Chapter 25
Ruby
"No panties."
I stare at Nash from the bathroom doorway, mascara wand frozen mid-stroke. "Excuse me?"
He's standing at my closet, flipping through hangers with the focused efficiency of a man who has already made every decision and is simply locating the physical evidence. He pulls out a black dress I forgot I owned, fitted, knee-length, low back. Holds it up. Studies it. Hangs it on the door.
"No panties. Heels. Red lipstick." He turns to look at me. "That dress."
"Nash, we're riding the bike."
"We're taking the truck tonight."
"You own a truck?"
"Club truck. Knox dropped it off an hour ago." He leans against the bathroom doorframe. "Put that away. We need to talk before we go."
I cap the wand, drop it in my bag, and turn to face him. "Talk about what?"
"Tonight is different." He tips my chin up with two fingers. "When we walk through Vesper's doors, I'm not Nash your boyfriend. I'm your Dom. The dynamic we've been playing with at home, in the closet, in bed? Tonight we do it for real. In a space built for it."
My stomach flips. My pulse picks up. "Okay."
"There will be other couples there. Dominants and submissives.
Dommes and their subs." His thumb traces my jaw.
"If we come across a couple and the woman or man won't look you in the eye or speak to you, it's because they've been instructed not to.
That's their dynamic. You respect it. You don't push, you don't joke, you don't try to pull them into conversation. "
"I push everything, Nash."
"Not this. Not other people's dynamics." His voice is firm. "What happens inside that club is private. Nothing discussed outside those walls. The people we see, the things we see, stay at Vesper."
"Okay."
"Some couples live this way full-time. Others only in the bedroom. Some have contracts that outline every boundary, every expectation."
"Contracts?" I blink. "Like... legal contracts?"
"Not legal. Negotiated agreements. Limits, desires, hard stops. Everything discussed, everything consensual."
"Do we need a contract?"
"Not tonight. Tonight we use the three rules we already have." He holds up his fingers. "I set the pace. You say stop and everything stops. You don't come until I tell you to."
"That last one is going to be a problem in public."
"And one more for tonight." He holds my gaze. "You don't touch anyone but me. You follow my lead. If there's someone who won't speak to you, I'll tell you."
"Four rules."
"Four rules."
"I can handle four rules."
"You couldn't handle three in the supply closet."
"That was a hostile work environment. This is a controlled recreational setting. Completely different jurisdiction."
His mouth twitches. "Finish getting ready. Red lipstick. The dark one."
"You know which shade of red lipstick I own?"
"I know everything about your mouth, Ruby."
I close the bathroom door because I need thirty seconds alone with that sentence before I can function.
The dress fits. I didn't remember buying it, which means Candace probably snuck it into my closet during a shopping trip.
Which means Candace saw this coming before I did.
The fabric hugs my ribs, my waist, and my hips.
The low back exposes my shoulder blades and the freckles Nash counted two days ago.
No bra since the dress doesn't allow one.
No panties, per his instruction, which means I'm standing in my bathroom in a black dress, heels, and red lipstick with absolutely nothing between me and whatever Nashville Sutton has planned.
The vulnerability hits differently than I expected.
Electric. My skin hums under the fabric, aware of every inch of exposure, every movement sending a whisper of air against bare skin that normally has a cotton barrier.
I shift my weight and feel the dress slide against my inner thighs, making my breath catch.
I open the bathroom door.
Nash is in the living room, and he is not wearing his cut. I stop walking. My hand grips the doorframe.
He's in dark jeans, boots, and a black button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, so his tattoos are on full display.
The fabric pulls across his shoulders and chest. No leather or patches.
No Sergeant-at-Arms. Just Nash in a shirt that turns his eyes darker and his jaw sharper, and the absence of the cut changes his entire silhouette into something I wasn't prepared for.
"I can't—" I press my hand to my chest. "I need a moment.
Several moments. You can't just stand there looking like that without warning.
There should be a siren. An alarm system.
Something that alerts the general population that Nashville Sutton is wearing a button-up and rolled sleeves because this is a PUBLIC SAFETY ISSUE. "
"Ruby."
"I'm not done. Your forearms. Your FOREARMS, Nash. In that shirt. With the sleeves. I've been fantasizing about your forearms for fourteen months and now they're just OUT, on DISPLAY, like you woke up and decided to ruin my entire cardiovascular system before we even leave the apartment."
"Are you finished?"
"I am not finished. I will never be finished. I am filing a formal complaint about your arms and your jaw and the way that shirt fits across your chest. The complaint is ongoing. The complaint has no end date."
He crosses the room. Stands in front of me. His eyes move from my face to the red lipstick to my neck to the dress to the hem to my heels, and the way he looks at me makes every inch of bare skin under this dress flush.
"You look beautiful," he says.
"You look illegal."
He takes my hand. "Let's go."
The truck is a black F-150 parked in my lot. Nash opens the passenger door, helps me up, and his hand lingers on my lower back where the dress opens, his palm flat against my bare skin. The contact sends heat straight down my spine. He rounds the truck, climbs in, and starts the engine.
"Nash."
"Yeah."
"I'm nervous."
He reaches across the console and takes my hand. Brings it to his mouth. Presses his lips to my knuckles.
"I've got you," he says.
The drive takes fifteen minutes. Vesper sits on the edge of town, a converted warehouse with a stone facade, no signage. You'd drive past it without a second glance. Nash parks in a gated lot behind the building. He kills the engine, rounds the truck, then opens my door.
His hand finds my lower back again as we walk to the entrance. His thumb traces slow circles against my bare skin. Guiding. Grounding. The touch says I'm here without words.
The door is heavy dark wood. Nash enters a code on a keypad. The lock clicks.
Arden is inside.
He's standing just past the entrance in dark clothes with his arms crossed. His presence fills the narrow foyer the way Arden fills every space, quiet and absolute. He nods at Nash.
"Evening."
"Arden."
Arden's eyes shift to me. The faintest smile touches his mouth.
My face goes hot. Arden does security here. Arden, the vampire, does security at a sex club. Arden, who has supernatural hearing and stands on the porch at the clubhouse making small talk about the weather, is going to be fifty feet away with his vampire ears while I—
Nash's hand presses harder against my back. "Arden sees everything that happens in this building, and none of it leaves the building. That's his job. That's why he's the best at it."
"I see nothing," Arden says. "I hear nothing. I'm furniture."
"Very attractive furniture," I say before I can stop myself.
Arden's smile deepens. Nash's hand tightens on my back.
"That counts as touching," Nash says. Low. In my ear.
"I complimented his appearance. That's visual, not physical. Different jurisdiction."
"We haven't even made it past the door, and you're already testing boundaries."
"I'm warming up."
Nash guides me past Arden into the main hall. The space opens up to low lighting, warm tones, exposed brick, and dark wood. Music plays softly, ambient, nothing I can identify. The air smells like sandalwood and something warmer, deeper, a scent I can't name that settles in my chest.
"Amelia designed this," I say.
"Amelia redesigned this. The previous owners had different priorities." Nash's hand stays on my back as we move through the space. "The main lounge is open to all members. Drinks, conversation, socializing. The rooms branch off to the right. Each one serves a different purpose."
We pass a couple at a low table. The woman is seated on a cushion beside the man's chair, her hand resting on his thigh. She doesn't look up when we pass. The man nods at Nash. Nash nods back.
"She's in a dynamic," Nash says quietly. "She won't speak to you unless her Dom gives permission."
I nod. My hand tightens in his.
The first room on the right has its door open. Dim light, a large bed centered on the floor, sheer curtains creating a boundary. It's empty.
"Exhibition room," Nash says. "For couples who want to be watched."
My face burns. "People just... watch?"
"If the couple consents to an audience. The curtains can be closed or open."
We move on. The next door is closed and has a red light above it.
"Occupied," Nash says. "Red means do not disturb. Green means the couple is open to observation."
A sound drifts through the closed door. Low, rhythmic. I press my lips together and keep walking. My pussy clenches under my dress.
The third room is larger with its door open. Inside, padded surfaces, restraints mounted to the wall, a low bench. A cabinet along one side with drawers.
"Impact room," Nash says. "Floggers, paddles, restraints. For couples who negotiate that kind of play."
"Have you—"
"Yes."
"With the previous—"
"Yes."
"Okay. Okay. Processing. Filing that under 'things that are making me equal parts nervous and wet.'"
His thumb circles on my bare back. "There are private rooms at the end. Soundproofed. No observation unless requested. That's where we're going tonight."
We round a corner and nearly walk into a couple coming the other direction. The man is tall and broad with dark hair. He's dressed in all black. The woman beside him is small, has long black hair that falls past her shoulders, and her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Her eyes are down.
"Nash." Victor extends his hand.
"Victor." Nash shakes it.
I've seen Victor at the clubhouse a dozen times.
Laughing with East. Arguing with Knox about security protocols.
Grilling burgers at cookouts with his sleeves rolled up while Olivia sat in a lawn chair giving him shit about the char marks.
But Victor at Vesper is a different man.
His posture, his gaze, the way Olivia stands beside him with her eyes down. Everything about them has shifted.
"Olivia," Victor says. He speaks a single word to the woman at his side.
Olivia lifts her eyes. They find mine, warm, bright blue, and she smiles. "Hey, Ruby."
"Hey." I smile back. "I love that dress."
"Thank you." Her voice is soft and genuine. Her hand stays on Victor's arm.
Victor and Nash exchange a few words about the security rotation, about Arden's schedule, and I watch Olivia while they talk. She's calm, present, her body oriented toward Victor even while she's looking at me. When Victor finishes speaking, Olivia's eyes drop again. Smooth, natural, practiced.
She spoke to me because Victor told her she could. She spoke only to me.
My eyes catch on the necklace at Olivia's throat. It's a delicate gold chain with a small pendant resting in the hollow of her collarbone. She wears it everywhere. The clubhouse. The cookouts. Every gathering I've ever seen her at. I've seen it a hundred times and never thought about it.
It's a collar.
Olivia has been wearing a collar in front of all of us for months. I never saw it because it looks like jewelry and they never broke character. Victor and Olivia have a full-time dynamic. Every cookout, every dinner, every gathering where Olivia sat laughing with us. The necklace was always there.
The thing that hits me, standing in this hallway watching Olivia's eyes drop with practiced ease, is that the dynamic didn't make Olivia smaller.
It made her bigger. I think about the Olivia I met when I first came to the club.
Quiet. Careful. A woman who held herself like she was trying to take up as little space as possible.
She barely spoke above a whisper. She flinched when people moved too fast around her.
That Olivia is gone. The woman wearing that gold chain now laughs louder than anyone at the cookouts except me.
She argues with Sloane about baby names.
Trash-talks Knox during poker. Even threw a dinner roll at East's head last month because he called her cooking "adequate" and her aim was perfect.
Victor's structure didn't cage her. It gave her a foundation solid enough to stand on, then she grew into a woman who throws dinner rolls, laughs with her whole body, and wears a collar like a crown.
My hand finds Nash's. I squeeze.
Victor nods at Nash. They move on. We move on.
Nash's thumb traces circles on my back as we walk. "You okay?"
"I'm more than okay." I look back over my shoulder at Olivia's gold chain catching the light as they turn the corner. "I'm starting to understand."