She knew that pride. It was stubborn and immovable and her biggest obstacle to figuring out just what was behind this ridiculousness.

She switched tactics. “Kyle, this is something we have to talk about. You can’t just spring a contract on me like this.”

“Actually, I can.” He arched an eyebrow again. “I’m the Dom, and I make the rules.”

That was such pile of verbal crap that she momentarily lost the power of speech, and while she was gaping at him, trying to figure out what the hell he was thinking, he stood up.

“I have to pick up Andy for the game.” He crossed the room and scooped his keys out of the bowl on the table next to the door. Her bowl, her table. “I expect that contract to be signed when I get back.”

The bafflement and shock that had held her frozen since he’d first tossed that contract on the table was fading, replaced by an incredulous fury that made her feel like she was breathing sulfur. “Or?”

“Or you can pack your things,” he replied calmly. “It’s your choice.”

He twirled his keys around his finger—another nervous tell—opened the door and walked out.

Olivia stared at the closed door for a moment, then looked down at the contract. It was at least twenty pages, held together with one of the bright pink binder clips she kept in the kitchen junk drawer to use on bags of chips or frozen vegetables. Kyle’s name was in bold type at the top, right in front of the words, “hereafter referred to as Master”, and her name, bolded but not capitalized, right before “hereafter referred to as slave”, and the remainder of her disbelief disintegrated in a flood of pure rage.

She stood up, shoving back from the table hard enough to make it wobble, and stalked to the bedroom. She pulled her suitcases from the back of the closet, laid them on the bed, and began to pack.

She worked methodically, rolling her clothes to minimize wrinkling and maximize space. When the dresser, the closet, and the nightstand on her side of the bed were empty, she walked across the hall to the guest room-office to gather the clothes she had stored there.

There wasn’t a lot—the cocktail dresses she rarely had occasion to wear, a formal gown she’d bought on a whim when a local dress shop had gone out of business, and the plastic storage bin with her corsets. When she pulled the bin down from the top shelf, the dust coating the lid made her sneeze. It had been months since she’d worn one, though she and Kyle went to a kink event nearly every week. It had just seemed like too much trouble, and Kyle hadn’t cared one way or the other.

“That should’ve been a fucking clue,” she muttered, and sneezed again.