Leland passed him without a word, disapproval radiating off him.
Mateo lingered just long enough to say, “You know, you’re great at reading a room. You just miss yourself in it. And that leads to some impressively bad calls.”
Rhys didn’t answer.
He stood there long after the others had driven off, her words echoing in his head.
It was one night. I’m not asking for more.
Somehow, that hurt worse.
As he turned toward his car, Rhys realized the restraint he’d spent years perfecting wasn’t holding, and he’d never felt quite so out of control.
Chapter 15
Three weeks had passed since Costa Rica. Three weeks of silence that felt louder than anything they’d said. Deafening in all the things he hadn’t.
Álvarez’s assistant had been in touch twice, providing polite but evasive updates about shifting timelines, finalizing arrangements, and reminders about discretion. The invitation to the island was coming. Everyone knew it. The waiting was just another kind of pressure.
In the meantime, Dev had the team working secondary leads, tracking smaller buyers, watching shell accounts, and nudging informants. Useful work. Necessary work. But not the work they were here for.
With the op already set, everything else felt like motion without momentum. Like killing time while the real danger waited just out of sight.
And then there was Gaby. The awkwardness between them had become impossible to ignore.
The others noticed. Dev’s silence made it worse. More than once, Leland had given him a measured look that made it clear he’d already drawn his conclusions. Mateo had offered unsolicited advice over drinks. Rhys ignored it and was called a fool, out loud this time, as he walked away. Alec, surprisingly, said nothing, which meant he was thinking.
Rhys was thinking, too. More than he should. It was why he’d come to the club tonight—not to monitor or manage, and not to play. He’d come to quiet the noise in his head. To relax, if that was still possible.
Dev and Cari liked to mix things up and never let the opportunity for a special event pass them by. He didn’t know what they had planned for July 4th,but it wasn’t anything like he’d imagined.
Red silk ribbons wound around wrists and throats. White lace traced spines and hips. Blue body paint swept across bare skin in stars and stripes, like living banners.
Liberty Night, as Cari had dubbed it, celebrated freedom through surrender and spectacle through control—a contradiction Rhys felt far too keenly tonight.
Ironically, the one place he’d come to escape tension was the one place it waited for him most faithfully. Because when he stepped into the playroom, his gaze found her immediately.
Gaby stood near an aftercare station, out of the way, like she was trying to disappear. Impossible, with her dark hair in loose spirals around her shoulders, the blue ribbon knotted at her throat matching her blue-and-white star-spangled skirt. The red was a satiny swath tied around her breasts. She looked stunning, and his body responded despite willing it not to.
She wasn’t playing. Didn’t seem to be looking for a partner. She was simply there.
A dom approached her, his smile confident, charming. He walked away soon after when she shook her head and declined.
Another followed a few minutes later. Again: no, thank you.
Jealousy flared in his chest when a third approached. It was ridiculous. He had no claim on her here. Not tonight. Not ever.
And yet, seeing others interested in her, knowing she was free to accept or decline, stirred something inside him he didn’t want to name.
He pushed off from the wall before he could talk himself out of it. “You’re not participating tonight?” he asked, stopping a few feet away.
She looked up at him, surprised, then her eyes shuttered quickly. “Is that a problem?”
“It is if you came here wanting to,” he said, adopting the careful neutrality he used whenever he wanted he shouldn’t. “Were the doms not to your taste? Or rude? If so, I can speak to them. Perhaps give a manners lesson.”
“No. They were fine, and perfectly polite.”
“What’s holding you back?”
