When I padded back into the bedroom, he was awake.
He was sitting up against the headboard, watching the doorway like he’d been waiting for me.There was something in his expression I couldn’t read.Something raw and hungry and almost desperate.
“Hi.”I stopped at the foot of the bed, suddenly self-conscious about my nakedness.Which was ridiculous, considering what he’d done to this body just hours ago.
“Come here.”
It wasn’t a request.It never was, with him.But there was something underneath the command this time.Something that sounded almost like need.
I climbed back onto the bed, and he pulled me against him immediately.His arms wrapped around me like I might disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough.His face pressed into my hair, and I felt him breathe deep.
“You’re being weird,” I said into his chest.
“Am I?”
“Weirder than usual, I mean.And that’s saying something, because you’re pretty weird to begin with.”
He laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes when I pulled back to look at him.He rolled onto his back, pulling me with him so I sprawled half across his chest.I could feel his heart beating beneath my cheek.Steady.Strong.Faster than it should be for a man at rest.
“I have something for you.”
My stomach flipped.He’d said those words before.Usually they preceded something expensive and impractical, like the diamond earrings I’d never wear or the silk robes that cost more than my monthly salary used to be.
But he was reaching for the nightstand, for something that definitely wasn’t jewelry sized.When he pulled it out, my breath caught.
The collar.
The same one he’d shown me that first morning in his study, when he’d opened a velvet box and watched my face like a scientist observing a reaction.I remembered the way I’d recoiled.The way I’d said I would never be ready for that.The way he’d smiled, patient and knowing, and left it sitting on his desk like a promise.
A delicate silver chain, the links fine and intricate, with a small ring at the center studded with diamonds that caught the light.The collar.
“I want you to wear this.”
My mouth went dry.“I told you I’d never be ready.”
“I know.”He wasn’t looking at me.His eyes were fixed on the chain in his hands, the diamonds winking as they caught the light.“But I’m asking anyway.”
My heart was beating too fast.“Why now?”
He met my eyes then, and the intensity in his gaze pinned me in place.I couldn’t have looked away if I’d wanted to.
““I’m not asking you because I want to play a game.I’m asking because I want you to choose it.Because I want you to wear this and know that you belong to me.Not because I put it on you.Because you’re choosing to be mine.”His voice dropped lower.“And when I fasten it, I want to hear you say it.Say ‘I’m yours.’””
The words hung in the air between us.Heavy.Significant.The kind of words that changed things.
I thought about all the choices that had been taken from me.My father, sheltering me into helplessness.The debt, forcing me into this arrangement.The contract, spelling out the terms of my submission in cold legal language.
But this.This was something else.
“I could say no,” I said slowly, testing the words.Testing him.“And you wouldn’t hold it against me.”
“You could say no.”His voice was rough.“This isn’t about the contract.This isn’t about the deal we made.It’s just…” He paused.Swallowed.“It’s just us.”
Just us.
Was there an us?Was there something beyond the contract, the arrangement, the carefully negotiated exchange of my body for my family’s survival?
My chest ached with an answer I wasn’t ready to say out loud.
