I startle at the crack of a whip and glance into the alcove, dimly lit and painted a deep red. A woman in red lingerie is bound face-first to a large wooden cross. Behind her a tall, muscular man with short, dark hair raises his whip. He is wearing leather pants and a black T-shirt. From the back, he is breathtaking. Broad shoulders narrow to slim hips, a tight toned ass, and muscular thighs.

    Something niggles at the back of my mind, and I pause as he cracks the whip, the motion both smooth and powerful, his lats bunching and flexing as he lets it glide, the tip brushing over the woman’s exposed buttocks. She screams and arches her back, her hands straining against her restraints.

    “Did I give you permission to scream?” His deep, rich, commanding voice sends a familiar tingle down my spine.

    “No, sir.”

    “That’s Master Jack,” Kitty whispers. “He’s a sadist. He’ll only play with the most experienced submissives, and even then, he’s very selective.” She tugs on my arm, but I can’t move. Whether it’s the scene or the man, I don’t know, but I cannot tear myself away.

    Master Jack strikes the woman again. Light glints off the tats on his left arm, but I can’t make out the designs. The woman arches against the cross, and I cringe at the red welts covering her back, although I see no blood. The whip cracks again, and she gasps, her legs giving out until she is held up solely by the restraints.

    “Yellow,” she says, her voice hoarse.

    “We have a safety system,” Kitty explains. “Red means stop. Yellow means slow down or she’s not sure she can take anymore. Green means go.”

    Master Jack carefully replaces the whip on the rack on the wall and walks across the floor to the woman on the cross. His leather pants creak with every stride of his long legs, and his boots thump on the floor. He is all raw power and lean grace and so achingly familiar I shake off Kitty’s insistent tug. I have to see his face.

    After a brief conversation with the woman, he turns, and his gaze locks on me.

    Rampage.

    My hand flies to my mouth, but I can’t suppress a gasp. How can Redemption’s gossip king, all-around good guy, everyone’s best friend, professional athlete, and the epitome of chivalry be here, whipping a woman until she screams?

    His eyes narrow and harden, and then he turns away as if he doesn’t know me. He retrieves the whip and strikes the woman again.

    “We have to go,” Kitty insists. “Master Damien doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

    Still in shock, I follow her to an office at the end of the hallway. A dark-haired man wearing a sleek Italian suit and crisp white shirt open at the neck greets us from behind his desk. Power radiates from him, and he fills the ornately decorated room with the force of his presence alone.

    “Are you Damien Stone?” Still reeling from my encounter with Rampage, I barely register Kitty backing out the open door.

    “I am.” He holds out his hand. “I believe you have something for me.”

    I hand him the envelope and pull out my cell phone to make a note of the time.

    “Cell phones aren’t allowed in the club.” He rips open the envelope. “You agreed to that when you signed the waiver.”

    “I was just noting the time. We need it for the affidavit of service.” I hold up the phone for him to see, and he gives me a cold, hard stare.

    “You also agreed to be punished if you broke the rules, which you just have done.”

    My blood chills, and I take a quick glance behind me to make sure the door is still open. Although Kitty has disappeared, the hallway is empty, and my escape route is clear. “I wasn’t taking pictures or recording anything.”

    “There are no qualifications to the rule.” He skims the documents and tosses them on his desk. “And since you seem determined to put me out of business, I see no reason to exercise any leniency.”

    “Whoa.” I take a step back and then another, my hands flying up in a defensive position. “First of all, I’m not a lawyer or the claimant in the case. I’m just serving the documents. And second, I haven’t done anything wrong. I didn’t agree to be punished for doing my job.”

    Damien rounds on me, moving so quickly I stumble in my haste to retreat. “You did agree. Now, I’m wondering how best to teach you a lesson.”

    “If you touch me, I’ll scream.”

    Amusement glints in his eyes, and he reaches for my hair, tangling my ponytail around his hand before he yanks, forcing my head back. “Scream, then. I love the sound.”

    Maybe he thinks I’m one of those women who don’t like to cause a scene, a woman who’s afraid of the adrenaline rush, a woman who can’t take a bit of pain. Boy, has he pegged me wrong.

    I scream. Just like I screamed in delight when Vetch Retch picked me out of the crowd and pulled me onstage; like I screamed in horror when I caught the love of my life in bed with another woman; like I screamed with joy when Rampage won his fight.

    Footsteps ring out in the hall behind me.

    “What the fuck?” Rampage storms into the office, chest heaving, a scowl on his handsome face. “Christ, Damien. What are you doing?”

    For a moment, I am stunned into silence. He is breathtaking. And not just because he is wearing tight leathers, snug in all the right places, and a form-fitting T-shirt that shows off every ripple of his abs. He is beautiful in his darkness, glorious in his anger, and my body trembles when he catches my gaze.

    Master Damien tightens his grip on my hair. “She signed the agreement. She broke the rules. She threatened to scream if I touched her. You know I can’t resist a challenge.”

    “Let her go.”

    Electricity crackles in the air between them. Although the two are evenly matched in presence, Rampage is taller by at least two inches, broader, and more muscular. And, seriously, does Master Damien really think he can compete with a professional MMA fighter in his prime?