Okay, King. You’re going to love this one. Don’t pretend you weren’t drooling over this guy when he walked into Headquarters. We all were. Lean but muscular, perfect bed head, two full sleeves of tattoos, big damn smile…remember him? He came to you with a stack of Benjamins an inch high and a request for “a couple hours with your hottest Dominatrix.” I remember it well. Not that I was eavesdropping from the next room or anything. I just happened to be in the next room standing by the door with my eye at the keyhole. What? I was practicing picking locks. You told him that you had the perfect Dominatrix to meet all his needs. Beautiful, intelligent, dominant, extremely experienced, and ready and willing to perform any sort of sadistic service for him.

      Of course you were speaking about me.

      Name: Dante Burns…if that’s his real name, I’ll eat my riding crop.

      Age: 29.

      Occupation: Rock star, lead singer of The Black Sheets.

      Dante said he merely wanted a tour of the Underground. “We’re making a video,” he said.

      “It’ll be kinky, something like old Nine Inch Nails. Like the vid for ‘Closer’ but with fewer dead pigs,” he said.

      “I’m not into the stuff but it makes for good visuals,” he said.

      “Seriously…I’m not one of those guys,” he said.

      “We’re just scouting locations,” he said.

      Yeah sure, kid. And I’m the Virgin Mary.

      The Mistress had every right to be skeptical. First of all, while she didn’t know much about the music industry, she was fairly certain the lead singers of world-famous, award-winning, many-times platinum-selling bands didn’t do their own location scouting for music videos. Maybe Dante was something of a diva who demanded control over every aspect of his band’s career trajectory. Certainly plausible. Perhaps he genuinely did want to try his hand at directing and producing, which is why he’d taken this task upon himself.

      Whatever the reason he’d come knocking on Kingsley’s door, The Mistress really didn’t care. He’d paid twice her usual rate for nothing but a tour of the dungeons, the clubs and a couple hours of picking her brain about the job. Easy money, right?

      Not quite.

      The Mistress met Dante in Kingsley’s office. From the moment their eyes met and she shook his hand, she had a hunch about him. The second she appeared, Kingsley seemingly disappeared to Dante. Not once did Dante glance at Kingsley after The Mistress made her entrance.

      “So you’re the Mistress?” Dante’s eyes grazed her body from head to boot and back again. “Very nice to meet you.”

      “Very nice to beat you,” she said, giving him her most dangerous sort of grin.

      “No beating.” He wagged his finger at her like a teacher to a naughty pupil. For a split second she considered how much force she’d have to exert to break that finger. “Here for the tour and nothing more.”

      “Yes, for your music video, you said. How nice. We lifestyle Dominants love it when outsiders take our entire world, our culture and our people and turn them into a fake Hollywood bubblegum backdrop for a pop song.”

      She said the words with a smile and enjoyed watching Dante squirm in his punk boots.

      “It’s more alternative than pop,” he said sheepishly. “Really good alternative. My band’s hard-core.”

      “Hard-core? So am I. Poured scalding candle wax on a client’s balls yesterday. Your band does that sort of thing?”

      “Um…” Dante went pale underneath his tan. “We say ‘fuck’ a lot.”

      “Yeah, so did my grandmother.”

      “Maîtresse?” Kingsley gave her a stern stare. She only winked at him. “This is Dante Burns. He’s been hailed as the next Trent Reznor.”

      “Who?”

      “You don’t know who Trent Reznor is?” Dante sounded aghast.

      “Is he a client, King?”

      “Non.”

      “Have I ever fucked him?” she asked.

      “Not to my knowledge,” Kingsley said.

      “Then no, I haven’t heard of him. So you’re the next Someone-I’ve-Never-Heard-Of? Congrats.” She shook his hand.

      “I promise, he’s really famous.” Dante sounded heartbroken. Poor baby.

      “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “I’m just giving you shit because you deserve it. King? We good to go?”

      Kingsley only nodded and waved her from the office. She had a feeling that Kingsley had decided that tall stack of hundreds on his desk wasn’t close to paying for the headache she’d given him.

      “Ready, Mr. Burns?”

      “Sure.” He sounded doubtful now. Gone was the cocky rock star. “I’m all yours.” He said the words casually, too casually. Behind them she heard something. Something hungry, something wistful, something true.

      “This is HQ,” The Mistress said as they left Kingsley’s office. “Kingsley lives here, works here and reigns here. He takes the King part of Kingsley very seriously. You should, too. You might be more famous than he is and you might even have more money, but there’s no one in the house who would take your side against him, who would take an order from you that he had contradicted, who would even take a step out of this house with you without his permission.”

      “Seriously?”

      “Seriously. King doesn’t have employees. He has slaves and submissives. Well-paid slaves and submissives, of course. But they don’t work for the money. They work for the kink. None of his employees are vanilla.”

      “Vanilla…that means like straitlaced