Rose #2
Tonight, I am also wearing a sleeveless black leather dress that skims every curve I possess, paired with a push-up bra that has sent the girls straight to the heavens.
My shoulders are bare, my legs exposed below the hem, and a black leather choker circles my throat beneath a sleek high ponytail that took far more effort than I intend to admit.
So yes, I understand Gerald's reaction.
“Thank you, Gerald.”
I slide into the back seat and cross one leg over the other while he closes the door behind me. By the time he gets back behind the wheel, the tips of his ears have gone faintly pink, which is frankly adorable.
I pull out my compact mirror, check my lipstick and smooth one hand over my hair before deciding I look exactly like a woman who has her life completely under control. Today's costume of choice. A complete fabrication, obviously, but an extremely convincing one.
“You, uh...” Gerald clears his throat as he eases the car away from the curb. “You look stunning tonight, Miss Rose.”
I catch his eye in the rearview mirror and smile. “Careful, big boy. Flattery will get you everywhere.”
His grip tightens slightly around the steering wheel, and I have to bite back a laugh.
Poor Gerald.
I get an unreasonable amount of enjoyment out of making men flustered.
Sue me. He's pushing sixty-eight, happily married to Patricia, and about as threatening as a golden retriever in orthopedic shoes.
If I send him home feeling ten years younger and Patricia benefits from the increased morale delivered by a hard dick, I consider that a public service. She should send me a fruit basket.
The city slides past the windows as I tuck my compact back into my bag and settle against the seat.
For the next ten minutes, I make a sincere effort not to think about Marcus Jackson going home to his wife, taking off that suit and letting another woman put her hands where mine were less than two hours ago.
I don't think about whether she gets to touch his chest whenever she wants, or whether he kisses her the way he kissed me all those years ago, or whether those hands I know far too well spend their nights on a woman who has every legal right to them.
I certainly don't think about the fact that I was standing between his thighs earlier today and felt exactly how little his body remembers that we're supposed to be friends.
I make it maybe thirty seconds before I'm staring out the window imagining all of it anyway.
Excellent discipline, Rosalie.
Really outstanding work.
***
“Fucking hell, boss.” Lukas sucks air through his teeth as he takes my purse for the night. “Are we taking prisoners? Because goddamn.”
I laugh and lean into the kiss he presses to my cheek. “Hi, Luke baby. How's the crowd?”
“Good. Let me take you to your table.” He holds out his arm with all the polish of a gentleman I know for a fact he isn't. “Fuck, you look good on my arm.”
“Don't get attached.”
“Too late.”
Lukas is a big teddy bear, assuming the teddy bear in question is six-foot-seven, built like a linebacker and capable of changing his face from welcome home to you have exactly three seconds to leave without moving anything but his eyes. It's precisely why I hired him.
Whenever I'm at the club, he's mine. I let him know I'm coming and he stays close enough to reach me without ever hovering, which is a skill I value more than almost anything in a bodyguard.
When I'm not here as a guest, he works the front door and runs the club's social media, a combination of responsibilities that delights me every time I remember it.
One minute he's physically removing some overconfident asshole from the premises, the next he's editing a tasteful reel about Thursday's rope workshop.
A man of range.
He's been married to his husband Jonas for eleven years, so his relentless flirting is the safest kind there is. All shine, no hook.
Lukas leads me to my usual table, a circular booth positioned with a clear view of the main stage but enough shadow around the edges that I can disappear when I want to.
Three dancers move around polished steel poles in various stages of undress, two men and one woman, all of them beautiful and carrying that particular air of professional boredom that says they could perform this routine upside down while mentally making a grocery list.
A deep bass rolls through the room and comes up through the soles of my shoes.
Better already.
“I'll send Glory over, boss, then I'll station in the far corner.” Lukas points toward a table with a clean view of mine.
“Thanks, baby.”
“You know I love it when you call me that.”
He flashes me that ridiculous megawatt smile and disappears into the crowd to find my attendant.
I settle into the booth and let myself look around. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm searching for tonight. I just know the tightness that's been sitting between my shoulders all day has started to ease.
At a table to the left of the stage, a couple is entertaining themselves beneath the edge of the woman's skirt. Her legs are parted, his attention fixed on her while hers remains firmly on the dancers.
I smile into my drink.
This is the part I love.
People come through those doors carrying every stupid rule they've ever been handed about what they're allowed to want, who they're allowed to want it from and how loudly they're permitted to enjoy themselves. Then, little by little, they start putting those rules down.
Sometimes literally with their pants.
Fuck, if Michael had even the faintest idea what his big sister gets up to on the top floor of a building he doesn't know she owns, he'd require medical supervision.
And the board?
Jesus.
If they could see their buttoned-up Corporate Counsel sitting here with a leash in her hand, they'd clutch their collective pearls hard enough to turn the strands into shrapnel.
RAGs is five floors of dark velvet, low light and extremely well-organized indecency.
The first two floors are green, mostly social spaces where people can drink, flirt, negotiate, watch or finally say a curiosity out loud without someone assuming that speaking it automatically means consenting to it.
Sometimes the conversation goes somewhere.
Sometimes it doesn't. Both outcomes are considered equally successful.
Levels three and four are amber, which is where we teach.
Workshops, demonstrations, guided experiences, rope work, impact play, communication, safety.
Questions are encouraged because ignorance mixed with confidence is how people get hurt, and I've spent far too much money on this place to let anybody damage another human being because they were too embarrassed to ask where the fucking nerve endings are.
The fifth floor is red.
Private suites.
Approved members only.
Nobody gets up there because they're rich, famous, important, attractive, or convinced the rules are for lesser mortals.
Every member is vetted. No exceptions. No favors.
Curious visitors can purchase a single day pass, but they stay on green and they only get one.
If they're serious after that, they apply like everyone else.
People think the color system is branding.
It isn't.
It's the bones of the place.
To everyone here except Edison, my general manager, I'm just another member.
I pay my dues, carry a membership card and keep my ownership buried under enough corporate paperwork that nobody casually connects Rosalie Bennett of Sullivan & Associates with the woman holding the deed to five floors of consensual kink.
I prefer it that way.
My professional life and this one have absolutely no reason to meet in a well-lit room. The optics alone would send half the board into cardiac arrest, and I refuse to have RAGs treated like some dirty little scandal because a group of men in expensive suits are frightened by a flogger.
So I keep the worlds separate.
Cleanly.
By the time something finally catches my attention, I've been nursing my whiskey for nearly an hour.
A Domme passes my table with her submissive on a leash and my eyes immediately follow.
She's tall, beautifully put together, her grip on the leash relaxed but deliberate.
The man beside her wears a black leather collar, the chain running from it with a quiet metallic clink to the strap wrapped twice around her palm.
She notices me watching and slows.
Her gaze drops to my crossed legs, lingers there with open interest, then travels back up to my face.
I hold her gaze for a moment before giving her a small nod.
That's all she needs.
She changes direction and crosses toward me without a word, stopping beside the booth before laying the leash across my open palm.
The second the leather settles against my skin, something in me clicks into place.
There it is.
Not a man, exactly. Not even sex, not yet.
It's the weight of the leash in my hand and everything contained inside that small exchange.
Clear edges. Clear rules. Trust offered deliberately instead of assumed.
No guessing. No betrayal hiding behind intimacy.
Nothing I haven't agreed to and nothing that can happen without agreement in return.
My fingers close around the strap, and for the first time all day the noise in my head lowers enough that I can breathe around it.
The Domme takes the opposite side of the booth and settles into the cushions, crossing one leg over the other as she watches. There's no tension in the way she gives him over to me, no uncertainty about what she's offering. She knows exactly what she's lending out and trusts me to return it intact.
I like her immediately.
The man remains where she left him, eyes lowered, posture loose and waiting, and I let myself take him in for a moment before reaching for my drink.
I bring the straw toward his mouth.
“Drink.”