I was dancing that night again, so I needed to get home and hit the sack, because stripping was a way to earn major cash. But strippers with shadows under their eyes who were too fatigued to pull off any good moves were just sad.

In other words, I needed to get home.

I had my phone out to text Angelica that the kids were safe at school, something I’d do sitting in my car because people who walked and texted drove me batty, when I noticed a mom who was also a walk-her-kid-in kind of mom nearly run into a column.

She was not texting.

She had her head turned.

I looked where she was looking.

And saw Boone Sadler. He was my friend Lottie’s boy, her man Mo’s bud, and an uncomfortable acquaintance of mine.

He was leaning against the passenger side of his gleaming black Charger, arms crossed on his broad chest, long, sturdy legs crossed at the ankles.

What the hell?

He had shades on, aviators, the sun was glinting in his dark blond hair, his skin was tanned, his biceps were bulging, and where I was at in my head and in my exhaustion, the weakness nearly couldn’t be beat.

I wanted to sink to my knees and beg him to make me his any way he wanted to do that.

Here’s the deal:

My dad was deadbeat too.

And I was Portia, plus twenty-two years.

The big sister who (a change to Portia’s plight) saw my mom busting her ass to take care of her kids. So I got to a point where I helped with dinner, and the dishes. Then I made dinner and did the dishes. I also did my own laundry starting at age eight, and my brother’s.

Dusting.

Vacuuming.

Tidying.

Making grocery lists.

And when I could drive, going out and getting groceries.

Mom hated it that I did it, but she needed the help.

I didn’t bitch, because I loved her, and I knew she needed it.

But I’d been on the ball, or learning how to be on it, since I was six.

Now, I did not research this stuff, maybe because I didn’t want to know, maybe because it didn’t really matter.

But if you asked me, if I wasn’t just plain ole born this way, I’d reckon that I needed a man to take care of business in that way because I was so…fucking…done with having a handle on every aspect of my life, my brother’s, and now Angelica’s and the kids’, I needed to give over.

Boiling this down, I was a sub, as in submissive, this being of the BDSM variety.

And Boone Sadler was a Dom, as in a Dominant, of that same variety.

He was also the guy my friend Lottie tried to fix me up with months ago.

Lottie had her shit together. Lottie had lived life and she knew how to read people.

Case in point, when she met her fiancé Mo, they knew each other maybe a few hours before she knew he was the one.

Second case in point, she set up Evie with Mo’s bud Mag. They were living together within days of meeting (okay, so circumstances were such she had to move in with him, since her apartment had been torn apart, and that wasn’t the beginning of the story, or the end). But they were now officially moved in together, Evie had been able to quit dancing at Smithie’s, she’d gone full-time at her preferred job as a computer tech and was finally going back to college with an aim to finish it and earn her engineering degree.

Why I couldn’t go there with Boone, I didn’t know.

He was hot, like, mom-walking-into-column-at-the-sight-of-him hot.

He’d shared he was interested, this by asking me out to dinner three times, and also getting up in my shit after a lap dance I gave that he witnessed because he was a guy, a guy who’d asked me out, a guy who was into me, a guy whose job (not a joke) was being a commando.

And last, he was a guy who was a Dom.

As for me, I was into him. I was into him in a way I’d had so many fantasies about him—ranging from the many ways he could order me to take to my knees and suck his cock to snuggling in front of the TV with him after a long day—that I’d lost count of the dizzying varieties these fantasies took on.

But I just couldn’t go there.

Maybe it was that my dad was a deadbeat, but he was also other things, like mentally abusive, serially breaking women’s hearts, when the spirit moved him (which was rare) demanding his fatherly rights (even though he was a deadbeat, which circled back to mentally abusive, and breaking women’s hearts) and generally just an asshole.

And my brother was an alcoholic deadbeat who was either clueless, in denial, or both.

And I’d had two semi-long-term boyfriends, both who, after I shared, didn’t “get” my “kink” and thought I was a loser who wanted to be abused, instead of a submissive, who needed to give over and allow someone to take care of me (or put in the work to try, and get their reward, I was kind of a brat).

Last, I’d had a really shitty Dom who took things too far and once completely ignored me saying my safe word (that had not been fun, in fact, it’d been terrifying when he shoved that scarf into my mouth after tying me up, so I was completely helpless, and not in a good way—exit said Bad Dom from my life).

So yeah.

Me: gun shy.

And Boone had given up, full stop. I knew this because he’d been seeing some other woman now for weeks.

I didn’t blame him.

Though part of me did.

Because honestly, he didn’t try that hard.

And sorry, not sorry, I was a girl who wanted to be won.

Like I said, put in the effort…

Get your reward.

It sucked and for some reason it hurt (a lot, too much, especially when logically, I knew I had no claim on the guy).

But he’d moved on.

So why was he there?

I knew one thing with the way he was right then uncrossing his arms, his shades locked on me, his hand going up, and his finger crooking at me.

No, two things.

One, I was in imminent danger of a highly inappropriate orgasm while standing on the sidewalk to an elementary school.

And two, he was not there playing bodyguard to some rich kid or because his new woman had kids he’d offered to drop off.

He was there for me.

Interesting.

I moved his way and felt a number of greedy eyes following me as I did.

When I got close, he pushed away from his badass car, straightened to his substantial height and tipped his chin down to look at me.

“Hey, what are you—?” I began.

“Your place,” he growled. “Now.”

And then I found myself standing there, blinking at him as he stalked around the hood of his car to the driver’s side.

He’d opened the door, but didn’t angle in, because I was still standing there.

“Now,” he ordered.

Only then did he angle in.

All right, I was going home anyway.

But…

Again…

What the hell?

And, more.

Did he know where I lived?

Apparently, he did, because he made his point I needed to get my ass to my place by making his engine roar (and again, imminent orgasm, mine and probably a dozen other moms’).

I hoofed it to my car, and once inside, glanced quickly at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

I’d pulled a brush through my hair because it wouldn’t do to have semi-slept-on, teased-out stripper hair when taking the kids to school.

But it was still a mass that was mostly a mess of honey-blonde flips and curls.