Page 49 of Dominion’s Collar

"Noted," I say. The word is drier than I intended.

"Noted." She turns back to the room. The faintest edge of satisfaction at the corner of her mouth. She knows she scored.

Relaxed here. Vigilant everywhere else. These walls make her safe. Whatever is outside them doesn't.

The woman in my collar is managing a problem alone. That's not how I want this to work.

The collar isn't decoration. It's an agreement, and I've discovered I want more from that agreement than I wrote into it.

She hasn't given me more. And the contract doesn't entitle me to demand it. That's the part that's grinding.

When the evening winds down, I take the collar off in the corridor. My fingers at the back of her neck. The lock releases. The ruby leaves her skin. I fold the collar into my jacket.

The ritual is the same as every other time. Except she walks out with whatever she's holding, and the contract I wrote doesn't give me the authority to stop her.

At the car, I open her door. She settles behind the wheel. Jeans and fitted jacket, the street clothes she changed into. Already the woman in front of me looks different from the one who knelt at my feet wearing a corset and collar. Put together differently. Contained by her own choices rather than mine. The version of Natalie that faces the world without my structure.

The impulse to pull her out of this car and back inside the club is sharp enough that I feel it in my hands.

I lean down to the window. Close enough that she has to tilt her chin up. Close enough to see the bare skin where the collar sat all evening.

"Lock your doors."

The corner of her mouth shifts. Almost a smile. "Every time."

"Every time." I hold the position a beat longer than the instruction requires. Let her feel the proximity. Let her decide what to do with it. "I don't like the distance between this car and the door to the club."

"You've mentioned."

"I'll keep mentioning."

Her eyes hold mine. The dare from the booth is still there, banked but present.

Then she puts the car in gear, and I step back because the alternative is reaching through the window and turning off the ignition.

She pulls out, and I stay where I am and watch her go.

Just before the turn, her head swivels. Left, right, the mirrors, the gaps between parked cars. Deliberate. Thorough.

That sweep has nothing to do with the dark or being a woman alone at night. She's done it every time since I first noticed the change.

I stand in the entrance longer than the moment requires. The air is heavy with river water, magnolia and the sounds of the night.

Five years I told myself the booth was enough. The scotch and the watching and the careful remove from anything that required more than observation. I built the collar contract with that same restraint—clean, boundaried, controlled.

Control is what I practice. What I applied to Natalie's body while she was bound in my rope, and the application was flawless.

The control I'm exercising right now is the opposite of flawless. I'm standing on the sidewalk watching her drive away from my protection into whatever she's not telling me about. The only thing stopping me from calling Luc is a clause I wrote when I still believed distance was sustainable.

I get in the car. The drive to the Lower Garden District is short this time of night, and I spend every minute of it not calling Luc.

The townhouse is quiet when I lock the door behind me and head to the study.

Scotch on the shelf. Better than what I order at the club. I pour two fingers and carry it to the desk.

The glass from the shibari night is in the kitchen, washed now. I'd stared at the unwashed glass for two days before I realized I was treating it like evidence.

My desk is clear except for the lamp and a legal pad. I've used it before.