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“Welcome back toCurrently San Diego. I’m Melinda Torres, and we are discussing the recent shootings taking place in our city, as well as in Los Angeles, where the death toll has risen to thirty-six. We have former Police Commissioner Paul Sand with us, and he claims we are dealing with professionals. Thank you for being here, Paul. What do you mean by professionals? Are we looking at a new turf war between cartels?”
CHAPTER 1
River Tenley
2019
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m not nervous—you can be nervous,” I snapped under my breath. Then I lit up another smoke and took a deep drag.
Fuck me sideways, I never thought we’d be in this position. That was all.
Reese grinned and threw an arm around my shoulders. “You’re nervous.”
Whatever. So was he.
I was suddenly glad we hadn’t found parking any closer. We had to walk a couple blocks.
To be honest, I’d rather walk right out of DC and back to our safe haven across the Potomac. Out there, I knew what I was doing. Out there, our relationship with this fucking amazing guy made sense.
There were downsides to being part of a community that felt like a family should. ’Cause everyone was accepting and welcoming. Reese and I had started our kink community for that very reason—to have a place we could call home. And to include others who wanted what we wanted.
This was enemy territory, though. Vanilla land. People had questions here.
“I’m nervous too,” Reese admitted.
“I know.” I side-eyed him.
Who could fucking blame us? We’d never in a million years thought we’d have a relationship with anyone that went beyond the BDSM lifestyle. Then this goddamn boy had stormed into our lives and turned everything upside down.
Reese and I were supposed to have shit figured out. We were over forty. We’d been involved in kink on and off for roughly twenty years. We were the dominant Sadists who didn’t flinch at nothin’. If not for kink experience reasons, then our two decades in and out of war zones. Simply put, we didn’t fucking do nervousness.
It hadn’t hit me till yesterday, because meeting Shay…starting a kink arrangement with him…hell, even when it quickly morphed into a lot more than that, our days and nights together had been too good—too distracting. But then last night, Shay had been all, “So I’ll see you at my aunt’s place at six?”
We passed one colorful rowhouse after another. It was a nice part of DC. Shay had told us his aunt, who was his closest family after his two baby brothers, worked at a university as a researcher. Could it be more vanilla?
I stopped before we could cross the street, and I ran a hand through my hair.
Reese waited me out.
“I don’t know how to be vanilla,” I said. “I don’t know who I am outside kink and what we’ve done. What do we tell this woman? That we used to throw ourselves into conflict areas? That we’ve killed people? That we skipped college so an old SAS operator could turn us into military contractors? That we run a kink community and recently claimed her nephew as our property?”
My brother could easily crack a joke and make fun of me, and I knew some of my rhetorical questions were insane, but he didn’t do that. Instead, he took a step closer and gave the back of my neck a squeeze.
“We’re just River and Reese, brother,” he told me. “We’re former military—and Shay’s been open about his kink lifestyle. Melanie already knows.” He paused. “Probably not the specifics of what he gets off to, so maybe we don’t talk about certain kinks and whatnot.”
I swallowed uneasily. “I’m just gonna be quiet.”
His mouth twitched. “That will be a brand-new experience.”
Very funny.
“Come on,” he said, jerking his chin up the street. “Let’s go meet our boyfriend’s family for the first time and pretend we’re normal for a hot second.”
Normal. What the fuck was that anyway.
