Page 64 of Bear’s House

A little while later, the smell of salt, paprika, and roasted pumpkin seeds started filling the house.

Chapter 23. JJ

The Big Day had finally arrived, and I could barely believe it. It was Halloween — one of those glorious years when the thirty-first landed on a Friday. Everyone had their costumes on. I was dressed as a pirate, which wasn't exactly the most creative costume in the world, but it was what we had for the day. Mikey was dressed as a baby, which barely even qualified as a costume for him, given the context, and Sawyer was Robin from Batman.

Daddy wasn't dressed as anything, and I told him so.

"That's not fair. That's so boring," I said.

"I'm dressed as a disciplinarian. Want to see, JJ?" he asked.

And then I saw that he was carrying the cane, which meant we'd probably better behave if we didn't want to end up with sore backsides.

"No thanks," I said quickly, giving him my best smile.

"Good," he said.

Behaving ourselves was definitely not on the agenda, though. Our plans were to be absolutely terrible that night — especially what I had in mind for Max. And the best news was that Bella had agreed to come check out the club. The plan was for her to meet Max, and if he liked her and agreed after they negotiated, she'd start him off with something light. Max had already told me I could give him the push he needed if he got scared, and we'd talked about the possibility of me arranging a surprise second Dom if he was comfortable with it. He just didn't know that I had Dominic in mind. Gustav had agreed to talk to Dominic separately if Max gave us the green light. Nobody was getting thrown into anything without being asked. I was meddling, not committing crimes.

I was so excited that night that I was practically vibrating in place, and thankfully Daddy figured it was just the Halloween excitement — no other hidden plan.

In the car, Mikey spent the whole ride clutching a little bag of pumpkin-shaped gummies he'd gotten at work — or claimed he'd gotten, because I seriously doubted the bank handed out Halloween candy to employees — and Sawyer kept asking annoying questions about my pirate costume.

"Why didn't you go as a little devil? It'd suit you better," he teased.

"Leave me alone, Sawyer," I said.

We got to The Hearth, and it was gorgeous, the way it always was for special events — decorated from top to bottom, a real spectacle. Fake spiderwebs covered the ceiling beams, real and plastic pumpkins were mixed together across the tables, and someone had swapped the usual amber lighting for stronger orange lights that gave everything a cozy horror-movie feel. I found myself wondering if Gustav had done all that himself or gotten some help — usually it was the former. That guy was insane and definitely a masochist, which wasn't surprising given the context.

I walked in and was immediately surprised, because Bella was already there — we'd only actually met that one time at the coffee shop, but we'd been texting nonstop since. Gustav had screened her beforehand and cleared her to come as my guest, and she'd already promised she understood that The Hearth wasn't somewhere she could advertise her professional services or look for clients. And she looked gorgeous — she'd been gorgeous since the first day I saw her, but now she was stunning in her Domme outfit. She wore fishnets, tiny leather shorts, and a leather corset too, which left her breasts on display. She'd done her eye makeup in black, which made her natural brown eyes pop, and her hair looked different from how it had at the coffee shop — loose now, falling almost to her waist, shiny and silky.

I went straight up to her.

"Wow, you look gorgeous," I said, and we hugged.

"Thanks for the invite," she said, smiling. "I'm really excited to finally see this place. I've heard about The Hearth forever, but I never managed to get in before."

"I'm excited you're here too," I said, and it was completely true.

"And you said you might have someone interested in doing a scene tonight?" she asked, adjusting one of her elbow-length leather gloves.

I nodded.

"He's my friend. It'll be his first time actually doing one, so I want you to be really careful with him."

"Obviously," she said. "I've worked with plenty of first-timers. But I'll negotiate with him myself before anything happens. I need to hear his limits from him, agree on a safeword, talk about what he wants tonight, what he doesn't want, and make sure he actually wants to scene with me."

"Yeah," I said. "Of course."

"And if he changes his mind halfway through, that's the end of it."

"Obviously."

She smiled at me.

"Good. Then introduce us when he gets here."

I felt that little thrill of satisfaction seeing the pieces fall into place almost exactly the way I'd pictured them.