I want her madness, want to see her unravel.
And I’ll keep going until I find it, until I excavate every layer.
The problem is, I know what I’d look like if I went back in there right now.
Not a man.
Not a captor.
Not a fucking king in his castle.
A slave to a girl I already own, chained by my own desire.
I lean against the cold metal of the door opposite hers and press my forehead to it, breathing in steel and restraint like it’ll cleanse me of the rot inside my skull, like it’ll purify the obsession. But all I see is her. All I hear is the broken gasps she made when I pulled away, the ones that sounded like please but came out like curses.
Her voice is inside my veins now, stitched into me like a parasite that moans when I breathe, that’s become part of my biology.
She’s infected me completely.
No.
I let her, opened the door and invited the contagion in.
And I’m going to let her keep doing it, over and over, until there’s nothing left of me but the hunger, until I’m hollowed out and filled with her.
I could wait. I could cool off. I could ice this fever with distance and calculated cruelty, with time and space.
But what would be the fucking point?
I’m not trying to escape her.
I’m trying to drown in her, to go under and never surface.
I look at the monitor again, drawn back despite myself.
She’s staring at the camera now. No fear visible in her expression. No tears now. Just fire burning in those eyes.
Eyes red-rimmed from crying, mouth parted, thighs clenched like she’s holding back something she refuses to give to anyone but me.
Even in her ruin, she wants control.
Even soaked in humiliation, she dares to glare like she isn’t mine.
Good.
I don’t want her meek and broken.
I want her to bite, to burn, to scream so loud the walls remember her voice long after she’s gone.
I won’t break for someone who bends easily.
I’ll only burn for the girl who dares to fight the flames even as they consume her.
My cock aches again, throbs with renewed need. The kind of need that turns rational men into devils, that rewrites morality. The kind of ache that makes you forget your own name and remember hers on an endless loop.
Tahlia.
Tahlia.
