Her breath catches, barely audible. “What would the phrase be?”
“Anything you choose, Laurette. Something that makes you feel safe and in control. You’ll say it when you’re giving me permission to take what I want, even while you fight me. Your body might resist, but those words will tell me the truth. That you want it. That I have your consent.”
That phrase will be the key. The lock between consent and surrender. The password to unlock the hunger she’s too afraid to name but aching to satisfy.
“Silent surrender,” she says.
The words crackle between us.
“Silent surrender,” I echo, tasting each syllable. “A perfect choice.”
“This is unhinged,” she says.
“Not unhinged. Raw. My devotion to you strips away the brakes. I’m going to show you a world where you are everything. Where yourpleasure is sacred and your fear is foreplay. Every inch of you belongs to me, and every part of me is already yours.”
Her breath catches, and I can almost hear her thinking. Weighing. Wanting.
She whispers, “I want this.”
Pleasure unfurls in my chest. She’s mine now. Fully. Willingly.
My fingers tighten around the phone as if it were her throat beneath my palm.
My voice drops, dark and full of promise. “Good girl.”
I can’t see her, but I hear her quiet gasp, threaded with arousal. The kind that slips out when control crumbles.
She’s understanding it.
The weight of this.
The danger of me.
The gravity of what she’s just invited in.
“Your privacy ends here. From now on, I’ll be watching you. Every move you make belongs to me. You invited this—the obsession and worship.” My eyes close, and I see her. Head tipped back. Pupils blown. Breath stuttering. “Never forget that.”
She exhales softly. “Yes, I did.”
A smile carves its way across my face. I draw in a breath and let the hunger bloom in my chest.
“We’ll meet again soon, Laurette. And when I step out of the dark, you’ll never want me to return to it.”
“When?”
The tremor beneath her voice betrays her—need laced with dread.
“When I decide.”
We end the call, but her voice stays in my veins. She gave consent. She invited the monster to her door. Now all that’s left is to knock.
We are about to have a lot of fucking fun.
Chapter 14
Laurette Devereux
I’ve prosecutedserial killers with less intensity than this man.
