I got caught a few times.
Once, a date I had back in my high school days noticed my “tickle stash” box in my room and looked through the contents while I was getting us some adult beverages. It went well for a few reasons, because we were already in my room, we were about to keep the alcohol buzz going having just gone to my house from a party and also because I stayed calm and collected about it and answered all of her questions honestly. She allowed some tickling play and was very nice about it. We continued dating for a while, but she wasn’t really into tickling. She loved my foot massages though and would allow light tickles and kisses on her feet.
Many years later, I met a really nice lady while driving home from work. I was singing while stopped at a traffic light and she was laughing at me. We stopped, had dinner together and went to her place where I tickled her but didn’t discuss my kinks as the tickling happened naturally. She learned it was a full on kink when she busted me watching a tickling video. It was a little awkward for me at first, but I got over it pretty quick because she was very nice and open minded. She actually watched the video with me and played while providing commentary.
The biggest one as far as “getting caught” however was back in high school where I got caught in the act of tickling a girls feet who was flirting with me. We were in the bathroom and I had a hold of her feet tickling away. Her laughter caught peoples attention and a small group walked in on us mid-tickles because we didn’t lock the door. There were comments, teasing and awkward moments that followed as you could imagine. But it all blew over and worked out just fine because I again played it off as no big deal when ever anyone said anything about it.