The thought of hurting someone—a stranger—and leaving them alone makes Rowan’s stomach churn, but he holds his tongue. Anything he wants to say to the woman wouldn’t do anyone any good and would just cost their patient valuable time.

They wheel the man out of the room, down the elevator that the hostess points out, and back through the club to load him into the ambulance. Rowan drives and radios the nearest hospital while Addison monitors the man’s vitals in the back. All things considered, the call could have gone much worse. They could be driving back without sirens on right now.

But even with the close call, Rowan can’t help but think about that wall of toys and equipment. About the darkness of the club and the low, bassy music. About the tingling under his skin and the goose bumps on the back of his neck.

IT SHOULD be a red flag that the first time Rowan hears about the Menagerie is due to a near-life-threatening emergency, but it isn’t. His nerves are eased knowing that the man they’d had to bring to the hospital had acted outside of the club’s rules, and that even though that was the case, the management made sure he was taken care of.

He barely makes it the full day on Tuesday before he’s typing the menagerie boston into Google, eyes glued to his laptop screen like he might miss something in the millisecond it takes the page to load.

The first link seems to be what he’s looking for. He clicks through to a simple splash screen asking if he’s over eighteen. He clicks on “I am 18+” and is brought to a modern, elegant-looking website with a black background and white-and-gold text and an image of a sultry-looking woman’s eyes partially covered in a black mask. A golden script reading The Menagerie lies directly in the center of the homepage, and underneath: Boston’s Most Exclusive BDSM Dungeon & Club.

Rowan’s heart rate spikes.

He’d assumed the club was of the NSFW variety from the hastily covered patrons and the fact that the man he’d helped had passed out from erotic asphyxiation, but seeing it written plainly on the screen makes it that much more real. And he can’t deny that being in the club, even in an official capacity, had done a little something for him.

Okay, a lot of something for him. It’s been years since he frequented spaces like that, and he wasn’t exactly in the best headspace when he did, but he misses it.

Misses the way the booze and the drugs and the men made him feel. Alive. Sexy. Desired. Like they’d wanted to eat him up when they thought he was a bottom, then submitting with little coaxing when Rowan would pull out his dick and flip them over.

Powerful.

He needs to know more.