CHAPTER THREE
Geoff was waiting outside Rodney's apartment building the next morning, smoking a cigarette and looking completely out of place.
He was the kind of man who made Rodney's neighborhood look even worse by comparison.
Everything about him was expensive: the clothes, the watch, the sunglasses pushed up into hair that had been cut by someone who probably charged more than Rodney's monthly grocery bill.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and all muscle.
The kind of build that came from either obsessive gym time or being a predator species that required the bulk.
"Morning." Geoff fell into step beside him without being invited. "Bus stop that way?"
"You don't have to walk with me." Rodney wasn't sure if he meant it as a request or a statement of fact. Either way, Geoff ignored it.
"Lady Leo says the sharks shouldn't give you any more trouble, she's already been in touch with them about your debt, but 'shouldn't' and 'won't' aren't the same thing with sharks.
They get ideas. So, I'm here until the deal is finished.
" He took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled to the side, away from Rodney.
Considerate, at least. "Think of me as a very handsome scarecrow. "
Rodney didn't quite know what to do with that.
He wasn't used to having someone walk next to him.
His commute was usually a solitary affair, headphones in, eyes down, invisible.
Having Geoff there, radiating the kind of confident physicality that made other pedestrians give them a wider berth, was disorienting.
"What are you?" Rodney asked, then immediately felt rude. Some shifters didn't like that question. It was the equivalent of asking a stranger their ethnicity, technically answerable, but loaded.
Geoff just grinned. "Jaguar."
Of course he was. Something sleek and powerful and built for the jungle. Not a panda. Never a panda.
"Have you worked for Lady Leo long?" Rodney tried to make conversation, partly to be polite and partly because the silence was making him feel the weight of everything he was trying not to think about.
"Few years. She's good to work for. Fair. Expects a lot, but never more than she'd do herself." He paused. "She told me you came to her on your own. That you texted her."
"Was that unusual?"
"Very." Geoff studied him sideways, reassessing.
"Most people who end up in Lady Leo's orbit get there through the sharks, one way or another.
The sharks bring them in, she takes over, and they go through the process without ever really choosing to be there.
The fact that you reached out to her yourself, she liked that. She told me."
Rodney wasn't sure what to do with the idea that Lady Leo had opinions about him, let alone favorable ones. "I didn't know what else to do."
"That's how most decisions get made." Geoff's bus stop was apparently the same as Rodney's, because he stopped walking and leaned against the bench shelter. "You made one, though. That's more than a lot of people manage."
They waited for the bus in silence. When it came, Geoff followed him on and took the seat beside him without asking, his long legs filling the space between seats.
A woman across the aisle stared at Geoff.
He was objectively the best-looking person on the bus by a considerable margin. He didn't seem to notice or care.
"Can I ask you something else?" Rodney kept his voice low, even as, the bus noise had swallowed them enough for a private conversation.
"Sure."
"The auction. Have you—" He didn't know how to finish the sentence. Have you been sold to a stranger for sex didn't feel like appropriate bus conversation.
Geoff seemed to understand anyway. "Been through one?
Yeah. Years ago, before I worked for Lady Leo.
Different situation, I wasn't in debt. I did it because I was curious and young and thought it would be fun.
" He shrugged one big shoulder. "It was.
For me. But I'm a jaguar who's been doing kink since I was old enough to know I liked it.
It wasn't scary for me the way it'll probably be scary for you. "
"That's comforting," Rodney said dryly.
Geoff actually laughed at that. "I'm not going to lie to you, man.
You're going to be terrified. You'll be naked and blindfolded in a room full of people, and someone you've never met is going to pay money for a night with you.
That's objectively intense. But, and this matters, the people Lady Leo lets into her auctions?
They're vetted. She doesn't let anyone bid who hasn't been a member in good standing for at least a year.
And she has rules. Real ones. No one touches you until the sale is final.
No one does anything you haven't agreed to.
There's a safe word, and if you use it, everything stops. Period."
"What if I use the safe word and the person ignores it?"
Geoff's expression went harder, more animal. "Then Lady Leo's security removes them from the building, and they never set foot in any of her clubs again. I've seen it happen exactly twice. Both times the Dom was out on his ass in under thirty seconds. She doesn't mess around with that."
Rodney turned that over in his mind. "You said you did it because you were curious. What if I'm doing it because I'm desperate? Does that change anything?"
"It changes how it feels," Geoff said, with the honesty of someone who'd thought about it. "It doesn't change how it works. The rules are the same whether you're there for fun or for money. You still get to say no. You still get the safe word. The only difference is what's going on in your head."
"What's going on in my head is mostly screaming."
Geoff clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to jostle him. "That'll quiet down. Probably. Eventually. Maybe."
Rodney's stop was coming up. He pulled the cord and stood, and Geoff stood with him.
"I leave you here," Geoff said. "You'll be fine at work.
We've got someone in the area just in case the sharks try anything, but they won't. Lady Leo called them this morning and they're not stupid enough to cross her after a deal's been made. Mostly."
"Mostly."
"I'll be outside when your shift's done. If I'm not, Kanji will be. Big guy, smells like mud. Hard to miss." He held out his hand, and Rodney shook it. Geoff's grip was warm and strong and brief. "You'll be fine, Rodney."
Rodney wanted to believe him. He wasn't there yet. But it was nice to hear someone say it.
***
Work was a blur. He took calls. Apologized for things that weren't his fault.
Explained billing statements to people who didn't want to hear it.
The rhythm of the job was numbing in a way that was usually frustrating but that day it felt almost merciful; it gave him something to do with his hands and his voice while his mind ran circles.
He kept coming back to the same two images. In one, he was standing in Lady Leo's office in a janitor's uniform, mop in hand, looking at a calendar that showed three and a half years stretching out like a prison sentence. Not terrible. Just long and gray and small.
In the other, he was… he didn't know what he was.
Naked, probably. Blindfolded, almost certainly.
Standing on some kind of platform while strangers looked at him and decided what he was worth.
The image was terrifying and vivid and refused to go away no matter how many billing statements he explained.
Under the terror, that pull again. The blackjack-table itch. The wanting to know what was on the other side of the bet.
Because there was the thing: Rodney had never done anything.
Not really. He'd lived a careful, small, unremarkable life.
He'd been a stock boy in Arkansas who became a call center agent in Vegas.
He'd had two boyfriends, the camel had been nice but boring, the dolphin had been energetic but exhausting.
Both relationships had ended the same way, quietly, by mutual agreement, because neither of them could muster enough passion to fight about it.
He'd never been brave. He'd never been bold. He'd never walked into a room and made anyone's head turn. He'd moved through life like water following the path of least resistance, pooling in whatever low spot would have him.
And some small, stubborn part of him, the part he'd been ignoring for two days, wanted to know what it would feel like to stop. To make a choice that wasn't safe. To stand on that platform, blind and naked and shaking, and find out if there was something on the other side of the fear.
He wasn't brave. He knew that. But maybe, just once, he could pretend to be.
***
Kanji was waiting for him outside the call center when his shift ended. He smelled powerfully of deep earth and old water, the kind of scent that made Rodney wrinkle his nose before he could stop himself.
"You get used to it," Kanji said, noticing.
"What are you, if you don't mind me asking?" His curiosity overruled politeness.
"Komodo dragon."
Rodney had never met a Komodo dragon before. He tried not to stare. Kanji was enormous, taller than Geoff and wider besides, with the kind of stillness that suggested his resting state was simply waiting for something to get close enough. His handshake, when he offered it, was surprisingly gentle.
"Geoff says you've been asking questions about the auction," Kanji said as they walked toward the bus stop. He kept pace with Rodney easily, despite having a stride roughly twice as long.
"Is that bad?"
"It's smart. People who ask questions do better than people who don't." Kanji didn't elaborate on what "better" meant, and Rodney didn't ask. "You've got two more days. Lady Leo wanted me to tell you that if you have questions she hasn't answered, you can text her. She doesn't sleep much."
Rodney filed that away. "Does everyone who works for her like her?"