Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,106

them on the desk.

I nodded. As I held my breath, Brighton let his out and closed his eyes, and a few long moments passed. Jesus, they were more like decades. I wanted to press fast-forward to the end of this scene and find out if Brighton was going to laugh me off or not.

Please believe me, I wanted to say. I didn’t know who the DMs had been that night. I hadn’t even known what DMs were.

“I—he’s done worse stuff, too. Outside the club. He—he never taught me about consent or safewords or boundaries. I’ve learned all of that from Rex.”

Rex stroked my wrist gently with just one finger, and that tiny touch was all it took to quell the anxious outburst of words that threatened to pour from me: more explanations, defenses, pleas.

Help me. Help us.

“Okay,” Brighton said evenly and opened his eyes again. “Thank you for trusting me, Slate. I believe you.”

Oh, thank God. I pressed my hand to my chest as my throat went tight with relief.

Rex kept his grip on my hand but leaned forward. “Thank you, Brighton,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to break Slate’s trust, but… things escalated. Last night, Slate and I were in the middle of a scene, and Isaac psyched him out.” I smiled with gratitude. The way he said it, it didn’t sound like my fault. “He followed Slate home. Trying to break him—get him to shut up and not report him.”

Brighton’s lips tightened into a harsh line, and he looked at me. “Is that so?”

I quivered, the images flooding my mind once again. The handle of my kitchen knife clutched tightly as I crept out of the house, watching the two men square off against each other.

Watching Isaac raise the whip effortlessly around his head—imagining the damage he’d been planning to do to me. Fuck, I was lucky to have a Daddy like Rex to look after me, whether or not I was prepared to accept his care.

Kicking the cut-up pieces of his whip into the gutter this morning had been deeply satisfying.

“Yes,” I murmured, my voice rough. “That’s what he would always do. If he had a bad day, he’d just drop by and expect me to be home. His own punching bag.” I cleared my throat, but I was too raw to pull myself together and sit up straight, so I stared at Brighton’s desk.

The shame was no longer about me, but somehow it still bled into my gut. Instead of being ashamed that I’d wanted those things from Isaac, I was ashamed that I’d let him be the one to do it.

But none of it was mine. It was Isaac who had been abusive, and his ban was his own fault.

“I think he was coming to scare me away from seeing Rex, because he knew…” I trailed off, my mouth dry.

“I’d encourage you to report him?” Rex asked, gazing intently at me.

“No.” I shook my head and then paused. Actually, now that he said it… “Well, yes. But more than that. He knew you’d show me what a real Daddy looks like. And he worked hard to make sure I didn’t know anything outside of what he taught me.”

I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t want to be all forty-year-old virgin in front of guys who had seen and done a lot more than I’d even daydreamed.

But Brighton didn’t judge me. He just shook his head slightly. “I’m withdrawing his membership effective immediately. With your permission, I’m also going to contact some of the other clubs around here to report this behavior. If he did it to you…”

He didn’t have to finish. All of us were thinking it as we exchanged glances. No doubt there were others—or would be.

“Thank you,” I whispered, finally looking him in the eye again. “I didn’t think the infraction was serious enough.”

“It’s serious, all right. Anyone grabs someone without permission, they get banned on the spot. I don’t care who they are,” Brighton rumbled in a surprisingly deep voice for that slender man. Was he a Dom, too? He sure looked like it right now.

Rex nodded once, sharply. “Consent is serious. If someone’s willing to ignore it in what seems like a minor way, they’ll ignore it when the scene gets heavy,” he told me, his voice soft. “And if you’re trained to believe your consent doesn’t matter…” He trailed off, letting me finish that in my own head.

You’ll think it never matters. I licked my lips and slid my fingers between his,