This scene is bothering Eli, and I don’t think it has anything to do with chains and blindfolds. I let myself touch the discomfort and the commitment of the man standing beside me and carefully giving me the space he said he wouldn’t. Steadfast space. He’ll catch me in an instant if I ask him to.

I breathe in and remember Quint’s words. I’m strong enough to do this with Eli standing beside me. And no matter what he’s feeling, he’s the one who set this scene up so that I could watch.

I know why. He thinks I might be like Tamelia. Everyone does.

I exhale and start taking inventory of my own soul.

My brain is fascinated. What’s happening on that stool is a hot mix of therapy and theater and sex, and the part of me that loves understanding motivations is captivated. So is the part of me that loves bringing people into brave new worlds—I just do it with silk and lace and a well-fitting corset.

Tamelia runs a feather down the arm of one sub and they both quiver.

I smile. Her sense of timing is exquisite. She’s anchoring them to each other in every way possible, these two people with very different strengths and very different fears. I’m watching a maestro at work—even as new to this as I am, I can already see that.

I shift my focus, and this time I don’t watch the woman with really excellent custom-made latex pants and fierce compassion in her eyes. I watch the two on the stool. Their shaking. The raw honesty on their faces, in their fingers, in the quiet whimpers and rasping breaths. Readying to go wherever Tamelia tells them to go.

My muscles tense in empathy with their bravery.

I close my eyes as the message of my own body sinks in. I’ve done the easy part. Now it’s time to do the hard one. It’s time to get out of my head and do the very real thing I came here to do and let myself do a walkthrough of this scene that Eli is causing himself pain to allow me to watch.

I take a quick breath and mentally launch myself out of my own skin. I head straight for a landing in Tamelia’s mile-high boots and wrap myself in her utterly focused, supremely confident self-assurance. I can feel the way she assesses and measures, the quick mental rummaging through her bag of tricks as she lays out the next steps, the alternatives if things go awry. An intricate dance, one where she weaves her intentions and her arrogance together with what unfolds between the three of them.

A dance that she loves.

A reverence for the partners who are letting her lead.

I let my body feel everything about this role. It doesn’t really matter whether I’m right about Tamelia. It matters that this is how I would play her, what I would feel if this were my scene and those were my partners and this was my dance.

I take one last deep breath and then I sigh quietly and step out of the mile-high boots. My body has what it came to collect. There’s more to see, but I have nowhere left to put it. I need time. Time to spread out all of what has just landed in me and let it vibrate and speak and reshape itself until it fits back inside my skin and lets me be Chloe Virdani again. And I can’t do that here.

I turn to the man beside me, the one whose gaze hasn’t left me since Tamelia picked up her chains. “I know you asked me to let you set the pace tonight.”

His whole Dom being snaps to attention. He studies me, in that way that says he’s seeing all my underthings whether I want him to or not. Finally, he reaches out and run his knuckles down my cheek. “Let’s go get a drink and find a couch and have a talk.”

That’s not what I need. I need space, unending vast expanses of it. The kind that comes with no questions and no corset laces and nothing that even kind of smells like control.

Oh, yes. Tonight has thoroughly stomped on my most sensitive buttons—and called to them. And until I know what to do with that, I feel like a ticking bomb in Eli’s presence. “I need to go.”

The hurt in his eyes gets whisked away in an instant—but I don’t miss it.

He takes both my hands. “I can’t let you do that, shorty. It’s one of the rules of my world. Intense experiences need aftercare. I’ll let you go once I know you’re okay.”

It’s a good rule. I’m sure it is, even if it feels like a barbed-wire fence right now. But that’s not what convinces me to stay. It’s knowing how much of him I would have to break through to leave. I agreed to let him hold me tonight.

I need to wait until he’s ready to let me go.