"Auralia."
His voice pulled me back. I blinked, realized I'd been staring at the paddle with an expression that probably gave away everything.
"Still with me?"
"Yes." The word came out breathy. Wrecked. "Still here."
"Good." His hand returned to my lower back. "One more stop."
The collar display was in an alcove toward the back of the store. More private than the main floor, the lighting slightly dimmer, the feeling more intimate. Ms. Laurent had clearly designed this space for moments like this—moments of choosing something that meant more than its function.
Dozens of options filled the case. Thick leather pieces with heavy buckles. Delicate chains that would sit against collarbones like jewelry. Velvet ribbons with tiny silver rings. Traditional posture collars in stiff leather. Everyday collars designed to look like chokers, invisible to anyone who didn't know what they were looking at.
I couldn't focus on any of them.
The arousal had built too high. My whole body felt strung tight, skin too sensitive, nerves firing at random. The smell of leather from the case mixed with Maks's scent—cedar and warmth—and created something that short-circuited my brain entirely.
All I could think about was him putting one around my throat. His fingers working the buckle. His eyes dark with possession as he claimed me in this final, visible way.
His hand was on my back. His heat was behind me. His breath was close enough to feel.
And I was so aroused I could barely remember my own name.
I could feel it building—that squirmy, defiant energy that came when I was overwhelmed and turned on and didn't know what to do with any of it. My skin felt too tight. My thoughts scattered like startled birds every time I tried to gather them. The wanting had built to a pitch my body couldn't sustain, and something had to give.
"Which one speaks to you?" Maks asked again, patient. Waiting.
My mouth opened.
"Maybe I don't want a collar."
The words came out before I could stop them. Sharp. Petulant. The particular tone of a child pushing boundaries just to see what happens.
"Maybe I've changed my mind about the whole thing."
Silence.
I knew—even as the words hung in the air between us—that they were ridiculous. The opposite of everything I'd said last night, everything I'd felt this morning, everything I'd been feeling since I walked into this store and let him guide me through displays designed for exactly this kind of claiming.
I wanted the collar. I wanted it desperately, viscerally, with a need that scared me.
But the wanting was too big. The arousal was too much. My overwhelmed brain had short-circuited somewhere between the blindfolds and the floggers, and now it was doing the only thing it knew how to do when the input exceeded its capacity.
Pushing.
Testing.
Begging for someone to take control so I didn't have to.
Maks's eyes darkened.
The warmth bled out of them, replaced by something harder. Something dangerous. The Fox, surfacing through the careful veneer of the Daddy who'd been patiently guiding me through this space.
He stepped closer.
One step. Then another. Until my back was against the display case and his body was close enough to feel the heat radiating from him, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
His hands landed on either side of me. Caging me. Not touching, but blocking any escape.
