He’ll kneel.
Chapter 5
Bastien Montclaire
Ah.She wants a man who burns for her. Only her.
You have my attention.
I don’t want soft hands and careful love. I want a man who sees every fucked-up piece of me and still wants it. Craves it. I want to be someone’s obsession. Possession. A man who doesn’t just touch me. He takes me—mind, body, and soul. No questions. No hesitation. If a man like that is out there… he can have me. All of me. Let him wreck me. I want to be undone.
Fuck yeah. I’m here for it.
My pulse doesn’t race. It steadies and locks in. Every breath is deeper, slower, hungrier.
Some moments in life don’t ask for permission. They carve themselves into you, permanent as scars.
This is one of those moments.
I shift enough to catch her in the mirror. She’s still seated, surrounded by her friends, laughing. Bold, radiant, dangerous without even trying.
Her voice is low, but it cuts through the air like a whip. Straight to me.
Not desperate. Not pleading.Hungry.
She wants a partner. A devotee.
I would be both. And more.
I would worship her the way men worship gods, with reverence sharpened by hunger, with fire licking at the edge of control. I would wrap my world around her so tightly she’d forget what it is to breathe without me.
She wouldn’t want freedom. She would only want me.
This woman wants to be at the center of a man’s obsession?
Let her try to breathe without me. Let her try to sleep without my hands on her body, without my mouth dragging secrets from her skin. Let her try to walk through her days without knowing someone is watching, not because she’s in danger but because she belongs to someone dangerous.
I would ruin her rhythm and make her crave the edge. And once she crosses into the dark with me, she'll never want to come back.
My chase would not be playful. No giggles. No safe words. No slow pursuit through candlelight. I mean arealchase. Heart-pounding and pulse-skipping. The kind where she runs because some part of her wants to be caught.
And when I catch her, God help us both.
The pursuit of man chasing woman is older than language. It is primal, stitched into the marrow of our species. Women know what it is to be hunted. It lives in their blood. Ancient. Instinctual. Buried in the memory of a time when men did not ask. They took. When desire meant dominance and surrender was not a choice. It was survival.
She has that instinct in her. I can tell by the way she speaks, the words she chooses. A part of her already knows how this ends. She’s been waiting for the hunt to begin.
I would take her deep into the trees, blindfold her first to make her heart race faster. Then I’d whisper the rules in her ear, how long a head start she gets, how far she may run. I would tell her to be clever, to make it hard, and try her best not to get caught.
Then I would let her go.
She would bolt, barefoot, her dress clinging to her thighs, laughter spilling from her mouth before it turns into something breathless and sharp. She would move fast, but not fast enough. Twigs snapping beneath her feet. Branches tangling in her hair. Her hands scraping bark as she ducks, twists, and hides.
She would stop behind a tree, chest heaving, hand clamped over her mouth, trying to hide the sound of her breathing. Her ears would strain to listen, wondering if I am close, if I can smell her panic and her thrill. She wouldn’t know whether to run or wait.
And then I would be there.
I would drag her back against me in one clean motion, her front pressed to my chest, her scream swallowed by my hand. Her body would go still. Not from fear but recognition.
