to be more comfortable with his nerd side now.
Which wasn’t too surprising. Being a nerd had somehow
become cool since they were in high school. Sam was still trying to reconcile
that with her memories of being teased for knowing anything about superheroes
and Game of Thrones.
It would have been nice if he hadn’t grown up to be quite
so hot, but at least she knew she looked good too. She’d dressed the part
today, going for the pin-up look that made the most of her curves with a blue
dress, and a wide red belt that cinched in her waist an extra inch or so.
While she might not be exactly an hourglass without a
corset, she could make herself look more like one.
“I take it you two know each other?” That question came
from Chef Nick, whom Sam immediately recognized. He was the head chef at the restaurant
downstairs.
Marquis operated as a regular restaurant on its first floor
and a kinky hotel on its second. Sam loved coming here. Not that she didn’t
love Stronghold, which had been the first club before Marquis was built, but
she’d spent more time here. Marquis made her feel classy and elegant, but also
hot. And she liked that she could hang out at the bar downstairs without feeling
so self-conscious about who was checking her out and who wasn’t.
Stronghold’s bar was full of Dominants who decided whether
or not to ask one of the submissives hanging out in the Lounge area to play.
Sure, there was some crossover, especially among couples, but for the most part
they stayed well apart. Sam never felt like she fit in with either side, so
Marquis – with its mix of kinksters and totally vanilla people who had no idea
about Marquis’ naughty side – suited her better.
Q didn’t answer, he turned around and sat down, like she
wasn’t even there and Samantha had to blink back the tears that threatened to
surge upwards. Yeah, that was a little too reminiscent of their past.
High school had been a decade ago though, shouldn’t they be
able to put their past behind them?
“Hi, I’m Nick,” the chef said, waving when Samantha didn’t
move closer. “This is my girlfriend Avery, and that’s Iris.”
“I’m single and ready to mingle,” Iris said with a friendly
grin. Samantha made herself smile, but her stomach turned over again and she
realized there was a good chance she was going to have to watch Q play, or
‘scene’, with another submissive during training.
Not over a high school crush huh? Pathetic.
Yeah it really was. She hadn’t even seen him since
graduation. But it wasn’t that she wasn’t over a silly little crush… she just
had some ‘what if’ thoughts. Not regrets exactly, just curiosity over the path
not taken.
Not that it was worth dwelling on.
I’m not that girl anymore.
“I’m Samantha, but I go by Sam,” she said, giving herself a
little shake as if she could make her wayward emotions straighten out that way.
“Welcome to the party.” Iris seemed completely unperturbed
by the interaction between Q and Sam, which was good, though Nick and Avery
appeared to be a little uncomfortable. Hopefully the introductions would get
them all past that, though by sitting so far away from Q she’d also put a bunch
of space between her and them.
Ugh.
At least they knew what she liked to be called, hopefully
things would get less awkward. Samantha had always felt too formal. She’d liked
Sam, even when kids had teased her about it being boyish, because she’d felt
like it was more casual.
Friendlier.
Hopefully.
She’d hated Samwise. Just because she’d loved Lord of the
Rings didn’t mean she’d wanted to be known as the fat hobbit. She’d been too
tall to be a hobbit anyway.
Thank you, Q, for sticking me with that name.
It grated that it still had the ability to get under her
skin a decade later.
The room had been set up with a little semi-circle of
chairs around the circular stage in the center of the room. The booths that
were used for dinner, eating, and watching the stage shows were all along the
edges of the room, the heavy curtains currently drawn. Samantha recognized the
setup from when she’d taken the subbie class.
The stage was where demonstrations were done and, on
weekend nights, actual kinky sex shows happened for the titillation of the
watching diners. Sam had come to one, once, with one of the girls from the
submissives class. She and Morgan weren’t besties or anything, but they’d
formed a friendship despite their differences.
It hadn’t been the same as seeing a show with someone she
was actually interested in, which was still on her list of ‘things I want to do
sometime soon.”
Finding someone she was interested in romantically would be
step number one. Maybe she’d have better luck finding a submissive than a
Dominant. That’s why she was here after all. Olivia thought Sam might be a
‘switch,’ someone who could do either or both.
Sam was willing to explore. She loved being a submissive a
lot of the times, but sometimes it just didn’t suit how she felt. She wasn’t a
brat either, which someone had suggested. It had taken Morgan pointing out that
sometimes she acted like a dominant when a Dom was trying to scene with her for
Sam to decide maybe she needed to talk things out with Olivia.
“Okay, everybody’s here!” Freddy’s cheerful voice filled
the room as the entrance door opened again. Sam twisted around in her seat to
see the flamboyant submissive, who also ran the host station at Marquis, and
was apparently a shark of a divorce lawyer by day.
Freddy was also going to be her submissive for the class.
He’d volunteered. Samantha liked Freddy a lot but there wasn’t a spark between
them… still, at least she had someone to practice on. She occasionally found
women attractive, but not enough to consider herself bisexual and she really
preferred men.
He was also smart as hell. Sam saw his eyes flit around
them, taking in where everyone was seated, and he frowned for just a fraction
of a second before his smile returned. She knew what that meant though, and
that he would probably be questioning her about it later.
She would have to think of something to tell him other than
“I had a crush on a boy in high school and ten years later I didn’t want to sit
to close to him.”
Behind Freddy was Morgan and a huge man. He was so big that
Sam was sure she would feel petite standing next to him. Well over six feet,
considering that Morgan came up to his chin in her heels. Morgan and Sam were
both taller than average, though Morgan was a stunning redhead with a model’s
body, while Sam was blonde and ‘pleasantly plump’ as her mom liked to say.
They went through another quick round of introductions
while Freddy went to get Master Law and Mistress Julie, who would be teaching
the class. Sam wished that Mistress Olivia was instructing, since she didn’t
know Mistress Julie and she’d hoped for some mentorship, but she knew Olivia
was busy running Marquis. Plus, Olivia’s boyfriend and submissive was Nick’s
older brother, so she didn’t think Olivia would be jumping to teach this
particular class even if she didn’t have a huge workload.
Morgan sat down next to Samantha, giving her a bright
smile, while Connor sat down next to Morgan. It wasn’t like people were
choosing sides or anything, but Samantha did feel a little better having people
next to her.
If Morgan and Connor had left the seat beside her for
Freddy, it would have been understandable and yet also made her feel like even
more of an outsider than she did right now. Not that it was anyone’s fault.
She’d chosen her own seat.
Just once, she wished she could feel like she was making
the right decisions instead of floundering like a fish out of water.
It was going to be an interesting class.
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