Chapter 6
Nash
The rest of the ride to the clubhouse passes in silence.
I pull into the lot and kill the engine. Her arms stay linked at my stomach. The engine is off. The ride is over. She doesn't move. Her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt, holding, and the pressure of each one registers against my abdomen.
She climbs off. Stands on the curb. The flannel hangs off one shoulder. Her bag off the other.
"Nash."
"Yeah."
She opens her mouth. The grin starts to assemble behind her eyes, then it stalls. She stands there with her mouth open and nothing comes out.
"I've got Vesper tonight." My voice comes out quieter than I planned. "Security rotation. I'll be back in the morning."
"So you're leaving me." She aims for light. Lands close.
"Malachi's here. Rider's on the door. Arden will be around."
"That's not what I asked."
My hand flexes on the handlebar. My eyes drop to her mouth. The red lipstick worn down from the day, softer at the edges. Then her throat. The pulse there, steady.
"I'll be back."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I keep meaning it."
Her lips part. Her eyes hold mine. The space between us pulls tight, and neither of us moves to close it.
"Goodnight, Trouble."
She turns and walks toward the door. The flannel slips lower on her shoulder, bare skin catching the porch light.
My eyes follow the line of her legs, the denim shorts riding up with each step, the curve of her thighs, and my chest aches with want.
The headband catches on the handlebar when my hand shifts.
I look down at the faded red fabric against my wrist.
Candace opens the door before Ruby reaches it. The door closes.
I sit on the Harley, engine off, staring at the closed door. My right hand flexes open and closed against the handlebar.
I ride to Vesper.
The building sits at the edge of town, quiet at this hour. Victor, Connor, and Phoenix renovated the space together when Phoenix brought his reformed vision of the Society to Mississippi. Malachi's sister, Amelia, runs it.
On auction nights, the bids are voluntary, the participants vetted, every transaction documented and consensual.
The rest of the week, Vesper operates as a private club.
Membership only. Background checks. Paperwork.
Couples in D/s dynamics go through an intake process before they're cleared for the private rooms. Amelia built the protocols herself, and they're tighter than anything I've seen in federal intake.
Arden is at the back entrance when I pull up. He's leaning against the wall in the dark, arms crossed, and I'd bet money he's been standing there since sundown without shifting his weight once.
"Anything?" I ask.
"Quiet." He pushes off the wall. "Has been all week."
I take the door. He stays.
"You heading to the clubhouse?" I ask.
"Eventually."
I look at him. He looks exactly the way he did twelve hours ago, yesterday, and at three in the morning last week when I found him standing at the tree line behind Amaranth.
I've never seen Arden tired. Never seen him yawn, rub his eyes, or reach for caffeine.
I stopped trying to explain it months ago.
"Nash." His voice is flat, unhurried. "You're carrying something."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." He says it the way he says everything, with the patience of someone who has more time than the conversation requires. "Leo trusted you. I trust you. If you need resources, I have connections most people don't."
Leo. Victor's guy. He and Arden ran security for Olivia when Donovan Castiel was still breathing.
Leo didn't make it. Arden stayed on after, helped the club, offered to consult on Vesper since he owns nightclubs of his own.
He's been useful. Reliable. And something about the way he talks about Leo, steady and careful, makes me think they were close.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Do." He holds my gaze for a beat. "Whatever's pulling your focus, deal with it before it deals with you."
He turns and walks toward the tree line. I watch him disappear into the dark between the oaks without making a sound.
I go inside and run the sweep. Every room.
Every lock. Every window. The main floor with its low lighting and deep leather seating.
The private rooms down the back corridor with heavy doors and soundproofing.
Each one is equipped with its own lock and intercom system that connects to the front desk.
The consultation room where Amelia runs intake sessions with new members where a stack of contracts and consent forms are filed in the cabinet behind her chair.
The back offices she keeps locked when she's not here.
Amelia is here tonight. I find her in the consultation room, laptop open, paperwork spread across the desk. She looks up from her laptop when I knock on the open doorframe.
"Nash."
She's young for the weight she carries. Malachi's baby sister, trafficked by the same network her brother spent years trying to dismantle, was rescued by Phoenix.
Now she runs a venue designed to prove that what was done to her can be rebuilt into something that operates on consent instead of force.
She doesn't talk about what happened to her. She built Vesper instead.
"Building's clear," I say. "Arden's heading out."
"Good." She leans back in her chair. "You know, most of the guys Malachi sends over for security rotation do the sweep, check the locks, and sit in the lobby on their phones. You actually walk the rooms."
"That's the job."
"That's not why you do it." She taps her pen against the desk.
"Nash, I processed your membership intake myself.
I've read your paperwork. I know what you listed under experience, preferences, and limits.
" She holds my eyes. Steady. Professional.
"The man who filled out that file understands the difference between dominance and control better than most people I've met in this work. That's why you walk the rooms."
The room is quiet. I don't confirm. I don't deny.
"I'm glad you're here tonight," she says. "Because I need your eyes on something."
I lean against the doorframe.
"There's a couple. Members for about four months. Derek and Tessa." She pulls a file from the stack. "They went through the full intake. Interviews, references, consent documentation. Everything checked out."
"But."
"Tessa's been coming in with marks that don't match what's on their approved activity list." Amelia's voice stays level, but her pen stops tapping. "I've seen her flinch twice in the lobby when he puts his hand on her back. Last week she came in wearing long sleeves in July."
My jaw tightens.
"He's charming. Knows the vocabulary. Talks about boundaries and aftercare like he read the manual.
" She sets the pen down. "But I've been in rooms with men who use the right words to do the wrong things, and something about the way she watches his face before she answers a question makes my skin crawl. "
"Have you talked to her alone?"
"I tried. He showed up ten minutes into the conversation. Said he wanted to make sure she was comfortable." Amelia meets my eyes. "She was comfortable before he got there."
The back of my neck goes hot. A Dom who uses the title to isolate, to control outside of consent, to make a woman watch his face before she speaks. That's not dominance. That's a man using the structure of trust to dismantle it from the inside.
"Is Tessa safe right now?"
"They're not scheduled until next week."
"When they come in, I want to be here. I'll watch the session from the monitor room."
Amelia nods.
"Get Tessa alone before that. Without him knowing. Have the conversation. If she confirms what you're seeing, pull the membership and flag him. If she doesn't, flag him anyway and put a monitor on every session going forward."
"And if it's what I think it is?"
"Then the club handles Derek."
The words come out flat. Quiet. Victor would put Derek through a wall.
Victor, who built his entire dynamic with Olivia on the principle that power exchanged without trust is just abuse with better lighting.
Victor, whose first wife used control as a weapon until the club took care of it, and who spent years rebuilding what that word meant before he let himself hold it again.
Amelia studies me. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just make sure she's okay."
I push off the doorframe and walk the corridor to the main floor. The venue is empty, secure, and quiet; the quiet is the problem.
Ruby would fill this space in thirty seconds.
She'd have an opinion about the lighting, a joke about the furniture, a running commentary on the layout that would make me bite the inside of my cheek.
She'd find the darkest corner of the venue and ask me what it was used for with that look on her face, chin tilted, red lips pulling into a grin that's already daring me to answer.
The thought sits in my chest and spreads. Ruby in this building. In one of those rooms. Ruby, who pushes back on every instruction I give her, who says "yes sir" in a voice that turns compliance into a dare. Who tests every boundary I set and watches my face when she crosses it.
Ruby, who doesn't know what she's asking for when she looks at me the way she looked at me tonight.
I know.
My phone buzzes.
A text from Ruby hits the women's group chat. Candace screenshots it to Malachi—this one time, because apparently "baby shower" overrides all prank-war confidentiality—and Malachi screenshots it to the officer thread, because nothing in this clubhouse stays contained for longer than forty seconds.
Sunday. Clubhouse. 2pm. The Sergeant-at-Arms is about to become a father.
Beneath it, a photo of a pastel balloon arch already half-assembled in Ruby's car.
The phone buzzes again. East, in the officer thread.
Did she just announce a goat baby shower? What the hell Nash?
I stare at the screen. That fucking goat. My mouth pulls before I can stop it.
I pocket the phone and walk the corridor back to the private rooms. The doors are closed. Locks are set. The monitor room hums with blank screens. I stop in the hallway. My hand flat against one of the heavy doors. The soundproofing absorbs everything.
Ruby on her knees. Looking up at me the way she looked up at me today in the back hallway at Amaranth, chin tipped, lips parted, daring me.
Except in this room, there's no client to get back to.
No counter between us. No joke to reach for.
Just her eyes on mine, my hand in her hair, and the word sir in her mouth. Only meaning it this time.
My hand presses harder against the door.
I pull it back. Walk to the front. Take the wall.
The sweep starts over.