Page 107 of End Game

Ronan’s mouth tightens slightly. “I’ve thought about how I phrased it since then, and I don’t like it.”

That catches everyone’s attention.

“It sounded like I was giving you special authority over Cami’s consent because you’re her husband.”

Cami’s eyebrows rise.

“And that wasn’t exactly what I meant,” Ronan continues. “But intent doesn’t make the explanation better. I should have been clearer.”

Griffin watches him for a moment. “What did you mean?”

“That anyone in a scene has the right to safeword. Dominant, submissive, switch, observer, whatever role they’re in.”

Griffin nods slowly.

“If you’re in the room and something feels wrong, you can call red. You don’t need permission, and you don’t need to be the person something is being done to.”

Cami glances between them. “But he’s not actually safewording for me.”

“Right.” Ronan smiles. “That’s the distinction I should have made. I chose my words wrong.”

He leans forward, forearms resting against his thighs.

“If Griffin calls red because he’s worried about you, he’s not overriding your green. He’s saying I need this scene to stop. Then it stops, because one of the people in the room withdrew their consent for it to continue as it was.”

“So if I were watching something with Dex and Micah and it started freaking me out,” Cami says slowly, “even if Dex was perfectly happy—”

“You can safeword,” Ronan says.

Dex nods. “Because you’re allowed to not be okay.”

“And then everybody checks in,” I add. “Including Dex. Nobody decides he wasn’t consenting because you got uncomfortable.”

Ronan looks at me. “Exactly.”

Griffin leans back. “So why single me out back then?”

Ronan doesn’t dodge it. “Because I was trying to make you in particular more comfortable.”

Griffin stays quiet.

“You were walking into something completely outside your experience,” Ronan continues. “You trusted Cami, but you didn’t know whether you trusted us yet. Not with this. And I knew asking you to sit there and watch something that might be difficult for you without feeling like you had any ability to stop it was going to make that worse.”

“Yeah,” Griffin admits. “It would’ve.”

“I just should have told you that everyone had that same exit.”

Cami squeezes Griffin’s hand. “I actually like that better.”

“So do I,” Griffin agrees.

Dex raises his hand.

Ronan takes a deep breath. “What?”

“So hypothetically, if I’m observing a scene and become deeply distressed because nobody has paid attention to me for seventeen seconds—”

“You may safeword,” Ronan says flatly.