Page 16 of The Lasso Master

Words would’ve cheapened the experience. So they stayed quiet—intwined with one another, breathing in sync, letting the silence speak. Not because there was nothing to say, but because, for once, neither of them needed to say it first.

He left her sleeping and pulled up the encrypted files Caz had sent overnight. Three more names. One location. A club on the edge of Denver’s elite circles—invitation-only, exclusive, and reportedly run by someone who operated under the name 'The Curator.'

Reed stared at the screen, jaw tight, teeth clenched so hard it felt like a vice around his molars. The club’s name pulsed on the file like a challenge, and the names beneath it read like a hit list of bad memories. His fingers hovered above the keyboard, but he didn’t type. Didn’t move. His brain was already working the angles, mapping exits, estimating risks—and tracking how quickly it would take him to kill anyone who thought Harper belonged to them.

"You planning to growl it into submission, or are you going to tell me what that look means?"

Harper stood in the doorway in one of his button-downs, sleeves rolled to her elbows, the fabric just long enough to turn his blood into fire. The hem kissed the tops of her thighs, drawing his eyes like a magnet, every inch of exposed skin a test of restraint. Sleep had tousled her hair, and the sleepy confidence in her gaze nearly undid him. She looked like sin and safety dressed in cotton—the faint scent of his detergent still clinging to the fabric, warm from her skin, brushing her thighs just enough to make his blood thrum—and Reed was suddenly very aware of how thin the fabric really was.

"It means we found a lead. And I need you to wear something."

Her brow lifted. "I am wearing something."

He reached over to the drawer beside his desk, and pulled out a collar—slender, but unmistakable. The leather was deep, burnished oxblood with a subtle grain, supple and strong, stitched with precision and trimmed in dark brass.

It wasn’t for fashion. It wasn’t cheap. It was the kind of piece you gave to someone who understood exactly what it meant. And Harper did.

Her eyes tracked it like it spoke a language she’d learned a long time ago, a dialect written in discipline, trust, and things that once blurred the line between protection and possession. For a beat, something flickered across her face—not fear, not surprise, but memory. And understanding.

Ownership. Protection. A promise bound by restraint.

She eyed it without flinching. "That for me?"

"Yes."

"Because it’s hot, or because it’s functional?"

"Both."

He stepped closer, holding her gaze. "You walk into that club with me, you wear this. Not for show. Not for the game. But because there are eyes in that room that know what it means. It marks you as mine. Not available. Not vulnerable."

She tilted her head, dark hair tumbling over one shoulder. "You really think a collar's gonna stop someone willing to break laws and bodies?"

"No. But it’ll make them think twice. And it’ll make me less likely to shoot when I don’t have to kill every bastard who looks at you like you’re merchandise."

That pulled a grin from her. "Wow. Such a romantic."

"Don’t let it go to your head."

She stepped closer, taking the collar from his hand with a kind of reverence that made his breath hitch. Her fingers traced the burnished grain, slow and deliberate, like she recognized the quality—and the weight behind it. Her touch was light, buther expression sharpened with something deeper: recognition. Not of the object, but of what it meant. Her eyes lifted to meet his, steady and unreadable. "You don’t offer something like this lightly," she said. Not a question. A truth.

"Put it on me."

His breath left his chest in a quiet, hard exhale.

He lifted it to her neck with care, and she exhaled, just once—quiet, controlled, but unmistakable. A shift in her breathing, the kind that said everything she wasn’t putting into words. Her spine stayed straight, chin lifted, but there was the slightest tremble in her shoulders as his fingers brushed her skin. Not fear. Not hesitation. Just weight—the emotional kind—that she let settle there without resistance, his fingers gently combing through her long, dark, silky hair to bare the nape.

The movement was intimate, reverent—more ritual than routine. As he fastened the clasp at the back, the cool brush of metal and leather met her skin, and his fingers lingered a moment too long. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She simply stood still and let it happen—lethimhappen—like the act itself was a vow neither of them needed to speak aloud.

"How does it feel?" he asked, voice low.

"Like a line I don’t want to walk back over."

Reed pressed his forehead to hers, the gesture meant to be grounding—but it rattled him more than he expected. He’d fastened hundreds of restraints in his life. Given commands. Taken control. But this? This wasn’t about power. It was about trust. About choice. And the gravity of that—the weight of her letting him mark her in a way that mattered—hit him square in the chest. She wasn’t just playing a part. She was choosing him. And that scared the hell out of him in all the best ways.

"Then don’t."

Hours later, dressed to kill in a corset and thong crafted from obsidian silk and deep garnet lace—an ensemble he'd had made to echo the collar around her throat—they stepped into the Iron Spur. The corset hugged Harper's waist with brutal precision, boned with dark satin piping that glinted under the dim lights, pushing up the creamy curve of her breasts just enough to draw the eye and dare it to linger. The thong disappeared beneath the fall of a slit-cut skirt that moved like smoke, hinting at secrets better kept.

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