I leaned down, and he yanked my head back by the hair.

“Look at it. Do you know what that does to me? I’m so fucking turned on right now, I’m blind. I own you. I can see how I own you. You’re wearing my collar. Fuck.”

He picked up my skirt. I groaned when he put his hand on my ass then slapped it hard. The pain, the arousal, and the sight of the collar put me in a place of acceptance that was lower than low and higher than high.

He undid his pants, removing that spectacular, powerful cock. I put my ass up, and he slapped it again.

“Thank you,” I gasped.

He got a finger around the ring and pulled with just enough pressure to make me feel him. I must have stiffened.

“After opening day, I won’t be so gentle with the ring. Now, open up for me.”

He spanked me again, letting the ring go. I grabbed my ass cheeks and pulled them apart. He guided himself into my soaked pussy then slammed forward. I grunted.

“Hush,” he said. “Not a sound out of you. Just take it like a good girl.”

He got the rest of the way in, and my mouth opened, but nothing came out. I became nothing but a vessel for his pleasure. He moved me where he wanted me, pounding me, and I was slick and receptive.

“Look, Monica.” He pulled my hair and jerked me to nearly standing. “Look at yourself.” His hand went around my hips, and he wedged his fingers between my legs. “I put that collar on you. You’re my property.”

As he uttered it, I lost myself. Keeping my eyes open became difficult. His cock battered me, his eyes soothed me, and his collar debased me into a space so submissive, I couldn’t remember my name.

“You ready to come, Monica?” he growled.

I made a little noise. My mouth was open. My eyes half closed.

“Fuck. You are so hot. Come with me. Give it to me.” He slammed me. “Give me everything.”

With his permission, I exploded into a soundless howl. Thighs tightening, fingers curling. He gripped my ass so tight it hurt, prolonging the orgasm with the pain, intensifying it. He thrust into me so hard I thought I’d break and all my pleasure would spill out.

He growled as if he were trying to wedge his whole body into mine. He was coming, and hard. A sound came from me as if pushed out, because I was flooded with a new warmth, a second-tier climax that burst from the inside. Soul to skin and back again.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, because it wasn’t stopping. “Oh god, oh god, oh god. I’m still… I’m still…”

And tears, and blackness, and the places where I was sore. After three thrusts that jerked upward as if he was making a point, he stopped. In the mirror, I saw him panting, my collar, my submission leaking away, and regular life coming back to replace it.

Jonathan ran his hands down my back then back up, gently turning me to face him. He looked barely conscious himself.

“Thank you,” he said. “You’re a goddess.”

He said it without irony or condescension. As if he was stating a fact.

“The collar,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Bedroom only?”

“To start.”

Outside, the band stopped.

We reacted immediately. He got his dick in his pants, and I dropped my skirt and got my shirt arranged. He gathered the fork, the bag, whatever. Against the clatter of a pre-encore band coming down the hall, Jonathan unlocked the door. I thought nothing of it, because it should be unlocked before they got their hands on the knob.

But when it opened and the guys were right there, I realized why Darren raised his eyebrow before he said hello.

I still had the collar on.

thirteen.

JONATHAN

They say men and women don’t communicate about their problems because women just want to feel and men just want to fix.

I’d never given that much thought.

But I wanted to fix Monica’s problem with her voice, and she just wanted to go through the wringer. I was suggesting she submit her problems with her art not necessarily to me, but just in general. Overall. To do the job without worrying about what other people thought about it. She could give up this idea she was a fraud if she blocked out everyone but me, the one person who loved her whether she sang on key or not.

That made perfect sense in my head.

Also, that collar.

It elongated her neck, made her submission into an aesthetic. She became a work of art. My work of art. The sight of it put gravity-strength pressure on my balls, and when I pulled on that ring, I nearly came from seeing it in the mirror.

But when her friends entered the room, she put her hand on her throat as if that would hide it. If they knew we had been fucking, she wouldn’t care. But the submission thing? That bothered her. And being collared in public was always a sticking point.

I wanted to rip the thing off before we left the dressing room, but it had a lock, and ripping something off her in front of everyone would have been quite a spectacle.

“Hi,” she said, hand to throat.

They didn’t even look at her. Darren murmured something. Harry said hello but was focused on getting his bass into the bag. The drummer punched my arm, and the other guy glanced at her and thanked her for opening the set.

The girl singer looked me up and down in the way women sometimes do, but their chatter was about the set, the songs, a patois of terms I didn’t understand but knew had nothing to do with Monica’s neckwear. She turned to me, smiled, and held out her hand.

I snapped up her bag, grabbed her hand, and walked out.

fourteen.

MONICA

I was bone tired. The drive home was gentle and almost meditative. I’d held his hand, feeling the soreness between my legs like a reminder of all the good in my life.

We didn’t talk about my horrid performance. We didn’t talk about the collar. We just sat in peace, and it was perfect.

In front of the bathroom mirror, naked from the waist up, I looked at my collar. It was nice, as collars went. Didn’t look doggish. Didn’t look slavish. It looked like a really nice piece of jewelry with a lock on the front. The ring in the back was a giveaway though. But the chain mail made it conform to my movements and even, dare I think it, made it comfortable.

“Jonathan?” I called. I could hear him puttering around the bedroom.

“Yeah?”

“Where’s the key to this thing?”

“In the box it came in.”

“Which is where?”

I didn’t even finish the sentence before he was in the bathroom, holding out a black jewelry box. I opened it.

My tuning fork was inside. That wasn’t right. I put it on the counter and lifted the velvet panel that the fork rested on. No key hid in the bottom of the box.

“Shit,” I said.

“Where was the tuning fork supposed to go?” he asked.

“A little black box. Okay, they got switched. It’s around. Let me check my bag.”

My phone dinged just as I got there. It was Darren.

—You left a black box with a key in the dressing room. I got it but we’re on the flight to Nashville—

I showed Jonathan the phone. “You put the tuning fork away.”

“No, you put it in the box.”

“And you put the box in your pocket.”

“Thinking it was the box with the key.”

“And I was responsible for the tuning fork. Goddamnit! I’m so stupid,” I said.

“I can have it sawed off your neck.”

“Go to hell, Drazen.”

He put his hands up as if he was dealing with a crazy person. “I’ll have someone fly to Nashville to get the key. I can’t have it here by morning, but I can have it off you before Dodger Stadium.”

“I’m so mad.”

“I know.”

“Just free-floating mad.”

“I don’t want to deflect but—”

“But what?”

“Between your anger, the no-shirt thing, and the collar? You have never looked so fuckable.”

My shoulders drooped, and the rage fell right out of me. I held my arms up, and he wrapped himself around me and just hugged me for all it was worth.