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Even Olivia wore a thin, white-gold collar around her neck—something Addison couldn’t imagine having the confidence to do. At a place this like, maybe, but Olivia mentioned earlier that she couldn’t take it off. Not unless Aiden chose to unlock it for her. Most probably saw nothing more than a necklace, but what if people figured it out? Not-kinky people who would judge the hell out of her?
Realizing she was staring, she dragged her gaze up to Olivia’s kind blue eyes. She didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, thank God. “Which one is Aiden?” Addison asked, hoping to get the conversation back on track.
“That one.” With a dreamy look, Olivia pointed toward a gorgeous man with a gentle smile and a healthy dose of sexy stubble.
Aiden had his arm wrapped possessively around the shoulders of a redhead on the escort chic–end of the night’s fashion spectrum. Her black sequined dress didn’t even manage to cover her whole ass, plunging so dramatically in the front and back that it hardly covered anything.
Not that Addison could talk. Her own dress had a slit up the front so high she didn’t dare sit down.
Ignoring the room full of people, Aiden slid his hand down the redhead’s back and yanked the skirt of the skintight dress up, exposing her ass. Jesus, she was completely bare underneath, not wearing so much as a thong.
The woman had five perfectly parallel lines across her ass cheeks, each a deep crimson color against her pale skin. After a moment, Addison realized they must be cane marks. Aiden began kneading the woman’s right ass cheek right in front of everyone—including his own fiancée. Rather than look mortified, the redhead threw her head back in apparent ecstasy.
Addison didn’t know if her own skin heated with secondhand embarrassment, lust, or a combo of the two. No matter what she did, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Aiden and his guest. “Do you mind if I ask you a, umm...personal question?” she said, her voice coming out high and breathy.
“You want to know how I share without getting jealous?” Olivia guessed. She said it so calmly, like she hadn’t a care in the world.
Gulping, Addison managed a stiff nod.
“That one’s easy,” Zach said, slurring the last two words together. “They get off on watching each other fool around.”
Addison looked to the beautiful black-haired woman beside her for confirmation. The lust filling Olivia’s eyes was undeniable, and she let out a small whimper when Aiden smacked the redhead’s ass with a loud crack.
Wishing it wasn’t so damn hot in the parlor, Addison downed the rest of her champagne in three gulps.
“All right everyone,” one of the other Doms called out as he stepped into the middle of the room. “Less than a minute to go until midnight.” From a combo of introductions and overheard snatches of conversation, she’d figured out who the other four were. By the process of elimination, this one must be Jonathan. The head honcho himself. A gorgeous woman with light brown skin and wavy black hair down to her waist hung on his arm, looking up at him like she was the luckiest girl in the world.
Several people pulled out their phones to check the time, and Zach pulled out an antique pocket watch of all things.
“Ten!” Almost everyone in the room said it together. “Nine! Eight! Seven!”
Addison looked around the parlor, realizing for the first time that everyone else was paired off. Well, except for Rafe, his sub of the week, and Nell. The three of them had been entwined in some combo or another since the party started.
“Six! Five! Four!”
Even the others in attendance from the kitchen stood in a cluster, Gabriel and his sous chef Sienna facing Luca and Kendra. Eric, the final member of the dinner staff, had gone home to celebrate with his husband, leaving them an odd number.
“Three! Two! One!”
Her gaze moved again of its own accord, searching for Mason in the crowd. He stood half a head above the next tallest man in the room, making him easy to find.
“Happy New Year!” the partygoers shouted together. But Addison stayed silent as everyone kissed around her. Even Zach and Olivia gave each other a chaste peck on the lips.
Heart pounding against her ribs, she watched Mason cup the cheeks of a woman who looked like a Scandinavian supermodel, stooping down to give her a deep, sensual kiss. The pair seemed to meld together until she couldn’t tell where his perfect black suit ended and her slinky black dress began.
When he buried his hands in the woman’s sleek, white-blond hair, Addison found herself weaving between couples to get to the doorway. She made it halfway down the back hall before she really even thought about what she was doing.
Good lord, she couldn’t have embarrassed herself more if she tried. What the fuck was she thinking, causing a scene like that, fleeing the room like a jilted girlfriend? She had exactly zero claim on Mason. Hell, she hardly even liked the guy.
Since fucking her made him so mad he almost wrapped his car around a tree, the feeling must be mutual.
It had to be that everyone had someone to kiss except her. Merely the anxiety of being the new girl and feeling left out. Nothing else made any sense.
Too mortified to return to the party, she headed for the kitchen, turning on lights as she went. Maybe a nice cup of tea would calm her nerves. With any luck, everyone else was too drunk and occupied to notice her abrupt departure.
Addison started across the kitchen, the clicks of her heels on the tile floor echoing in the empty room. She only managed a handful of steps before the kitchen door burst open behind her. She spun around to find Mason hurrying into the room, his intense blue eyes boring into her, his mouth tilted into a hard frown.
Addison did her best to smile, though she feared it looked more like a grimace. “Can I help you with something?”
