Chapter 1; Red

EMMA 

The sound of the music was deafening and exactly what I needed to clear my head of all my mother had said today.

“Stay here, I’ll go get us some drinks.”

“Okay, sure.”

I watched Maya disappear into the crowd, her dark hair swinging behind her. The bass crawled up through the soles of my heels and settled in my bones. I honestly never thought I would be in a club on a Monday night, and especially not a BDSM club, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do, and this was one of those days.

I barely recognised myself. Maya had spent almost an hour on my face: dark liner, lashes that felt heavy, and a deep red lipstick I would never have chosen on my own. The black dress she had forced me into clung in places I usually kept hidden, and the heels made me stand differently. The real me wore glasses, oversized sweaters, and spent most nights with a book. 

Tonight I looked like someone else entirely, and for a few hours that was exactly what I wanted.

Maya came back with our drinks, pressed a cold glass into my hand, then got pulled onto the floor by a man with kind eyes and a leather cuff on his wrist. I stayed where I was, fingers tight around the glass, and let the earlier conversation with my mother play again in my head.

How could she want to get married again? For what reason? We were doing okay. I thought we were doing okay.

It had only been a year since Dad died. One year of quiet dinners, of her falling asleep on the couch with the television still on, of the two of us learning how to live in a house that suddenly felt too big. I had started to believe that the worst was over. Then, this morning, she sat me down at the kitchen table with that careful smile she used when she had already decided something and only needed me to accept it.

Richard. The man from the charity gala. The one with the expensive watch and the quiet, assessing eyes. She was going to marry him. We would be moving into his estate. His son would be there. Everything was already arranged.

I had nodded and said the right things because she looked happier than she had in months. Inside, something small and private had cracked. My life was being folded into someone else’s without anyone asking if I was ready.

I took a long drink and tried to let the alcohol burn the thought away.

Gosh, I just want to take my mind off this.

A few moments later I felt eyes on me.

I looked up and around until I found him.

He sat alone at a low table near the edge of the main floor, one arm resting along the back of the seat, the other curled loosely around a glass. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled once. The kind of face that did not need to smile to hold attention. When our eyes met, a slow, deliberate current moved through me. It was not the cold of the air-conditioning. It was something heavier and far more dangerous.

I set my glass down, straightened my shoulders, and walked toward him before I could talk myself out of it.

He watched me come the entire way. When I stopped in front of his table, he tilted his head slightly, as if I had confirmed something he had already decided.

“You look like you’re trying very hard not to think,” he said. His voice was low, smooth, and certain.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Only to someone who’s doing the same thing.” He nodded at the empty chair across from him. “Sit. Or don’t. But you walked all the way over here for a reason.”

I sat.

Up close, he was even more striking. Sharp jaw, dark eyes that gave nothing away, the quiet confidence of a man who was used to people coming to him. I felt suddenly underdressed and overexposed at the same time.

“I’m not looking for conversation,” I said.

“Good. Neither am I.” He lifted his glass, took a slow sip, then set it down. “Tell me what you need tonight.”

The directness of the question made my pulse jump. Most men in places like this circled. He cut straight through.

“I need to stop feeling like my life is being decided for me,” I answered before I could stop myself. “Just for a few hours.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

“I can give you that,” he said. “But I don’t play without rules. Safe word. Now.”

I almost laughed. The sound came out thinner than I meant it to. “I don’t need one.”

He leaned forward slightly. The shift in posture was small, but the air between us changed.

“Look around.”

I did.

On the main floor, a woman was bound to a St. Andrew’s cross while a man worked a flogger across her thighs in steady, measured strokes. Near the far wall, another couple moved together in a rhythm that was openly sexual, her wrists held in one of his hands, her head tipped back against his shoulder. A third scene involved two men and a woman on a low platform, her body arched between them. The club was not pretending to be anything else. Maya and I were among the few women still fully dressed.

When I looked back at him, he was waiting.

“I don’t take anyone into a private room without a safe word,” he said. “You give me one, or you stay out here and finish your drink alone. Your choice.”

The control in his voice should have made me stand up and leave. Instead it settled something restless inside me. For the first time all day, I felt like I was the one deciding what happened next.

I held his gaze. “Red.”

A slow, approving breath left him. “Red it is.”

He stood, collected his glass, and held out his free hand. When I took it, his fingers closed around mine with quiet certainty. He led me through the crowd toward a corridor of black doors. I glanced back once. Maya was still on the floor, laughing at something her partner had said. I lifted my free hand and waved. She waved back, eyes wide with delighted shock, then returned to her dance.

The stranger’s hand tightened slightly around mine as he stopped in front of one of the doors.

“Last chance to change your mind,” he said without looking at me.

I thought of the estate waiting for me tomorrow. The new father. The son I had never met. The life that no longer felt like it belonged to me.

“I’m not changing it,” I said.