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He opened the door and they walked out.

The common area was overwhelming from the moment she set foot in it. Two crew members at the dining table. Another on the couch. Arlo in the kitchen. Heath in an armchair with a beer and the expression of a man who’d been born unimpressed and had never seen a reason to change.

She took it in and then immediately dropped her gaze.

Her brain twitched. The pull started immediately, her eyes wanting to jump from person to person, wanting to absorb all the patterns. She locked her gaze on the back of Ryder’s boots and followed him to the couch like her life depended on it. Because it did.

He sat. She stood next to him with no idea what came next. He solved that problem for her. His hand found her hip and guided her down. Not onto the couch. Onto the floor. Next to his leg.

Her knees hit wood and her face went hot. She knew they were all watching her. Could tell by how it had gone quiet. Someone snickered. They were enjoying this.

She kept her eyes down and focused on breathing. His calf was warm against her arm. She could feel him shift above her, settling into the couch.

Roles. This was public. This was for the Diehl brothers and their crew. And underneath the shame of it, her body was registering the same thing it had registered when he’d pressed her against that tree last night as they snuck in—Ryder: close, solid, safe.

The grain of the floor. A scratch near her left knee. A dust bunny under the couch that someone should really deal with. These were safe things to look at. These wouldn’t spiral.

Her brain kept quiet.

“I went ahead and cooked since we had an unexpected guest,” Arlo called from the kitchen. “May I offer you and your pet some?”

“Sure.” She could hear the tightness in Ryder’s voice. The pet thing was bothering him just as much as it did her. Maybe more.

Arlo brought plates. Ryder took both, set one on his knee, handed one down to her. Rice, beans, some chicken.

“Does she eat on the floor?” Arlo asked, as if the question was completely normal.

“When she’s being punished for bad behavior like showing up somewhere she’s not invited.”

Snickers again, but the irony of all this was that sitting on the floor with a plate in her lap was much easier on her than sitting at a table surrounded by all of them would’ve been.

She forced herself to eat, staring down at the food. She needed the nourishment. She’d been too rushed and nervous to eat much yesterday. Plus, she had no idea what might be in store with this submissive cover story if she didn’t.

“And when you’re not on a job?” Arlo asked. “What is the situation like between you two then?”

Ryder shifted, his hand falling to the nape of her neck, a gesture of ownership. “Similar. Except she would have a lot less clothes on, if any. And before you ask—hell no.”

Arlo chuckled. “Shame.”

“She kneels, eats at my feet, presents herself to me to use however I wish. Whenever and wherever I wish.” Ryder’s voice was steady, almost soothing. “A perfect situation. We’ve worked hard on the training.”

Her face burned at the chuckles and low whistles. She knew what they were envisioning. Ryder was selling them a story, and they were buying it with every dime they had.

He squeezed her neck gently, but she wasn’t sure if it was assurance, apology, or something for show.

She forced herself to breathe. Roles. Just roles.

Eventually, they finished eating. “Can she do the dishes and be actually useful?” one of the men on the far side of the room asked. She froze.

Ryder was playing with a strand of her hair. “She’s not the fucking help. She’s here for my pleasure, not to act as a maid. Do your own dishes.”

That got laughter. “Why don’t you take care of the dishes, Johnson?” Arlo said. “The rest of you get out. I want to talk business with Ryder.”

Within a few minutes, the other men were gone. Arlo settled into the armchair across from Ryder with a drink. Heath stayed too but remained in the armchair on the far side of the room where he’d been sitting. Cassandra was careful not to look at him since she was directly in his line of sight.

“So,” Arlo said. He glanced down at Cassandra on the floor, then back at Ryder. “You want to send her to the room?”

Cassandra froze. She didn’t care that the hard wood was hurting her legs and had gone from humiliating to uncomfortable to actually painful. She didn’t want to go back to that room alone. What if⁠—