“This is still new to me. You’re the only one I’ve ever—” She stopped short. Hurt crossed her face, fast then gone, but not before he saw it.
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, he said the thing he’d sworn he wouldn’t. “Since you’re comfortable with me, I’ll look after you tonight.” Had he emphasized tonight? He hadn’t meant to. As he thought it, he realized how much he hadn’t meant to. Christ, he was a mess. But he’d started down this path and held out his hand. “We can play. Nothing too heavy, just more exploration.”
The offer landed between them like a spark to dry tinder. She stared at his proffered hand, hesitated briefly, then laid her fingers across his palm. “All right.”
The answer was simple. Too simple.
“All right, who?”
“Master Lu— Uh, Rhys.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Let’s leavemasterfor Lucien,” he suggested quietly. “Sir will do when we’re not undercover.”He hadn’t meant to say more, knew he shouldn’t, yet he didn’t hold back. “With me, it always will be.”
He moved her toward the raised platform near the center of the room. It was one of the club’s more dramatic stations: asleek black frame with a suspension bar above and a spreader bar mounted below. It was public, which meant witnesses. Witnesses meant control. And distance.
He turned to face her.
“Do you remember the safeword?”
“Red, sir.”
“Very good. What are your limits?”
Her gaze held steady as she pondered his question. “I… uh… haven’t done all that much, so I don’t really know.”
“Nothing painful or humiliating, is my guess. But definitely pleasure, right?”
She nodded, a rush of color surging to her cheeks.
He led her up the steps and, with practiced hands, positioned her, lifting her wrists to the bar one at a time and securing them. Then he crouched, cuffing her ankles to the two-foot-wide floor-mounted steel bar.
The posture, elbows bent but her arms above her head, shortened her skirt, giving him a flash of a blue thong and curvy bare cheeks. For what he had in mind, the panties could stay. He wanted her to feel the thrill of being claimed while others watched. Bared, but not stripped of dignity. Visible. Powerful.
Leaving on the red satin. Not a chance.
He tugged the bow in back, and the material fluttered to the floor.
The room and the onlookers faded. His focus narrowed to the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way the pulse at her throat thrummed, the rise and fall of her breasts, and the tautness of her nipples. Lovely that.
“You’re stunning, Gaby. The doms you turned away are only beginning to realize that.”
Voice low, he praised, kept his directives concise, his touch light and deliberate. Helping her fall into a more submissive mindset with reassurance rather than fear. He also introducedher to sensation play. A feather, a rubber-tipped vampire glove, beginner’s clamps on her rosy nipples, and, finally, the furry softness of a bunny flogger stroking her breasts, belly, thighs, and, ultimately, snapping a little more firmly on her shapely behind.
Gaby swayed in her restraints more toward his touch than away from it. She was beautiful, a light flush to her golden skin, half-lidded eyes as she followed his every move, the tip of her pink tongue slipping out to wet her full lips. She was trembling, the suspension chains overhead rattling ever so slightly.
Maintaining control was harder than it should have been.
His hand traced down her spine—not for effect, not for discipline—because he needed to feel the warmth of her skin beneath his palm. He leaned close. “Easy,” he murmured, the encouragement as much for him as for her.
He kissed her shoulder, softly, barely a graze, and told himself it was part of the scene. But it wasn’t. And he knew it the instant he did it, but it didn’t stop him from wanting more.
He couldn’t resist lapping at the tip of a pink nipple, visible beyond the clamp. The second received the same treatment. But it wasn’t nearly enough for him. He released the rubber-tipped tweezers and sucked the taut bud into his mouth, watching as her head fell back. Her soft moan told him she was enjoying this as much as him. Still not enough, he palmed a firm, round cheek as he suckled. His free hand slipped into her panties in front and found her wetness.
Rhys hadn’t meant to take it this far. He hadn’t meant to snap the thin strap of her panties, or curse under his breath when he fumbled with protection—actually fumbled. He hadn’t meant to release one ankle and hike her knee over his hip. This was no longer exploration.
Before he drove into her, reason returned. His eyes met hers, still half-lidded and liquid with passion.
