Page 56 of Dominion’s Collar

The shaking won't stop. Every muscle is trembling. The wetness between my thighs has spread to the insides of my knees. His hand is still there, cupping me, holding the place where I came apart.

The room is quiet.

Sebastien unbuckles the cuffs. The blanket goes around my shoulders. His arm goes around the blanket. Whatever line separates aftercare from possession doesn't matter anymore.

He lifts me. One arm under my knees, the other across my back, and I'm against his chest before I've registered leaving the ground. He carries me to the alcove set back from the main floor and sits with me in his lap.

His hand settles at the back of my neck, thumb resting against the collar. Steady. Certain. He doesn't let go of what's his.

"Drink." He puts the water bottle in my hands. My fingers are shaking. I manage it.

"Anything hurt?"

"Everything hurts." My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. "Nothing's wrong."

"You were perfect." His hand stays. Thumb on the collar. Not stroking it. Holding the position.

The main floor resumes its pulse around us. Conversation. Music. Life continuing. A few glances drift toward the alcove and linger before looking away. The quiet around us has a quality I can't name, but it doesn't feel like indifference.

Renata appears with fresh water and a Negroni, setting both on the side table without commentary. She squeezes my shoulder once. Brief and warm.

"You good?" she asks.

"I'm good." The answer surprises me with its accuracy.

"You look it." She grins and heads back toward the bar. Andy is leaning against the service end, and when Renata passes him she trails two fingers across his forearm. Doesn't break stride. He shifts his weight toward the touch, eyes still on his bourbon. Small. Automatic. The ease of a couple who exist together without performing it.

Marion crosses my sight line near the lounge archway. She catches my eye for a fraction of a second. The look isn't jealousy or resentment or anything I'd scripted for the woman whose arrangement with Sebastien I displaced. It's recognition. One woman acknowledging another's experience with the economy of someone who's been there and knows the terrain.

Sophie DuBois stops at the edge of the alcove. The severe European efficiency I first read as dominance is softer tonight, her posture carrying the particular looseness of a woman who scened earlier and hasn't fully reassembled. She looks at me as she did in the corridor weeks ago, except now the assessment has warmth behind it.

"The first public scene is the hardest," she says. No preamble. No small talk. "Everything after gets quieter."

"Quieter how?"

"Eventually you realize the audience isn't who you're performing for."

She touches Sebastien's shoulder in passing as she leaves. Brief, respectful. He nods. She's gone.

The collar sits against my throat. Sebastien's arm around my shoulders. The blanket. The water. The fading tremors in my thighs and the deep, satisfied ache in my back where the flogger marked me.

Nobody asks me to explain or justify what just happened. A submissive who surrendered on the main floor. A Dom holding her in the aftercare alcove. This is Dominion, and I'm part of it now.

I came to Dominion to infiltrate it. The collar should provide me with better access to find Claire's killer. The investigation is still mine. The pattern has a name now, and Andy gave me the framework for building what NOPD can't ignore.

My hand rises to the ruby pendant. The metal holds my body heat. The leather sits at the base of my throat like it was made for the hollow there.

The problem is that the collar isn't tactical anymore. The woman I am when I'm wearing it is mine.

Sebastien's hand tightens fractionally on my shoulder. "You're thinking," he says.

"I'm always thinking."

"Usually you hide it better." His voice carries the dry edge that makes me lose ground I can't afford. "Tonight your thinking is louder than the music."

"The music is quiet."

"My point exactly."