“Yes, sir,” she murmured, her voice husky from the screams of pain and pleasure I’d dragged out of her tonight.
She scrambled to obey, clumsy with the aftershocks of the orgasm I’d torn out of her, her gorgeous body trembling from head to toe. I caught her elbow before she could pitch off the mattress and guided her down until her knees hit the antique Persian rug.
I stared down at her and nearly stopped breathing. Her blindfold was still perfectly in place, her lips parted and swollen, chest heaving so hard I wondered for a moment if she was going to hyperventilate.
“Hands behind your back,” I said. My voice came out low, and rougher than I meant.
She nodded and obeyed instantly, like it never even occurred to her to hesitate.
“Good girl,” I purred, drinking in the way the praise pulled a gasp out of her and left a pretty pink flush in its wake.
Christ.
The way she reacted to my praise — like she’d been starving for it her whole damn life — hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer. I knew she carried too much, shouldered too much, and she had built her whole identity around being the one who held everything together for everyone else in her life. I’d watched her do it for four years, now. Since the first day we met, I’d watched her carry burdens no one her age should ever have had to touch. And yet… nobody praised her for any of it. Not really, and certainly not in a way that ever reallymattered.
Alice sure as hell didn’t. That bitch was such a spoiled, entitled brat, and I hoped that one day she’d meet someone who’d give her the rude awakening she deserved.
Their parents didn’t praise Chrissy for anything, ever. I wasn’t sure she could ever do anything right enough or good enough to suit them.
Life hadn’t handed my girl any breaks in the four years that I’d been following her, researching her, and decoding everything about her.
So, when she shivered like that — when a single soft phrase from me made her melt even harder than any command I gave her — it told me everything I needed to know.
She wasn’t just responsive to my needs, she was wired for this, for letting go and sinking into someone else’s hands. She was wired to be seen, really seen, and rewarded for her surrender instead of punished for dropping the ball.
Chrissy didn’t crumble under my dominance, sherelaxedinto it like her body had been waiting a lifetime for someone to give her permission to stop holding up the sky.
It fucking terrified me how much I liked being the one she gave that power to. More than that, it scared the living hell out of me that this was the first time I’d let myself touch her the way I really wanted to, and I was already getting addicted to it.
I loved how deep she already had her claws in me, without even knowing that Ben Stonewood and Jacob the groundskeeper were one and the same.
I should’ve pulled back, should’ve remembered who I was to her, and who I wasn’t… at least not yet, but with her kneeling in front of me, trembling from pleasure I’d given her?
Yeah… I was long past the point of remembering a damn thing that resembled good sense.
She genuinely let go and handed every bit of control over to me without question. That was what really did me in, not the blindfold or the way her lips parted on a shaky inhale.
It was that quiet, absolute trust. The kind she offered the version of me that was a complete unknown to her, for the moment.
I tilted her chin up. I shouldn’t have. But God, I needed to feel her lean into my touch, needed that small reminder that she wanted me, even if she didn’t know the truth about who I actually was.
“You sure you want to keep going, baby?” I asked, giving her a last chance to pull back. Or maybe giving myself one.
She nodded and licked her lips.
“Yes, sir.”
The words were so small, helpless, and honest.
And that was it, that was the moment whatever thin thread of self-control I’d been holding onto snapped clean in two.
I gave in. Stepping in close, I cradled the back of her head in one hand, and brushed my thumb across her wet bottom lip with the other.
“You’re going to thank me properly for the orgasm I just tore out of you,” I told her. “Open that pretty mouth for me, little doll.”
She opened for me instantly.
God, she’s fucking perfect. No hesitation, no shame, just raw, trembling obedience.
