Can't push too fast.
Can't let her think this was about my gratification instead of her liberation, even though we both know that's partly a lie.
Even though my body is screaming at me to go to her.
I pour another scotch.
My third. Or is it my fourth? I've lost count.
This was supposed to be controlled.
Calculated.
Part of a larger strategy I'd mapped out with the same precision I use for corporate acquisitions.
Show her pleasure, make her body crave what I could give her, slowly break down her walls until she chose to stay because leaving would mean giving up sensations she'd never experienced before.
Make her dependent on me.
Make her choose the cage.
But the control is slipping through my fingers like water.
I can feel it fraying at the edges, threatening to snap entirely and leave me with nothing but raw need and obsession.
Because this stopped being about strategy the moment she looked at me with those hazel eyes and whispered yes.
The moment she trusted me enough—terrified as she was—to let me show her.
The moment she came apart in my hands and made those sounds I'll hear in my dreams for the rest of my life.
This is becoming personal.
And personal is dangerous when you're trying to maintain control.
The realization hits me like a physical blow, stealing my breath.
This isn't just about possession anymore.
It's not about owning her or keeping her or even making her dependent on me.
I'm invested in her pleasure.
In her discovery.
In watching her understand that everything the Sanctuary taught her was a lie designed to control her, to make her small, to strip away her autonomy and make her accept whatever scraps of existence men decided to give her.
I want her to understand her own power.
Want to watch her reclaim parts of herself that were stolen before she was old enough to fight back.
I care about her healing.
And that's fucking terrifying.
Because caring means vulnerability.
Means she has power over me that I never intended to give her.
