Carter signaled to the bartender, a quick gesture that brought a bottle of aged tequila across the polished counter.
He didn't reach for it. Instead, he turned to Marguax, his gaze dropping to her mouth before meeting her eyes again.
"Let's go," he said.
She glanced at the bottle. "You said—"
"I know what I said." He took her wrist, his grip firm but not bruising. "Changed my mind."
Marguax's heels clicked against the marble floor as he led her away from the bar. They passed through a corridor she hadn't noticed before, tucked behind a velvet curtain.
The noise of the penthouse party faded with each step, replaced by the soft hum of climate control and the distant thrum of bass through insulated walls.
"You're not taking me to a hotel," she said. Not a question.
"No."
The corridor curved, and Carter stopped before an unmarked door. He pressed his palm to a panel that lit up under his touch, biometric lock, she realized. The door opened with a soft hiss.
"After you."
The room beyond was nothing like the opulent chaos they'd left behind. It was smaller, intimate. Dark walls absorbed the amber light from recessed fixtures.
A leather chaise dominated one corner, and floor-to-ceiling curtains masked what she suspected were windows overlooking the city.
The air smelled of sandalwood and something darker, leather, maybe. Old wood.
Carter closed the door behind them, and the silence pressed in. Soundproof. She understood that immediately. Whatever happened in this room would stay contained within these walls.
"Nice," she said, her voice flat. "You bring all your poor decisions here?"
He loosened the collar of his dark wool suit further, revealing the hollow of his throat. "Only the interesting ones."
She watched him move to a panel on the far wall, another hidden mechanism, operated by a code he entered without looking. The panel slid open, exposing shelves of black velvet compartments.
Marguax stepped closer. The collection was curated, deliberate. Silk ropes in deep jewel tones coiled like sleeping snakes.
Padded leather cuffs with polished buckles. A spreader bar with brushed steel hardware. Vibrating wands in graduated sizes.
Floggers with suede tails, soft enough for beginners, she knew, but capable of building to something more.
"You came prepared," she said.
Carter reached past her, his arm brushing her shoulder as he lifted a length of burgundy rope. He let it slide through his fingers, testing the give.
"I don't believe in improvisation when it matters." His voice was low, close to her ear. "You should know what you're walking into, Anna. Or whatever your name really is."
She turned to face him, the shelf of implements at her back. "Marguax."
His mouth curved. "That's a start."
He set the rope aside and picked up a pair of cuffs instead, supple leather lined with something soft, D-rings glinting at their edges.
"Here's how this works." He held one open, an offering, not a command. "You tell me what you want. I tell you what I'm willing to give. We negotiate before anything else."
Marguax's throat tightened. Negotiation. She hadn't expected that, the formal structure of it, the control.
"And if I don't know what I want?"
"Then we find out." He stepped closer, crowding her against the shelves. The hardware pressed cool against her back through the thin fabric of her blouse.
"You came here with no underwear. You let me touch you on that dance floor like you were starving for it. You're shaking again right now."
She was. The tremor ran through her thighs, her hands.
"Cold," she tried.
"Liar." He lifted the cuff, draping the leather over her wrist without fastening it. Just the weight of it resting there. "I think you want someone else to decide. Just for tonight. Just until you've had enough."
The proposal hung between them. Outside this room, her grandparents were arranging her marriage to a man she'd never met.
Outside this room, she was property to be traded. In here, Carter was offering her something else entirely, the chance to choose her own captivity.
"What's the alternative?" she asked.
He shrugged one shoulder. "We drink that tequila. You go back to your life. I go back to mine."
Marguax looked at the cuffs. At the rope. At the spreader bar gleaming in the low light.
"Show me," she said.
Carter's jaw tightened. He took her left wrist and buckled the cuff into place, checking the fit with two fingers slipped beneath the leather. Snug but not tight. Secure.
"Color system," he said. "Green means keep going. Yellow means slow down, check in. Red means stop everything. You say red, and we're done. No questions, no pressure. Understood?"
"Understood."
He fastened the second cuff, then guided her toward the leather chaise. His hands moved with the certainty of someone who'd done this before, many times, maybe, but without the mechanical detachment she might have expected. Each touch was deliberate. Assessing.
"Lie down."
She obeyed, sinking into the cool leather. The spreader bar came next, cuffs clicking around her ankles with the same careful precision.
He adjusted the length, spreading her legs just wide enough to make her aware of the exposure, her skirt riding up, her bare cunt open to the room's amber glow.
Carter stepped back, surveying his work.
"Gorgeous," he said, the word rough in his throat. "Now. Let's find out what you can take."
*****
Carter selected a flogger from the wall, black leather falls, each strand cut thin and precise. He let the tails drag across his palm as he turned back to Marguax, her body stretched and exposed on the chaise, the spreader bar forcing her legs apart so that her cunt was fully displayed, glistening in the amber light.
"Remember the words," he said, positioning himself at the foot of the chaise.
"Green, yellow, red," she replied. Her voice came out steadier than her trembling thighs.
He circled around her slowly, letting the falls of the flogger trail along her calf. The leather whispered against her skin, barely touching, raising goosebumps in its wake. He watched her face—the tight line of her jaw, the way her fingers flexed inside the cuffs.
"First time?" he asked.
"With any of this."
He brought the flogger down in a quick, snapping motion against her inner thigh. Not hard—, a taste. Her breath caught, her back arching slightly off the leather beneath her.
"Color?"
She swallowed. "Green."
He struck the same spot again, slightly harder. A flush bloomed across her pale skin, pink spreading where the leather had kissed her.
She didn't flinch. Her lips parted, and a soft exhale escaped her.
Carter moved up her body, the falls dragging along her thigh, across the heated skin of her stomach.
He could smell her now, musk and want rising from between her spread legs, mixing with the sandalwood in the air.
"Your body doesn't lie," he murmured. "Look at you. Dripping already, and I've barely started."
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn't deny it. Couldn't. The evidence was smeared across her inner thighs, her cunt swollen and slick, clenching around nothing.
He struck her other thigh, and this time she moaned, a low, broken sound that seemed to surprise her. Her hips shifted, pushing upward, seeking.
"There it is," Carter said. He struck again, the falls fanning across her thigh in a stinging kiss. "You're not running. You're not begging me to stop. What does that tell you?"
Another strike, harder still. Her breath came in sharp gasps now, her chest heaving beneath the white blouse, nipples straining against the thin fabric.
"That I—" She swallowed, tried again. "That I want more."
He rewarded her honesty with a series of rapid strikes—thighs, stomach, the sensitive crease where leg met hip.
She cried out, her hands fisting in their restraints, pulling against the cuffs. But she didn't say yellow. She didn't say red.
Carter paused, watching her. Sweat beaded at her temples, dampening the hair that had fallen across her face.
Her lipstick was smeared, her eyes glassy and unfocused. The defiance that had sharpened her every word earlier had melted into something rawer, need, pure and unguarded.
He set the flogger aside and moved closer, one hand bracing on the chaise beside her hip. His fingers found her chin, tilting her face toward his.
"Look at me."
Her eyes focused slowly, meeting his.
"What do you want, Marguax?"
Her name in his mouth made her shiver. She licked her lips, her voice cracking. "I don't—I don't know how to—"
"Yes, you do." His thumb traced her lower lip, pressing inside just enough to feel the wet heat of her mouth. "Say it."
She sucked his thumb involuntarily, her tongue swirling around the digit before he pulled it free. Her eyes followed his hand as it traveled down—over her throat, between her breasts, across the soft plane of her stomach.
"Please," she whispered.
"Please what?"
His fingers found her. Not pushing inside—just resting there, against the swollen heat of her cunt, feeling how wet she'd become. She jerked at the contact, a strangled moan escaping her throat.
"Please touch me."
He smiled. "I am touching you."