22
LILA
The ropes settle into place. Perfect patterns decorate my wrists and arms, elaborate knots that look like art but feel like chains. The silk bites into my skin—not painfully, but present, making me hyperaware of every inch of my body.
I'm really a captive now. Tied up. Helpless.
The ropes are beautiful in a way that makes me think of my drawings. All those fantasies I sketched out, never thinking they'd become real. Never thinking I'd be here, living them.
"Wait," I say suddenly, reality crashing in. "How am I supposed to take off the shirt? My hands are?—"
Ivan doesn't answer. With words, at least. He grabs the fabric and rips.
The sound of tearing cloth makes me gasp. The expensive silk tears like paper. "That was?—"
"Shh." His hand covers my mouth gently. "Relax."
Relax. Right. Easy to say when you're not the one suddenly naked and tied up. When you're not the one exposed and vulnerable.
I try, though. Try to breathe. Try to let go of the part of my brain that's screaming about what a terrible idea this is. Abouthow I should be scared. About how normal people don't do this.
Then a soft fabric covers my eyes. Black silk.A blindfold.
"No—" I try to turn my head away, but he's already tying it behind my head. "Wait, I didn't expect?—"
The world goes dark. My other senses sharpen immediately. I can hear his breathing. Feel the bed shifting under his weight.
"Can't move." His voice circles me, coming from everywhere and nowhere. I can hear the smirk in it even though I can't see his face. "Can't see. Can only feel. Now you’re completely mine."
My heart pounds. This is too much. Too vulnerable. I need to see his face, need to know where he is, what he's doing…
I’m about to say speak when he kisses me. It’s firm, decisive, like punctuation at the end of a sentence I didn’t even start. His hand cups my jaw, and suddenly I’m... hyperaware of every embarrassing noise I might be making.
When he pulls back, I'm dizzy.
"Shh," he says softly, lips still brushing mine. The warmth of him lingers, too close, too much.
"Ivan," I whisper. It’s not even a word—just a plea with vowels.
He chuckles—soft but humorless. Then he leans in, close enough that his lips brush the shell of my ear when he says, "You started as my captive. Now you're mine by choice. But tonight... I want to remember how it all began. The first thing I ever told you was that I enjoy my conquests slowly. Now you'll feel every second of it." His breath ghosts over my skin, and goosebumps chase down my arms.
His hands are on my breasts now, palms warm, thumbs brushing over nipples that are already hard.
A part of me wants to hide, run away, and cover myself. But a deeper part—the part that's been dreaming about this formonths—is anticipating that tongue. That mouth. Those fingers that know precisely what to do.
"You’re tense. Enough thinking." He rolls my nipples between his fingers, making me arch off the bed. "You're my captive now. No more hiding in that pretty head of yours. In my world, captives get stripped bare—of every secret. We don't stop until they've spilled it all, no matter how deep it's buried."
"What secrets?"
His mouth traces down my body, taking his time. Stomach, hipbones, inner thighs. Then lands where it should. Already working, overwhelming me until thoughts disappears.
A moan escapes before I can stop it.
He exhales against me and says, "Like how you crashed into my territory uninvited."
He goes back to work with his tongue and lips and the edge of his teeth. Building pressure, building heat. Then pauses again. "How you exposed my vulnerabilities."
"I never meant—" The protest dies when he sucks hard on my clit. My hips buck. The ropes pull tight.
