5. Bailey
BAILEY
The house is too quiet. Not peaceful—just wrong.
No footsteps racing down the hallway. No Eli’s soft giggle from under a blanket fort. No Maeve arguing with the smart speaker over her playlist choices. Neither of them racing through the house.
Just stillness. Heavy and hollow. I hate every other weekend.
Jessica tried to cheer me up on her way out, saying this weekend could be “a blessing in disguise” and “good for self-care.” She always says that.
It’s part of who she is—positivity and practicality.
But nothing about handing over my kids to a man who once treated my body like his personal battleground feels like a blessing.
It feels like failure.
My lawyer said we were lucky the custody arrangement wasn’t worse. That David’s influence still only goes so far. That it could’ve been every weekend. But I don’t feel lucky. I feel like someone carved out the center of my chest and left the edges raw.
The minute the SUV turned off my driveway, Maeve waving with a forced smile, Eli barely holding back tears, I wanted to scream. I didn’t. I just smiled and waved back. Because that’s what mothers do when there’s no other choice.
Now I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in a silk robe, staring at my phone, knowing damn well I’m not going to call anyone.
Not my therapist. Not my agent. Not Jessica.
There’s only one thing that works when I feel like this.
Like something is crawling beneath my skin, and it has no way out other than the way I use only when it gets bad.
Control. Pain. Release.
I stand and head to my closet. Behind the rows of tailored suits, custom gowns, and borrowed PR-approved red carpet looks is a locked armoire I bought for myself the week I moved out. Inside, everything gleams under the soft interior lights—leather, lace, vinyl, buckles, collars, cuffs.
Therapy in textile form.
Tonight’s pick is black vinyl. High neck, deep plunge cutout, crotchless with a zip-back seam and garters that snap to thigh-high boots I can barely walk in. It’s ridiculous. I love it.
I slide into the outfit slowly, like I’m remembering my body with each layer. The bite of the material against my thighs. The stretch across my chest. The cool clasp of the collar around my neck.
Better than pills. Better than screaming into a pillow. Better than pretending I’m fine when I’m not.
The trench coat goes over it—black, belted, collar up. Just enough to hide the fact that underneath, I’m dressed for sin. A mask is tucked in my bag. Keeps people from knowing who they’re playing with, and thus, vital to my career.
My keys are already in my palm. Club Praxis is thirty minutes away.
I’ve been a member since the divorce. David used to take me to a different club, and from what I’ve heard, he’s still a member at Jewel.
He doesn’t know I go to Club Praxis, and that’s how I keep it, hence the mask.
I can get in, find a safe scene partner, blow off some steam, and be home by one.
That’s the plan.
Until I open the door to the main hallway and come face-to-face with three walls of muscle and suspicion.
Sean. Wesley. Huck.
“Going somewhere?” Sean’s voice is quiet. Dangerous.
I freeze like I’ve been caught stealing cookies, except the cookies are latex and orgasms and an hour of structured degradation I was planning to purchase with a safeword. Words escape me.
Wesley leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes dancing with amusement. Huck is dead still at the end of the hallway, just watching me—his gaze steady, like he’s waiting for me to explain myself.
My throat tightens. “Target run.”
Sean lifts an eyebrow. “In black vinyl stiletto boots and full makeup at ten on a Friday night?”
“It’s a very upscale Target.”
“Try again.”
I press my lips together and try to breeze past them. “You know what? I don’t owe you an explanation. You’re my protection detail, not my parole officers.”
Sean steps in front of me, one hand braced on the wall. “Actually, you agreed to our rules. First one being—you don’t leave this property alone. Not without clearing it. Not with a threat like David still in play.”
“I’ll be fine. He has the kids, and he’s not going to hire someone to hurt me. He’s too hands-on.”
“Bailey, you’ll be dead or in a headline before midnight if you keep playing like this. You’re not leaving without at least one of us. Those are the rules.”
That shouldn’t turn me on. But it does.
Something about his voice. That rough edge of authority that vibrates down my spine like bass. Something about being stopped. Challenged. Denied.
I feel my pulse between my thighs.
Wesley tilts his head, his eyes dipping all over my body. “What’s under the coat?”
I don’t move. “Clothes.”
“Come on,” he says softly, taking a step forward. “You walked out like a woman with a plan. Show us.”
“No.”
That grin spreads. “Then I’ll guess.” He moves like a panther—slow, fluid—and reaches for the belt at my waist.
I should slap his hand. Instead, I shiver and take half a step back.
Sean’s eyes narrow. “Bailey. What the hell are you wearing?”
I shift my stance, just to get some room to breathe, and the coat parts slightly at the thigh.
Wesley sees it. Then he whistles low. “Well damn. You weren’t kidding.”
“I said clothes. I don’t need your permission to wear whatever I want.”
He chuckles. “You certainly don’t.”
Huck finally speaks, voice low and gravel-smooth. “Where were you going?”
I grit my teeth. I can’t tell if I’m mad or turned-on by this grilling. “You three want to be in my business? Fine. I was going to a kink club.”
They all go still.
I lift my chin. “I need to blow off steam. I didn’t think it would matter if I left for a few hours.”
Sean’s jaw ticks. “It matters.”
Wesley steps closer again, gaze dark now. “Why go out for something we can give you right here?”
The air shifts. My mouth goes dry. “What?”
“You want pain?” Sean asks. “Structure? Rules? You think we don’t know how to give that to you?”
Wesley’s voice drops. “You don’t have to sneak out for service, baby.”
Huck rumbles, “We’ve been waiting a long time.”
My breath catches. The trench coat suddenly feels too warm. My skin feels tight. The wet ache in my belly spreads like honey.
I meet Sean’s eyes. “Are you serious?”
He steps close. So close I can feel his body heat. “We don’t play about things like this.” The second Sean unties the belt of my trench coat, I forget how to breathe. He doesn’t pull it open right away. He just slides the knot free with slow, deliberate fingers. Taking his time.
My whole body tenses. What is happening right now?
Wesley steps around to my other side, and Huck comes up behind me, his presence massive and steady. I’m surrounded. Caged—but not trapped. It’s a different kind of held. One I asked for without asking for it.
The coat opens, and I’m exposed. The nipple cutouts, the open crotch, all of it. There for them to see.
Wesley exhales, low and reverent. “Holy shit. ”
The vinyl hugs me like it was poured on. Black. Shiny. A scene-ready masterpiece designed to attract punishment.
Sean’s voice is a rasp. “You thought leaving here in that would be safe for you?”
My lips part, but no sound comes out.
He touches the edge of the zipper that runs from my throat and twists around the curves to the base of my spine. “I asked you a question.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Yes what?”
I swallow. “Yes, sir. ”
Something changes.
Wesley smiles, but it’s a darker thing now—his usual warmth tinted with hunger. “Well, look at that. She remembers her manners.”
“I remember a lot of things,” I say, breathless, thinking about a stolen kiss from over a decade ago.
“Good,” Sean murmurs. “So do we.”
Huck’s voice rumbles behind me. “Colors. Red, stop. Yellow, slow. Green, go.”
“Green,” I say instantly. “So green.”
That’s all it takes.
Sean grabs my wrist and spins me until I’m facing the wall. He presses me into it with one hand on my back, the other guiding the coat down my arms.
“Hands behind,” he orders.
I obey.
Wesley’s fingers are at my throat, stroking the vinyl collar. “You wore this to attract someone who would take control, didn’t you?”
I nod, breath shaky. “It’s the only thing that works. That makes me feel right when I’m not.”
“You don’t need anyone else’s hands but ours.” Wesley lifts my chin, kisses my cheek, then bites my ear just hard enough to make me gasp.
Sean’s voice is calm, clinical. “Huck, strip her. Wes, cuffs.”
“Yes, sir,” they answer in sync.
A shiver rolls through me. I’ve scene-played for years. David handed my body to strangers, and I’ve safe-worded out of dynamics that felt hollow. But this? This is something else.
This is the three men I’ve wanted longer than I’ve known how to want.
Huck’s big hands peel the coat the rest of the way down.
He tugs the garters free and lifts my arms overhead with the kind of strength that makes me feel tiny —and I love it.
God, I love it. The vinyl creaks, taut across my chest, as he cuffs my wrists in soft leather.
He walks me to where I have a heavy hurricane lamp hanging on a large bracket on the wall.
He leaves the chained hook, removes the lamp and lifts my wrists over the hook.
I’m exposed. I’ve been exposed before. But this time, I feel seen.
Wesley presses his front to my back. “We’re going to have fun with you, baby.
Not sure for how long. Could be hours. Maybe the whole weekend.
Depends on how good you are.” He buries his face into my hair, close enough I feel the heat of his breath on my ear again.
“We’re going to use you, because you need to be used, don’t you? ”
I whimper. My thighs tremble. “Please, sir.”
And then Sean turns me and drops to his knees in front of me. “Look at me.”
I do, and everything disappears.
Sean’s eyes drag up my body like he’s memorizing me cell by cell. “You look filthy standing there in that outfit, cuffed up like a pretty little problem for us to solve.”