“God, yes.” Maya laughs. “And you convinced him it was essential to your creative process.”
“My best bullshit to date.”
Maya glances at her watch and sighs. “I’ve got to run. Meeting with the paper’s editor.” She moves toward the door but pauses. “Just... text me back occasionally? So, I know you’re alive and not consumed by whatever this is?”
“I promise.”
“That’s all I ask.” She gives me one last look. “Call me when you come up for air.”
After Maya leaves, I stand in my studio surrounded by evidence of my transformation. These canvases tell the story of what I’m becoming. Who I’m becoming. With Gabe.
I check my phone. Three hours until I see him again. Three hours to shower away the paint, choose something that will please him, prepare my body and mind for whatever he has planned tonight.
My skin tingles with anticipation as I imagine his hands on me again. The way he touches—like he’s mapping coordinates on my body, finding pressure points that unlock parts of me I never knew existed.
Maya’s warnings echo in my head, but they’re growing fainter. Yes, there’s something dangerous about Gabe. The way his eyes change when he puts on that mask. The carefully controlled violence in his fingers when they tighten around my throat. But danger is another word for the edge I’ve been searching for my whole life.
I’ve always seen layers of the world that others miss—constellations hidden in streetlights. But Gabe sees the hidden geometries of my desire and traces them with rope burns and bruises that I can’t stop painting.
I run my fingers over the dried painton my arms. In a few hours, these marks will be replaced by his. The thought makes my breath catch.
What will he show me tonight? What new doors will he open? The mask, the rope, the clamps—each revelation feels like finding a new color I never knew existed. Each surrender peels away another layer between the person I pretended to be and the person emerging underneath.
I should be terrified by how quickly this is happening. How completely I’ve surrendered control. Instead, I find myself counting the minutes, arranging and rearranging myself like elements in a composition. Anticipating the moment when his eyes will take in what I’ve become—a canvas eager for his touch, a sculpture yearning to be shaped by his hands.
18
GABE
The Blue Room pulses with energy tonight—not from the crowd, which is decent but not overwhelming—but from the electricity that crackles between Amelia and me whenever our eyes meet across the room. She arrived at eight sharp, wearing a simple black dress that hugs every curve I’ve marked as mine countless times. I know what those curves feel like under my hands, my mouth, my teeth.
I’ve been keeping my distance deliberately, watching her from my position near the bar, letting her anticipation build while she sips a glass of the Bordeaux I selected. She feels my gaze—I can tell by the way she occasionally touches her neck where my marks are hidden beneath makeup.
When I finally approach, sliding my hand around her waist, she melts.
“Dance with me,” I whisper against her ear, loving the feeling of her shiver against me.
The band plays something slow and sultry—a piece I chose specifically for its undercurrent of tension.Amelia’s body moves against mine with perfect synchronicity. Her fingers brush the nape of my neck, and I pull her closer, one hand splayed possessively across her lower back.
“Everyone’s watching you,” I tell her. “They have no idea what you let me do to you.”
Her pupils dilate. I can feel her heart racing against my chest.
We dance until closing, her body growing increasingly pliant in my arms as the night deepens. When the last patron leaves, I lock the front door and turn to find her watching me with those expressive eyes that see too much.
“I want to explore more with you tonight,” I tell her, voice dropping lower. “Darker pursuits.”
Something flickers across her face—not fear, but something adjacent to it. Excitement. Recognition.
“Do you have it with you?” she asks. “The mask?”
I nod slowly, studying her reaction. “I do.”
“Put it on,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I want to see you in it again.”
I retrieve the spiked leather mask from my office, feeling its weight in my hands. The leather is cool against my skin as I slide it over my face, transforming myself before her eyes.
The mask changes everything. With it on, I become the darker creature of pure desire and control. Amelia’s breath quickens as she stares at me, her pupils so dilated I can barely see the color of her irises.
