How to Reprimand Your Rock Star (DommeNation #2) by Mina Vaughn Page B

campus and feeling well enough to practice and play. In other words, suck up.
    To occupy myself, I plugged the week’s homework schedule into my phone. Classics was a fun, light major at first, before it got into the heavy classes, ones taught completely in Latin and Greek and sometimes Hebrew. Right now I was taking Philosophy, Roman Civ, Latin 201, and Lyric Poetry. Lots of reading, not so much writing. Which was good for me. I liked acquiring knowledge, not regurgitating it. They were never “my own words,” they were chewed up and spit out versions of what I had read. I can’t say it better than Ovid, so why ask? No, it was the facts that got to me. The history.
    I stopped short when I arrived at the house. The Red Devil was loading up a little black convertible full of boxes. I wondered if there were tawses in them. Or if any had accidentally fallen on the ground, abandoned, and I’d have to shove it in my backpack for use with Keaton. Eep!
    “Hey you,” she said, spotting me. I froze. “Give me a hand.”
    No please or thank you in her vocabulary.
    “Okay,” I said, hefting a box from the steps and loading it into her car.
    “It’s Scarlett, you know,” she said, placing another box inside.
    “Huh?” I asked.
    “My name,” she answered, tucking her hair behind her ear. It was straight today and the color reminded me of the red copper pots my dad kept in our kitchen. “It’s not the Red Devil. It’s Scarlett.”
    I nodded. “Right, I know that. I’m Thea.”
    She smirked. “I know.”
    My hand rested on the box, itching to know what was inside. Was it more kinky items?
    “I didn’t mean to scare you the other day,” she said, slamming the trunk and looking me boldly in the eye. Did this woman ever blink? “I just thought you were curious and maybe a little too shy to say something.”
    “Something?” I asked. I had been touching a leather whip-like thing. What else could I want to say?
    She pursed her full lips. “You’re like me.”
    My eyes widened. Was she hitting on me? Was this officially the week of superbold and powerful people making me feel confused?
    “How?” I asked dumbly.
    She reached into her purse and pulled out what looked like a dog toy. It was a clear strap with a rubber ball in the middle. “You’re kinky. And dominant. But, unlike me, you have no idea how to handle it.”
    The feeling was similar to when Callie punched me in the gut. The wind spurted from my body and my stomach clenched. “Don’t pretend you know me.” I surprised myself with my brazen words. This woman brought the team to tears on a daily basis, and I was giving her an attitude.
    Her lip curled in a half-sneer, half-smirk. “That’s right. I don’t know you, but I know your type. And your type silently broods while the older girls boss you around, am I right? You clench your fists and wish for a voice. Or someone to smack around. I bet you took care of bullies when you were a kid, eh?”
    She was not wrong about the bully part. Poor Garrett McHugh was tied to that telephone pole for an hour for giving Anthony a wedgie.
    It was hard forming a response. On one hand, I couldn’t stand not being able to speak my mind around the team. But, smack someone around ? “I’m not the violent type.” I eyeballed the thing in her hands and realized it wasn’t a dog toy at all. “And does that go in a person’s mouth?”
    She nodded. “It’s not about violence, it’s about control. And trust me, they like it. This is in my purse because someone likes it. And he’s going to like it in about ten minutes. If you’ll excuse me.”
    It’s about control. Someone likes it.
    Scarlett totally understood me. And I understood Keaton.
    She opened her car door and sat inside. I stood above her, and she straightened.
    “Can I ask you more sometime?” I said, throat tightening at the question. She was right about me, and dammit, I didn’t want to be caught unawares around Keaton. He knew what we both