She came with a broken cry, body bowing off the bed, and I followed — spilling deep, hips jerking, groaning her name again into her neck like a prayer.
I didn’t pull out right away. I stayed inside her, arms wrapped around her, holding her like something fragile I’d almost broken. Her breath was ragged against my throat, her body still trembling with aftershocks, tears drying on her cheeks beneath the blindfold. I could feel her heartbeat hammering against my chest, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.
I buried my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her — roses, salt, sex — and let the words I’d never meant to say spill out, low and rough and unstoppable.
“I know I don’t deserve you,” I whispered against her skin. “Not one goddamn bit of you.”
She went very still beneath me, breath catching.
“I know the kind of man you think I am,” I continued, voice cracking on the edges. “The kind who plays games with people’s lives. Who hides behind masks and rules and punishments. And you’re right. I am that man.”
My hips flexed involuntarily, a slow grind that dragged a soft whimper from her throat. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop the way my body wanted to stay buried in hers, claiming even as I confessed.
“But you…” I pressed my scarred cheek to hers, letting her feel the ruined skin through the thin silk still covering her eyes. “You stepped in front of my anger today like it was nothing. Like protecting someone weaker was just… what you do. And it fucking undid me.”
I pulled back just enough to brace my weight on my forearms, still seated deep inside her, and dropped my forehead to hers.
“I don’t deserve you,” I said again, slower this time, each word deliberate. “But I’m keeping you anyway.”
Her breath hitched sharply.
“If you pass the rest of the tests,” I murmured, lips brushing hers as I spoke. “If you make it through everything this Game still has in store for you… you’re mine. Not because of the money. Not because of the prize. Because I can’t let you walk away now. Not after this.”
I thrust once — slow, possessive — punctuating the promise.
“You’ll wear that ring for real one day,” I said, thumb finding her left hand, tracing the silver band and green stone. “And you’ll know exactly who put it there.”
She trembled harder, a fresh wave of tears soaking into the blindfold, but she didn’t pull away. Didn’t say no.
I kissed her again — deep, claiming, tasting the salt of her tears and the truth I’d finally let out.
Then, because I was still a coward in every way that mattered, I forced myself to withdraw, the loss of her heat a physical ache. I cleaned us both with steady hands, dressed in silence, and stood.
“Count to one hundred,” I said, voice flat again, the mask sliding back into place. “Do not remove the blindfold until then.”
I walked to the door, paused with my hand on the knob, and looked back one last time.
She lay sprawled across the sheets, flushed and marked and trembling, my mother’s ring glinting on her finger like a vow I hadn’t earned yet.
I was more fucked than ever.
Because now she knew I intended to keep her.
And the only thing standing between me and that future was the rest of the Game I’d built to trap her in the first place.
I stepped into the passage and pulled the door shut behind me.
In the dark, mask dangling from my fingers, I whispered the only thought that still scared me:
“Please pass, little doll. Please don’t make me let you go.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
CHRISSY
December 14, 10:00 AM
