Night by Night

  

  Suncoast Society

  Night by Night

  Hank never expected to be a single dad to his young niece, JJ, but he’ll do anything to keep her safe. Finally able to move back to Sarasota, he quickly reconnects with his old best friend, Maddox. Dox always had his back in high school, and he never had a better friend.

  Maddox secretly crushed on Hank. Except they haven’t seen each other since high school, and he never confessed to Hank that he was bi. Maddox is also a Dom, but the last thing he wants to do is alienate his best friend now that Hank’s back in his life.

  When Hank’s world literally caves in, nearly taking him and JJ with it, Maddox steps in and takes over, moving them in with him. And when the hits to Hank’s world keep coming, nearly crushing him by threatening JJ’s life, Maddox proposes a marriage of…convenience. But can he convince Hank it means far more to him than that?

  Genres: Alternative (M/M, Gay), BDSM, Contemporary

  Length: 63,670

  NIGHT BY NIGHT

  Suncoast Society

  Tymber Dalton

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Night by Night

  Copyright © 2019 by Tymber Dalton

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-769-0

  First Publication: April 2019

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2019 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  For Hubby, and for Sir. He knows why.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tymber Dalton is the wild-child alter-ego of author Lesli Richardson. She lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”) and too many pets. Active in the BDSM lifestyle, the two-time EPIC award winner and part-time Viking shield-maiden loves to shoot skeet and play D&D with her friends. She’s also a USA Today Bestselling Author who’s written over one hundred and sixty books and counting, including The Reluctant Dom, The Denim Dom, Cardinal’s Rule, the Suncoast Society series, the Love Slave for Two series, the Triple Trouble series, the Coffeeshop Coven series, the Good Will Ghost Hunting series, the Drunk Monkeys series, and many more.

  She loves to hear from readers! Please feel free to drop by her website and sign up for her newsletter to keep abreast of the latest news, snarkage, and releases. You can also find all of her Siren-BookStrand releases under all four of her pen names on her author page on the BookStrand site.

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  For all titles by Tymber Dalton, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/tymber-dalton

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is book 95 in the Suncoast Society series. You do not have to read all the books before this one to understand the plot or characters—most of the books in the series can be read standalone.

  Marcia and Derrick have appeared as secondary characters in many of the Suncoast Society books, and are featured in Spank Or Treat, Open Doors, Suit and Tied, and It’ll Be Fun. Eliza and Rusty have appeared in many books in the series and were featured in Almost Gothic and A Certain Girl, among others.

  Several of the characters in this book appear in or are featured in previous books in the Suncoast Society series. While most of the books in the Suncoast Society series are standalone works which may be read independently of each other, the recommended reading order to avoid spoilers and to not miss any backstory can be found on the Suncoast Society series page, along with character information, story arcs, related books, and other trivia, on my website at:

  http://www.suncoastsociety.com

  Playlist

  Maddox and Hank have a very…retro playlist. Hey, it’s the characters’ fault, not mine. I just follow what they tell me.

  “Heaven” - Warrant

  “Faith” - George Michael

  “More Than Words” - Extreme

  “Silent Lucidity” - Queensryche

  “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” - Air Supply

  “Is This Love” - Whitesnake

  “Someone” - Air Supply

  “I Want Your Sex” - George Michael

  “I’ll Find You” - Air Supply

  “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” - Poison

  “When I See You Smile” - Bad English

  “Love Song” - Tesla

  “I’ll Find You” - Air Supply

  “I’ll Be There For You” - Bon Jovi

  “The Flame” - Cheap Trick

  “Miracles” - Air Supply

  “Two Less Lonely People in the World” - Air Supply

  “Open Arms” - Journey

  “Lost In Love” - Air Supply

  “Forever” - KISS

  “The One That You Love” - Air Supply

  “Faithfully” - Journey

  “I Want to Give it All” - Air Supply

  “Can’t Fight This Feeling” - REO Speedwagon

  “The Search Is Over” - Survivor

  “To Be With You” - Mr. Big

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  NIGHT BY NIGHT

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  NIGHT BY NIGHT

  Suncoast Society

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2019

  Chapter One

  Please don’t let this be a mistake.

  Maddox Orosco sat at one of the large, round tables in the private meeting room of the steakhouse and studied the munch attendees who’d already arrived. So far, he only knew two of them, the hosts for tonight, whom he’d come face-to-face with upon walking through the door.

  Marcia and Derrick Watson.

  AKA his employers.

  He knew they ran a BDSM club in Sarasota—they made no secret of it. But he’d deliberately avoided going there, for now, until he
really got to know people in the local scene. He hadn’t even told them he was in the lifestyle.

  Hence why he’d come here tonight, to the munch, instead of going to the club.

  Because he didn’t want things to be…weird.

  Too late.

  It was weird.

  Well, weird for him, maybe not weird for them.

  He’d worked for them a little over a year now, and they were great people. But he’d been attending a club up in Pinellas County, and one over in Orlando, for the past several years, mostly because after college he’d settled up in St. Petersburg. All the people in the lifestyle he knew mostly hung out in those two areas. Since he’d moved back to Sarasota, he hadn’t made any local lifestyle friends here.

  He’d decided that driving all that way, when there was a dungeon practically in his own backyard in Sarasota, was just…stupid.

  Which was why he’d decided to attend the Suncoast Society munch tonight, to ease his toe into the local lifestyle scene and get used to it, meet people, before possibly running into his bosses at their club.

  Best-laid plans, and all that shit.

  The reason why he knew Marcia and Derrick ran the club was because they’d put it out there during his job interview, in the interest of full disclosure. They didn’t want him hearing about it third-hand later on and then perhaps freaking out about it.

  The other reason he’d wanted to start finally making inroads with the Sarasota kinky scene was that his ex, Kelly, had resumed attending the club in Pinellas. Not that he’d asked, but mutual friends of theirs had told him she was on boyfriend number three since they’d imploded.

  Never doing that again.

  He’d moved in with her. They’d lived together for over two years when, one day, she decided she was done and kicked him out.

  Only for Maddox to later learn she’d been cheating on him for several months. He had to fight to get all of his stuff out of the condo, but since it was in her name, he was limited as to what he could do.

  He’d finally needed friends to intercede on his behalf and basically corner and shame her into letting him come get his stuff.

  That fiasco came on the heels of him losing his job when the large accounting firm he’d worked for in St. Pete closed without warning, and with a scandal about insider trading swirling around the owners.

  Thankfully, several rounds of testing had shown Kelly didn’t leave him with any other dismal reminders of their time together.

  It was just fate and blind luck, he supposed, that made him open his options to casting a wider net for a new job and he ended up back in his hometown of Sarasota. Making a little less money than he had been, but ironically he had far better health insurance now. Plus, he’d bought a small house and was paying less per month for a mortgage and living expenses than he’d been paying for his share of rent and expenses to Kelly for her fancy condo in downtown St. Pete.

  A lot less.

  It wasn’t a large house, but an older home, a little two-two with a really large, open great room area worth about three rooms, and a completely refurbished eat-in kitchen. It also had a small pool which took up most of the backyard, and it was located in a quiet neighborhood about fifteen minutes from work on the south side of Sarasota.

  Truth be told, he’d missed Sarasota. St. Pete had been fun to live in right out of college, but he was hitting that point in his life where he knew he needed to give serious thought to the next stage. He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

  He wanted to find the right woman—or man—to settle down with.

  Maybe I should try dating guys again.

  That was the nice thing about being bi—he had options. Relationships with the last two women he’d dated hadn’t ended well. But in the past when he’d dated guys they hadn’t been interested in settling down.

  Then again, that’d been over five years ago, the last time he dated a guy. And he hadn’t dated anyone since his breakup with Kelly over a year ago. Now, he was finally ready to date again.

  Maybe.

  He hoped.

  I’m thirty-four, not sixty-four. I’m not a fricking dinosaur, for crying out loud.

  Although, times like this, he sure as hell felt like one.

  Marcia and Derrick had sat him at their table, but they were currently making the rounds, apparently knowing most of the people in attendance. That was fine with Maddox. He preferred not being the center of attention. He’d planned to sit in the back of the room and do more observing than talking tonight, to get a feel for the group, but he hadn’t felt right refusing Marcia and Derrick’s warm welcome and friendly insistence that he sit with them.

  There were more people arriving now. Instead of trying to remember everyone’s names, Maddox chose to take his seat and put in his beverage order with the waitress. While he waited, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through Facebook, pausing when one story on his feed caught his attention and punched him right in the memories.

  Not so much the story itself, but the who.

  And the location listed on it.

  Less than an hour ago, Hank Webster had posted a picture, a selfie with part of a house visible in the background.

  A selfie of him and a little girl who looked a lot like him, the same blue eyes, both of them smiling into the camera.

  All moved in! Let our new adventures begin. Great to be back in Sarasota!

  Privacy set to friends-only.

  It shocked Maddox how much his heart—and cock—still throbbed when he stared at his old friend. He also wondered when Hank had gotten married and had a…baby. She looked to be at least four or five, with long, curly blonde hair lighter than Hank’s.

  He felt a little ashamed to admit he hadn’t visited Hank’s profile in a while, but it’d felt like the bad kind of emotional masochism to keep doing it.

  Unable to help himself now that the ancient wound had reopened, he thumbed through Hank’s pictures and realized that there wasn’t…a lot.

  As in, there wasn’t much of anything of note in Hank’s profile. No pictures of a woman, no pics of a wedding, no pics beyond a couple of older profile shots that Maddox remembered seeing a few years ago.

  When he scrolled through Hank’s timeline, there were very few posts, most of them little more than scattered fuck my life kinds of grousing, or reposted memes.

  Weird.

  And his relationship status was listed as single.

  Before Maddox could do too much pondering on all of that, Derrick clinked his fork against his water glass. “Good evening, everyone. Thanks for coming out tonight. If you’re looking for the computer group, I have no idea where they are.” Laughter rippled through the room. “Let’s go ahead and get this started so the servers can take our orders.”

  Maddox knew he had to put a pin in that for now, so he forced himself to lay his phone facedown in front of him on the table.

  Oh, Hank. If only you knew some of the fantasies I had about you, buddy.

  * * * *

  What a long fucking day.

  Hank Webster collapsed on the sofa with a cold bottle of water while Jaylene happily zoomed around the house. To her, he knew, the place felt like a mansion compared to the shitty one-bedroom walk-up apartment they’d had in Pittsburgh. Now, they had a backyard, they had privacy.

  They also had over one thousand miles of distance between them and Cameron’s family. Unless he’d wanted to move them across the fricking country to California, he had to hope that’d be far enough.

  I never thought I’d be thankful Mom and Dad aren’t alive, but I kinda am.

  Which was a completely selfish thought, he knew, but it beat the alternative. Besides their hearts breaking over everything that happened, they would have absolutely still wanted to try to keep Jaylene in Pennsylvania, to not “cut off” Cameron’s family.

  Fuck those assholes.

  Them raising and coddling and enabling their narcissistic psychopath of a son was the whole reason Lois was dead to begin with. Then they’
d actually paid for the fucker’s defense attorney and had tried to paint her murder as being all her fault!

  Motherfucker.

  He’d pulled his truck into the driveway of their new house that morning a little before ten, and their landlord met them there with the keys. Hank had already handled connecting the utilities and the lease.

  Then he’d spent the rest of the day unpacking the trailer with Jaylene’s “help.”

  Which wasn’t helpful, but like hell would he tell his little girl that. JJ was happy and excited about the move, and that went a long way toward softening his mood despite his exhaustion.

  What he really wanted to do was pour himself a couple of fingers of Jack from the bottle stashed in one of the boxes marked KITCHEN, but he wouldn’t dare do that until JJ was in bed and sound asleep.

  He was over two years into his unexpected full-time single parenthood, and this move had finished draining him of every spare penny he had, but…

  Worth it.

  Absolutely worth every goddamned cent. Little Jaylene Joyce Webster was now his life, and he’d absolutely do whatever it took to protect her. You couldn’t put a price on peace of mind.

  She bounced over to him, jumping onto the couch and nearly nailing him in the nuts on the landing. “I love our house, Daddy!” she shrieked, making him wince and laugh at the same time.

  “Glad you do, sweetheart.” He’d once again reached out to Bryce, a friend from high school, to help him find it. He hadn’t wanted to get taken by some scammer, especially since he had no cash reserves. Not after the probate battle, followed by the legal battle to keep custody of Jaylene, and then filing the adoption paperwork, and the ensuing fight to revoke Cameron’s parental rights.