As soon as the guy was freed, he sank to his knees. He wrapped one hand around the back of Knox’s calf. “Thank you. That was . . . what I needed.”

“Happy to help.” He watched as Master Rand hauled his sub to his feet and led him away.

One down; one to go.

He twisted his neck and shoulders, trying to ease the ache in the middle of his back. He’d need a massage after his last scene tonight. Master Angus expected that immediate explosion of pain from the first lash to the last lash. No buildup, just continual bombardment for fifteen minutes. Having a set time frame helped Knox keep his stamina. Wielding a whip for that long took its toll on him as well. Everyone expected a big guy like him to have superior strength and staying power, so that’s the image he maintained even if he could barely move the next day. He’d gotten smart and limited himself to three sessions in a night, so his skills were in high demand for those members who craved the type of pain he provided.

Stepping out of the hot box, Knox noticed a crowd had gathered in front of one of the open-use rooms. He meandered that way, thankful his height allowed him to see over everyone’s heads.

But he didn’t have the greatest view of what held the crowd enthralled, so he got closer.

A platinum-blond Domme in leathers was whipping Dex, a male submissive, with a short-handled whip. The instrument of torture wasn’t as interesting as where she was leaving marks. She’d reddened the area around both of his nipples and the skin below his hip bones. She’d stretched him out—a spreader bar between his ankles and his arms equal distance apart above his head. That position gave her access to the front and the back sides of his body.

Dex had been a club member for a few years and hadn’t asked Knox to deliver the pain, but most of Knox’s scenes were at the behest of submissives’ Masters and Mistresses. Since Dex was an unattached sub, Knox wondered who the woman was, because she clearly knew what she was doing. Dex’s cock, bound with a strap, was fully erect.

Knox watched as she cracked the whip and the tip landed on the inside of Dex’s thigh. His entire body jerked and he started to beg her to let him come. But she didn’t respond; she just gave him a matching whip kiss on the inside of his other thigh.

Dex hissed—a sound of pain tinged with pleasure.

When the Domme walked behind Dex and delivered two strikes to the backs of his legs, Knox studied her. Her hair might be real, but he doubted it. And then there was the mask that covered her face.

She grabbed Dex by the hair and pulled his head back so she could speak directly into his ear.

He nodded and squirmed when she coiled the whip around his calf with a flick of her wrist and dragged it up. Then she did the same thing on the other side. She reached between his legs and released the cock restraint.

His relief was short-lived when she snapped two hard strikes on his inner thighs and followed through with two more hard strikes on his balls. He immediately started to come, and the Domme used the handle of the whip like a riding crop, connecting with the marks on his inner thighs as he shot his load into the air.

When he slumped against the chains, the crowd thinned.

But Knox remained in place, watching the Domme bring her sub down to earth with whispered words and gentle touches on his chest and back.

And Dex looked at her adoringly. Dex. The submissive the Dommes always complained about because he tried to top from below.

When the blond Domme circled Dex and came to stand in front of him, Knox had a niggling sense of familiarity. When she stood on tiptoe to release Dex’s arms from the cuffs, her identity hit him with the force of a spinning back fist to the head.

He knew that biteable ass.

He knew she struggled to reach items in the storeroom because she was so short.

When she turned her head, Knox groaned.

He knew those fucking luscious lips too.

In the past eight months he’d fantasized way too many times about taking that sassy mouth in a dozen different ways. And he almost had last night.

Knox watched the rest of the scene unfold. After she freed Dex from his wrist and ankle restraints, she sat him in a chair and draped a blanket around him. She handed him a bottle of water, and when he was too shaky to drink, she helped hold it to his mouth.

This wasn’t her first time dealing with a submissive’s aftercare.

As if her expertise with a whip wasn’t already a sign she was no amateur playing a role.

But fuck him.

Shiori Hirano was a Domme.

A fucking Domme.

He shook his head to clear it and watched as Dex dropped to his knees in front of her. He wrapped one arm around her shin and looked up at her beseechingly.