Page 125 of Lennox Lane

The curtain didn’t rise so much as exhale. A slow, velvet breath that revealed the stage in increments—first the gilded edge of a throne, then the gleam of black latex catching the spotlight like liquid sin, and finally, HER. The Black Dahlia.

She sat with the casual authority of a woman who had never apologized for taking up space. The latex lingerie clung to her like a second skin, all high cuts and strategic absence, while a delicate lace mask obscured just enough of her face to make her mouth the center of gravity. That mouth was painted dark—wine or bruise, Lane couldn’t tell—and it curved with the kind of knowledge that made modesty feel like a waste of time.

In each hand, she held a chain.

They gleamed silver against the black of her gloves, leading down to the two figures kneeling before her throne. A man—muscular and completely bare—and a woman whose soft body held such lush beauty that Lane’s breath caught in arousal. Both nude. Both head bowed. Both waiting with the patience of the true devotion.

Lane’s body responded before her mind could catch up.

Arousal didn’t ask permission; it flooded through her like warm honey, pooling low and insistent. Making her squirm against the hard thigh beneath her. Lennox felt it—and his arm tightened around her waist while his other hand moved with devastating purpose.

He found her center through the emerald mesh, where she had soaked through the delicate black thong he’d slid up her legs himself.

“Fuck,” he whispered in awe as his fingers pressed gently on her clit, rubbing in slow, maddening circles that made her hips jerk. “My needy little pussy is soaked.”

Lane bit her lip hard enough to taste blood as she tried to stifle the moan building in her throat. Her eyes stayed fixed on the stage, trapped in the spectacle of dominance and surrender playing out under the golden lights.

The Black Dahlia had drawn her submissives forward now, guiding them with the chains until they knelt at her feet. Their foreheads nearly touching the floor as their bodies trembled with the effort of holding position. She said something—Lane couldn’t hear the words over the pulse roaring in her ears—but she saw the woman’s mouth move, saw the plea shape itself in the air.

“Please.”

“Let us please you.”

Lennox’s fingers pressed harder, finding the rhythm that made Lane’s vision blur at the edges. She was grinding against his hand now, unable to stop, the shamelessness of it adding another layer of heat. She was in public. In a booth. Dressed in nothing but lingerie and desire, while a room full of strangers could watch her fall apart.

And then The Black Dahlia looked up.

Her gaze swept the room with the lazy confidence of a predator who knew every eye was already hers, but when she reached Lane’s booth, she stopped.

Locked on.

Held.

Lane went still except for the tremor running through her thighs and the continued pressure of Lennox’s fingers circling, but never quite giving her what she needed while refusing to stop offering it. The distance between them collapsed—across the room, across the stage, across the invisible line between observer and observed.

The Black Dahlia smiled.

Then she winked.

It was a gift as well as a command and a recognition all at once, causing Lane’s orgasm to tear through her with such violence that she arched against Lennox’s chest. Her cry lost in the sudden swell of music from the speakers and her eyes never leaving the dark gleam of that lace mask even as her vision shattered.

She watched The Black Dahlia watch her fall apart.

And then—the tongue.

The Black Dahlia’s dark-painted lips parted, and she licked them slowly and deliberately. She was tasting Lane’s undoing from across the room like she could claim it through sheer will. The gesture was obscene and elegant. It made Lane’s aftershocks spike. Her body jerked in Lennox’s lap as he held her through it. He anchored her to keep her from floating away entirely.

“Good girl,” Lennox whispered against her ear. His voice had gone rough, frayed at the edges. “My nasty little slut. Cumming for her while I’m right here.”

Lane couldn’t speak. Her lungs were still remembering how to work.

Lennox wasn’t done.

He took her hand—the one that had been clutching his shoulder, nails probably leaving marks—and dragged it down between them—pressed her palm against the hard, thick length of him straining against emerald satin.

Lane’s fingers curled instinctively.

She looked up at him with eyes she tried to make innocent, tried to fill with the question she already knew the answer to.