Chapter One

Cruz

I lifted the heavy tray of glassware to my shoulder and gave my friend Billy a look. If it hadn't been for my promise to him, I wouldn't have been here working on my one and only night off this week. How did I always let Billy talk me into things like this when I knew better?

As if on cue, Billy flitted into the room, dressed in an obscenely skimpy bathing suit and holding an empty cocktail glass.

"Let me guess. You need a refill for your boyfriend."

Billy turned with a pouty expression on his face and actually stomped his little foot encased in a pair of glittery girls' sandals. He had a small enough foot that they didn't look bad on him, and I had to admit his toenails were done to perfection. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and his skin was already an improbable shade of bronze, helped along greatly by the tanning salon. His artfully tousled hair made him look as if he'd just walked in off the beach. All in all, he looked a little like a male Barbie doll, minus the giant boobs.

"Cruz, don't be mean. I told you the guys I hired for the party canceled at the last minute so I needed help, because I can't do all of this on my own. I want everything to be perfect tonight."

"Okay, but it's just a pool party, right, and not the queen's ball? And if you want perfection, then maybe don't wait until the last minute to try and do everything."

I took the glass from him, gave it a refill of the expensive scotch his boyfriend had been drinking all night and kept up my litany of complaints.

"And if your boyfriend was too cheap to hire help, you should have at least told me, so I could have made an informed decision about whether or not I wanted to work like a dog tonight, while you flit around and look cute. I would have preferred to stay home on my couch and watch something on Netflix."

"Oh, you think I look cute?" he asked, batting his lashes at me. When I rolled my eyes back at him, he sighed and leaned across the bar. "And just FYI, David's not cheap. It's my fault really. I kind of bragged to him that I could do it all myself when the caterers canceled, and he didn't have to hire anyone else."

"And he agreed to that? Has he met you?"

"Oh, very funny. Look, I thought I could do it, and then when the guest list kept growing, and I realized we'd need a full-time bartender as well as actual food, I began to panic. I confess I'm not the best with organization, and I can't cook at all."

I laughed out loud, because it was so true. Billy was the least organized person I knew. We'd been roommates for the first year of college, and our tiny apartment had always been—shall we say—untidy. The floor was pretty much always covered by dirty clothes and dirty dishes, which wasn't a bad thing really, because they distracted from the fact that the floor hadn't been swept or mopped in the past few weeks. It was a relief when Billy decided a few weeks ago to move out and go live with his boyfriend David, so at least half the mess had been cleared away.

"Your boyfriend has to have noticed you don't cook by now, Billy."

"He thinks I turned over a new leaf." I laughed out loud again and noticed a few of the guests glancing over at us with more than a few interested looks. There were only about fifteen people there so far this evening, but a lot more were supposed to be coming.

David's pool was massive, with what looked like an acre of blue tile, along with fountains and a hot tub at one end. It was lined with lounge chairs and soft music was coming from the poolside speakers. It was a beautiful home, and a nice night for a party. A soft breeze was blowing directly from the nearby ocean, bringing the smell of salt water, and the stars shone down like diamonds. It felt like powerful magic was at work that night with the music, the ocean and the stars. I shook myself a little and decided I was being way too fanciful.

The guests—all men so far—had been nice, if a little flirty, but I'd had no complaints about the drinks I'd made them. I hoped things stayed that way. I didn't mind the flirting so long as no one was rude about it, and so far, so good.

"I thought I had plenty of time to prepare," Billy was saying, "but the days just got away from me. And what David doesn't know won't hurt him. He thinks I made all this food, you know, and that you asked me if you could help so you could come to the party to meet some new guys." Billy gave me a wink and a sly smile before turning around and bumping right into a tall, handsome older man who had walked up silently behind him. Billy's face paled visibly as he gazed up into the man's flinty expression.

I didn't know much about Billy's relationship, but he had shared with me the fact that he was now in "the lifestyle," as he called it, and that his boyfriend was a Dom, which made Billy his submissive, I guess.

His boyfriend—or I should say his Dom, David, because Billy had told me Doms were not boyfriends—had arranged this party for some of his friends, and with typical bravado, Billy had assured the man he could handle all the preparation, set-up and serving. With over thirty plus people to make food and drinks for, however, he hadn't contacted a caterer or hired someone to help. Instead, he'd delayed and dallied around and only called me for help late that afternoon to confide to me that he was in way over his head and beg for my help. Billy was a master at manipulation, and rather than come clean to his Master and confess that fact, he'd decided to bluff his way through and press me into service at the last minute.

I went on a deli run on the way to the party, but I doubted the kind of food I got from the deli was up to this man's standards. He was wealthy from the looks of this house, and all these people had money and lots of it, so they'd expect something a good deal fancier than sandwiches, hot wings and potato salad.

"So please continue, Billy. What I don't know won't hurt me?"

"Master David!" Billy said, his voice high-pitched and shocked. "Oh, hi…I was just…"

"You were just being a brat, as usual. You were trying to get this poor boy here to do the work I was counting on you to do. You should have told me sooner that you needed help, boy." He gave him a stern look. "It's nothing to be ashamed of to get in over your head. What you need to worry about now is the fact you didn't tell me. That you chose to lie to me about it instead."

I was embarrassed to stand there and witness this, but it was like a car wreck—I couldn't quite seem to look away.

"I know. I'm sorry, Sir." Billy seemed to droop, his head down and his voice tremulous.

The man gave him one more scathing look and turned to me.

"Hello, I'm David Benson. Thank you for helping out here tonight. I'll make sure you're paid for all you've done, and I'm sorry you got caught up in this."

I glanced over at Billy, whose shoulders were slumped. He was practically digging a hole in the carpet with the toe of his shoe, and he looked like he'd just lost his best friend. His lower lip stuck out in a pout, and it began trembling. It was a masterful act and a blatant play for sympathy, though, and I suspected "Master" David knew it too.

I stuck out my hand to shake his, trying to ignore the drama emanating from Billy's direction.

"I'm Cruz Martin, and it's no problem. I work as a bartender in my everyday job, so this is pretty easy."

He nodded. "I've made a few calls after seeing the food, so I think that situation will be under control soon. If you'll stay and help with the drinks, I'll make sure you're well compensated."

"Sure, I don't have to work until tomorrow evening, so I can hang out."

"Well, thank you again, Cruz. Actually, I'd intended all along to hire help with all this, but Billy kept insisting he could do it alone." He glanced over at Billy again, who wilted a bit more. "Let me know if there's anything you need," he told me. "This shouldn't last late this evening—it's as much of a business meeting as anything else. Most of these guys are investors."

I nodded. High powered finance was way above my pay grade. David smiled at me again, gave Billy a scathing look and walked out of the room.

"Shit," Billy said, chewing his bottom lip. "I think I better go try to handle that. Thanks, Cruz. I owe you one."

I grinned and shook my head. He owed me way more than one. Billy was a great guy in his own way and one of my friends, but he did tend to stretch the truth a bit. I didn't know much about the D/s lifestyle, and I was pretty sure I didn't want to, although Billy seemed happy enough. Actually, whenever he talked about his boyfriend, his eyes glowed, and he lit up from the inside, so I was happy for him. There was somebody for everyone.

I wondered if the guest list at the party tonight included a lot of handsome Doms like his Master David and just what that might entail. A sudden little shiver of anticipation took me by surprise, but I shook it off. No, the lifestyle Billy was in was not for me. It sounded a little dangerous and exciting, but no way would I ever be interested in that kind of thing. I'd had enough trouble in my life.

Not that I didn't have my own secrets, though, and some people—a lot of people—would no doubt say my interests were pretty damn odd. I guess everybody had their weird little fantasies and inner thoughts they never admitted out loud to anyone. I had no room to judge anybody else, so I tried not to.

Billy had come a long way, too, since he'd met David. He didn't talk much about his past, but I knew he'd come to the city from a small town in the Midwest after his wealthy parents had kicked him out because he was gay. He was blond and good-looking and was lucky enough to be going to the University of Central Florida on a full scholarship in Music Education. We had both found jobs at a place called Gio's downtown, near the courthouse, waiting tables and tending bar. It was a good gig, and paid great in tips, mostly because the patrons, who consisted of a lot of lawyers, both male and female, liked to ogle the young men and women serving them. Whatever—it more than paid the rent, and I needed the money.

When I first met Billy, he was kind of a mess—drinking way too much and taking a lot of recreational drugs, like E or Molly, just because he thought it was cool, or his friends were doing it. Once he met David, all of that stopped, and I gave them both a lot of the credit for that. Billy told me that his Master had given him an ultimatum. If he wanted to be in his life, he would clean up his act and take better care of himself. No more drinking and definitely no more drugs. It had been almost a year since they'd met, a few months since Billy had moved in, and Billy was still clean and sober.

Still, the idea of letting another man boss me around to that degree, maybe calling him Sir and letting him give me orders—I had really mixed feelings about it.

I'd never want a full-time, 24/7 relationship like that. I didn't think so anyway. Though sometimes, when the stress of my work and my bills and worrying about what I was going to do with the rest of my life got really bad, and when I wasn't sure how I was going to manage any of it, I craved the feeling of comfort and security that kind of a relationship might bring. It might be nice to have someone I could lean on when the worry and stress got to be too much.

What I really wanted was someone to help me find control—for the times when the old, panicky feelings I'd had since I was a child set in. When I'd been not quite four years old, there had been an incident with my mother that had resulted in me going into foster care and since then I suffered from anxiety attacks.

Things were different now. I was a grown man—or close enough—and I didn't have to worry about the same things I did back then. Now I had to worry about how I had so much student debt I'd never get out from under it; or about how badly I needed to clean my apartment and do laundry and do all the other adult things; and about how I never seemed to be able to manage my time well enough to get them all done. The stress of that was constant and never stopped plaguing me. Apparently it wasn't bad enough to get me to stop procrastinating and do something about it. But I was a world-class worrier. It never stopped either, racing around inside me, buzzing in my head, until I felt like I could never just be .

When those times got really bad, I locked my door, dug out my special things, watched my movies and just didn't think about anything. The fact that I sucked my thumb while I was doing it and kept my childhood teddy bear clutched in my arms was irrelevant. Or so I told myself.

I felt ashamed of anyone finding out. It was embarrassing and indicated something was seriously wrong with me, like inside my brain. And I sometimes wished I had someone who would understand that part of me regardless of that and take care of me when I was feeling stressed…who would make all the decisions for me and just tell me what to do … somebody who might even run me a warm bubble bath or bring me a glass of milk with Hershey's chocolate syrup stirred in like one of the foster moms used to make, or just hold me close and tell me things would be okay.

I knew none of that would never happen. Not one of those daydreams would ever come true for me. And before you think I was some sad sack who felt sorry for himself, I wasn't normally. I'd been taught to just get on with things, and I tried to do that.

But I wasn't cute and little and blond like Billy. I had a beard and tattoos, and I worked out a little. I looked like I was more than capable of looking after myself. I knew about Doms who took care of boys like Billy. I'd even heard of Daddies, who did even more than that. Sometimes, I browsed the internet reading what they had to say in the internet ads. But what Daddy or Dom would look at a guy like me and think, "Yeah, that's just what I want in a boy."

Nobody, that's who, and I thought that was just being realistic.

I finished setting up my glasses and got ready to serve. People had already arrived, and music was playing softly in another room. The place was filling up with men of all shapes and sizes, and I wondered what the evening would bring. I told myself again to stop being so fanciful, took a deep breath and got ready.