Page 31 of Dominion’s Collar

"And a different collar?"

Even on her knees, she's thinking ahead. The researcher and the woman coexisting in the same body, kneeling on the same floor.

"And a different collar."

I settle it against her throat. It fits. The ruby sits in the hollow between her collarbones.

My fingers find the lock at the back of her neck. The click is small and definite. The quietest sound in the room and the loudest thing I've heard all night.

She exhales. Not a sigh, not relief, not surrender. A breath she's been holding since she walked in. I don't know how long.

I step around to face her. From above, the collar changes the geometry of her throat. The ruby rests exactly where I designed it to rest.

I extend my hand. She looks at it, then at me, and takes it.

I help her to her feet. The motion brings her close enough that I can feel the warmth rising off her skin. She steadies against my grip before letting go.

She reaches up and touches it. One finger tracing the edge where leather meets skin. The gesture mirrors the one I've watched her make a dozen times, fingers searching her bare throat for a ghost she never names. Now something answers. The ruby warms under her touch.

"How does it feel?" I ask.

She takes the question seriously. The focused honesty that surfaces only when she stops performing.

"Like a decision I can't take back by myself."

That's the most accurate thing she's said to me yet.

I open the door. Natalie walks beside me down the stairs. The ruby is visible above her neckline, catching the stairwell light. She's still in street clothes. She's wearing my consideration collar. The combination shouldn't work. It does.

The room adjusts. Not dramatically. The way a current shifts when a new element enters the water. Subtle, but visible to anyone who knows what a collar from Obsidian means. Which is everyone in this building.

Renata sees it first. Her hands pause on the glass she's drying. She doesn't say anything. The look she gives me is the same one she gave me the night I left the booth. Except this time there's something beneath the surprise. Approval, maybe. Or worry. With Renata, those live close together.

Cole catches it from across the room. A single nod. Professional acknowledgment from a man who understands exactly what just changed.

Near the bar, Marion is watching. She meets my eyes. There's no hurt in the look. No surprise, either. She saw this coming before I did. She lifts her glass an inch and looks away.

Luc is at the back bar. He takes one look at the ruby on Natalie's throat. His mouth opens. Then closes.

The restraint is heroic. It won't last.

I walk Natalie to the door. My thumb finds the lock mechanism at her nape. The click releases, quieter going out than it was going in. The collar comes off. I fold it into my jacket pocket, where it will stay until next time.

"Thursday," I say.

She nods. Her fingers drift to the bare skin where the collar was. The ghost of it already occupying the space.

She walks out into the New Orleans night. The collar stays in my pocket. The absence goes with her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Natalie

The dresser has steady fingers. She laces the corset with the efficient rhythm of a woman who's done this enough times that the muscle memory has replaced the attention. Two sharp tugs per cross, then the next. The boning tightens around my ribs, reshaping my posture into something deliberate.

The boning doesn't allow a slouch. Sebastien had this made, and the posture it enforces feels like his hands correcting my spine from another room.

This is my first time changing here. The submissives' lounge smells like leather conditioner and perfume, warm and close, the lockers lining the walls in dark wood.