I wait.
Still as stone.
Will she obey?
Or will I have to show her what persuasion truly looks like?
CHAPTER 5
AYLA
“Kneel.”
The word isn’t shouted. It doesn’t need to be. It rings like iron striking stone, reverberating in the center of my chest. My breath catches, my body frozen mid-motion, hands clenched uselessly at my sides.
“No,” I whisper at first. Reflex. Defense.
But my knees are already bending.
What the hell is wrong with me?
The cold metal floor bites into my skin as I lower myself, the chain attached to my collar clinking softly with every movement. I glare up at him, daring him to laugh, to mock me, to make me hate him.
He doesn’t.
He just watches. Eyes burning. Breathing slow. Not triumphant. Not cruel.
Appreciative.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, the words curling around my spine like smoke and heat.
I flinch, twisting away from his hand as it brushes my cheek, but it’s too late. My heart thuds once—twice—harder than it should. Ifeltthat. All of it. The tone. The touch. The... reaction.
No. No, no, no.
I bare my teeth. “Don’t call me that.”
“You liked it.”
“I did not!”
He tilts his head, a predator considering his prey’s tantrum. “Would you like to prove me wrong?”
I open my mouth to fire off something scathing, but he’s already walking away, toward a low platform in the center of the room. He points to the space beside it.
“Display position. Knees wide. Hands behind your back.”
“What thefuckis display position?”
He grins.
Heteachesme.
Slowly. Deliberately.
He describes what he wants—on all fours, kneeling with my hands on my thighs,head down, ass up—and expects me to get it right. Not because he demands obedience for its own sake. But because... he wants toseeme. Toknowme.
“I’m not your puppet,” I hiss, chest rising and falling too fast.
