Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,105

counting my feet on the car floor, there were two more. And my hands on the wheel. But soon I was going to be out there, back in the club I’d fled from last night.

Honesty, I reminded myself. That was Rex’s number one rule. So I murmured, “I’m afraid he won’t take me seriously.”

“He will,” Rex promised solemnly. “I swear to you. We don’t take this kind of thing lightly in the scene.”

This scene let Isaac in, night after night, for years, I thought, biting my lip. All the while, he was fucking with my mind. Was I the only one, then? Was he nice to everyone else? Is it me?

I blinked back the tears that threatened to fall, bowing my head over the steering wheel.

It wasn’t just me. I didn’t deserve any of the ways Isaac had treated me—Rex had made me believe that in these last few days. I deserved love and pain on my terms, not his.

“Let go of the secret. You don’t owe him any kind of protection,” Rex told me, his thumb stroking the corner of my jaw where my stubble was starting to turn silver. “He sure as hell never offered you any.”

From myself, from him, or from the world. I nodded and unbuckled, then reached out to take his hand as it glided down my shoulder to my arm.

We sat there for a minute like that, me quietly gathering my strength, him gazing at me like the whole world revolved around me.

I can do this.

I don’t know how he got me out of the car and into Dom Nation, but it struck me immediately how different it looked in the daytime. How ordinary.

Hand in hand, we walked past the shuttered bar to a steel door with Staff Only engraved on it. I hadn’t noticed it before.

“Right this way,” Rex said as he held the door open after himself, leading the way inside. There was a short hallway with three doors, one of which was open.

Rex rapped lightly on it and poked his head in. “Brighton? Can I have a word?”

“Uh-huh.”

Rex stepped into the office and gestured for me to follow. Then he took my hand when I joined him. “Brighton, this is Slate. Slate, the club owner, Brighton.”

I didn’t expect the man behind the desk to look so… well, flamboyant. I’d expected a big gruff man like Seb, maybe dressed in all leather and carrying a whip or something. Which was silly now that I thought about it. They had to wear other clothes sometimes.

Instead, Brighton was about Rex’s size, if not slighter. He wore a pink T-shirt and jeans, and a dramatic undercut with bleach-blond tips.

“Hello, Slate. Pleasure to meet you.”

“You, too,” I told him.

Brighton rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and pushed the paperwork on his desk away, folding his hands. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

I swallowed hard and chose one of the chairs, while Rex sat in the other and reached for my hand again. I let him take it and work his magic, rubbing his fingers along my veins until the prickling anxiety settled in my chest.

“What’s this about?” Brighton asked Rex, but there was a grim resignation in his voice that told me he already knew.

“Isaac,” Rex said simply. Then he squeezed my hand between both of his, a silent prompt to talk when I wished.

I had no idea what to say. I’d planned for this moment since Rex first tried to drag me in here—imagining it playing out different ways. How I’d be calm and composed and relate just the facts, or maybe an emotional mess.

But I took a breath, and suddenly the words came out. “He abused me for years, outside the scene. He lied and said he didn’t come to any kink clubs. I think it was because he didn’t want me to report him here. When I finally came to Dom Nation for the first time, he approached me and grabbed my ass. Said I should take it as a compliment, that I should be glad for…” The words died on my lips. I made myself swallow hard so I could finish. “The attention.”

I could feel Rex holding back his growl from his seat next to me, his grip suddenly tightening to a crush around my fingers. His whole body quivered, every muscle taut like he was about to spring out of his seat.

“This was in my club?” Brighton’s eyes were sharp. He leaned forward, folding his hands and resting