“Good.”
His tempo picked up, not rough, but purposeful.Each thrust fed the fire he’d been building in me, stoking it, watching it grow.I could hear him behind me, his breath steady, his restraint still in place.
Even when I cried out, even when my body began to shake, he didn’t lose control.
He stayed with me.
He followed every sign.
Matched every tremble.
Adjusted every angle until I was choking on sensation, on praise, on the power I had chosen to give him.
“Let go,” he said, and the command dropped straight into my spine.
The release wasn’t explosive.
It was inevitable.
Not from pain.
Not from chaos.
From trust.
And when he followed, hips stuttering, grip tightening, voice low and grounded, he didn’t collapse.He caught me.
And we didn’t speak.We didn’t need to.
The collar around my throat said everything.
And as his forehead rested against mine, I knew.
This wasn’t obedience.
This was by choice.
And restraint breaking doesn’t always sound like thunder.
Sometimes...it sounds like breath finally being let go.
* * *
GRAY LIGHT PRESSEDthrough the curtains, dull and unyielding, as if the night had refused to release me.Sleep had been shallow—interrupted, fractured—my mind looping through impressions instead of memories.Creed’s hand at my back.His mouth at my ear.The way restraint had finally bent...without breaking.
Creed’s voice lingered in my thoughts.
Don’t mistake this evening for forgiveness.
It hadn’t been forgiveness.But it had been something.
That distinction mattered.
I pushed back the covers, my bare feet finding the cold floor as reality seeped in like a slow poison.I shivered, retreating into the en-suite, hoping the hot water would wash away the ache clinging to my skin.But when I emerged, hair damp, body wrapped in the silk robe the wardrobe team had left behind, nothing had changed.My body still hummed with the echo of him, the weight of his absence pressing down on me.
I hadn’t expected to wake up alone.
The silence felt deliberate.Not empty—held.Like the house itself was waiting.
