I let out a long breath and tremble as a light spark of pleasure zaps across me. I shiver once with a light grunt, and then it’s gone.
Leonid
I watch on the monitor in my office as she tosses and turns. Unable to get comfortable or unable to switch off her mind, I don’t know.
But when she turns onto her back and lifts her knees, I know what she is doing. Then she drops her panties by the side of the bed, and I’m instantly hard.
I watch her face carefully as she brings herself to climax, my cock throbbing with a need so potent I feel it in my blood. But it’s over so quickly, barely a tremor, and then she is on her side again, knees curled up to her chest. Still not sleeping.
I don’t move at first.
That’s the thing about control; it doesn’t snap all at once. It stretches. It strains. It gives a warning before it breaks, and I feel every second of it now, sitting alone in my office with the monitors glowing softly in the dark.
Victoria lies curled on her side, her body still restless even after what she just did. She didn’t fall asleep. She didn’t relax. She didn’t find peace.
She’s still tense, still awake, and mine in a way she hasn’t admitted out loud yet.
My jaw tightens. My hand fists slowly on the top of the desk, knuckles whitening as the reality of it settles in, not the act itself, but what it means. She didn’t imagine some faceless release. Shedidn’t drift. She was with me. With my voice in her head. My presence. Me.
I told myself I’d give her time. I told myself patience would win this cleanly.
But patience has its limits.
I stand, the chair sliding back soundlessly, and for the first time since she came into my house, I don’t bother pretending this is a game of distance and strategy. My body is already moving before my mind finishes justifying it. Down the hall and up the stairs.
Her door is closed but not locked. I stop in front of it, my hand lifting instinctively, then pausing.
I knock once, loud enough that it can’t be mistaken for anything else. I’m not asking permission. I’m warning her. Then I open the door and step inside without waiting for an answer.
The room is dark except for the thin spill of moonlight cutting across the bed. She jerks upright instantly, breath sharp, eyes flashing toward the doorway. The sheet clings to her body like a second skin, and I can feel the echo of what she just did humming in the air between us. The room smells faintly of heat and soap and something unmistakably her.
“You don’t get to just walk in here,” she snaps, fury snapping into place like armor.
I close the door behind me with deliberate care. “I knocked.”
“That wasn’t—” She stops, swallowing hard as my silhouette shifts closer.
I don’t turn on the light. I don’t want her sharp edges. I want the truth she can’t hide when the dark strips her defenses down to instinct and breath and pulse. I stop a few feet away, close enough that she knows exactly where I am, far enough that she still has space to pretend she’s not affected.
Her breathing is fast. Controlled, but fast.
“You should leave,” she says, but the fire in her voice doesn’t quite cover the tremor underneath it.
I tilt my head, listening to her body instead of her words. “You’re not afraid of me,” I say softly. “You’re angry.”
Her laugh is brittle. “Congratulations. You figured that out all by yourself?”
“You’re angry,” I continue, unhurried, “because you don’t like what your body just admitted.”
Silence crashes down between us, heavy and electric.
She tightens her grip on the sheet. “You were watching me.” It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
The word lands clean. Honest. Unapologetic.
She sucks in a breath like it burns. “What is wrong with you?” The words are meant harshly, but they come out breathless and for a second, I wonder if part of her knew. If part of her likes the thought of me watching her.
