Page 107 of Nash
Vesper. Tonight. He promised last night in the parking lot.
"You're taking me to Vesper," I repeat. "Tonight. After what you just did. You're going to edge me in a supply closet, send me back to work, then take me to a sex club?"
"That's the plan."
"That's DIABOLICAL, Nash. That's a level of psychological warfare that should be studied. I'm going to spend the next four hours tattooing people while thinking about what you're going to do to me at Vesper. You know that, and that's the POINT."
His mouth twitches. "Get back to work, Ruby."
He walks back to the door. Takes his position. Arms at his sides. Eyes on the street.
I stand in the closet with ink on my boots, my body vibrating, my pussy throbbing, my jeans buttoned over the mess he made of me. My underwear is ruined. My next client is in thirty minutes, and I have to tattoo a straight line while the man who just edged me against a shelf of ink bottles stands ten feet away watching traffic. Knowing tonight he's taking me to Vesper, knowing every second between now and then is part of the punishment.
I step over the broken bottle, grab a rag, mop up the cyan, and toss the glass. Fix my hair in the mirror by the door and walk back to my station on legs that aren't entirely reliable.
In the mirror, his mouth twitches again.
"I saw that," I say.
He doesn't answer.
I pick up my machine. My hands are steady. My pulse is absolutely not.
Four hours until Vesper. Four hours of straight lines, steady hands, and pretending my clit isn't throbbing in time with the tattoo machine.
I've never wanted to close a shop faster in my life.
Chapter 25
Ruby
"Nopanties."
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."
