It doesn’t come.
Instead he makes a soft, chiding sound.
And then he steps into me, his grip on my arm loosening, transforming. He pulls me into his arms.
It’s not a passionate embrace, nor is it the claiming grip of a owner. It’s an embrace. One arm wraps around my back, holding me firmly against the solid wall of his chest. His other hand cups the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair.
I am frozen, utterly bewildered. He has never held me like this. It feels like comfort, it feels like shelter.
I am stiff in his arms, afraid to breathe, afraid this is some new, exquisite torture.
“I forget how young you are, Grace,” he murmurs, his voice a low vibration against my ear. There’s use of my name again, not as a key but as a sad, final verdict. “So beautifully, tragically young and naïve to believe a world like that exists.”
He embraces me for a long moment, just holding me.
And the terrible, traitorous part of my heart, the part that loves him against all reason and hope begins to stitch itself back together with this fragile thread. Maybe he is not incapable, maybe he is just afraid. Maybe thisishis version of love, the only way he knows how to show it.
He slowly pulls back, just enough to look down at me. His dark eyes search my face, and in their depths, I see not anger but a strange, weary conflict. He sees my shattered expression, the tears still clinging to my lashes.
He lifts his hand, his thumb gently tracing my lower lip. The air crackles with unspoken things. The anger is gone, replaced by a tension that is infinitely more terrifying.
He lowers his head and kisses me.
It’s not like his other kisses. It’s not a demand, nor a punishment, nor a celebration of conquest.
It is slow. Deep. Devastatingly tender.
It’s a kiss that feels like an apology and a confession all at once. His lips are soft, moving over mine with a reverence that steals the breath from my lungs. One hand remains tangled in my hair, the other sliding to the small of my back, pressing me closer, not with hunger but with a need that feels terrifyingly genuine.
I try to convince myself it isn’t loving.He’s manipulating you,a voice screams in my head.This is a new game.He doesn’t love you. He can’t.
But my stupid, traitorous, wishful heart is screaming something else. It is beating a frantic, hopeful rhythm against his chest, begging me to believe the language of this kiss over the language of his words.
For one terrifying, beautiful moment wrapped in the arms of my captor, wearing the diamond collar of his possession, I allow myself to believe the lie.
He loves me. He just can’t say the words.
This belief is a fragile, glowing ember in my chest as he pushes the bedroom door open with his foot. It’s a dangerous hope, I know. To love Antonio is to walk a knife’s edge. But after the darkness I’ve endured, this feeling, however perilous is the only thing that feels real.
He doesn’t turn on the main light. A single lamp on the far bedside table casts the room in a pool of soft, golden light, leaving the corners in deep shadow. He walks to the centre of the vast bed, its covers already turned down by unseen staff and he lays me down upon the cool, silken sheets as if I am something precious, something breakable.
He stands over me, his silhouette blocking the light and for a moment, he is my Master again. My heart stutters, the old fear a cold trickle in my veins. But then he kneels on the bed, one knee on either side of my hips, caging me without touching me.
His hands come to the straps of my simple silk dress. His fingers, usually so deft and demanding, are impossibly gentle. He coaxes the fabric from my shoulders, down my arms, peeling it away from my body with a patience I have never known in him. The air kisses my skin, raising goosebumps, but his gaze is hotter than any sun. It drinks me in as I am revealed to him, inch by agonizingly slow inch.
When I am bare before him, he doesn’t immediately cover my body with his. He simply looks, his expression one of such intense, awestruck focus that I feel my eyes well up. He is not assessing his property, he is admiring.
He lowers his head, and his mouth finds the frantic pulse at the base of my throat. His lips are soft, his tongue a hot, wet brand that makes me gasp. This is not a claiming bite. It is a tasting. A savouring.
And he takes his time.
His mouth traces a path of fire down my body. He kisses the slope of my breast, the underside, before drawing a taut peak into the heat of his mouth. He suckles deeply, rhythmically, and a low moan is torn from me, the sound echoing in the silent room. Antonio moves to its twin, giving it the same devoted attention until I am writhing beneath him, my fingers tangling in the dark silk of his hair.
He continues his journey, like a pilgrim at the altar of my body. His lips brush over the quivering roundness of my stomach, the crest of my hip bone. He nuzzles the softness of my inner thigh and I jerk, a sob catching in my throat.
It’s too much. This tenderness is a weapon far more devastating than any display of force.
“Antonio,” I plead, though I don’t know what I’m asking for. For him to stop? For him to never, ever stop?
