Scared.
Aroused.
Confused.
Exactly where I need her.
I step back again, putting space between us.
"Stay there," I order. "Don't move."
I cross the room to the leather chair positioned ten feet from the door. Sit. Spread my legs. Rest my hands on the armrests.
Watch her.
Blindfolded, cuffed, naked, pressed against my front door like she's afraid her legs will give out if she steps away.
She doesn't know I'm watching.
Can't see me.
But she canfeelmy eyes on her.
I let the silence stretch. Twenty seconds. Thirty.
Her breathing slows slightly. Not calm—just exhausted from the adrenaline crash.
"What's your safeword, Scarletta?" I ask.
She flinches at the sound of my voice coming from a different location.
"I—" She swallows. "Red."
That came right out of her stories. It's always red. "And if you can't speak?"
"Three taps."
"Good. Those are the only two things that will make me stop. Use them if you need to."
I pause.
"But you won't."
She makes a small, desperate sound.
"You won't use your safeword because you've been fantasizing about this for years. You don't want gentle. You wantreal."
I lean forward slightly in the chair.
"You want someone who'll push you past every limit you thought you had. Who'll make you cry, and beg, and break. Who'll fuck the shame right out of you until you can't remember why you were ever embarrassed."
Her knees buckle. She catches herself, head against the door.
"And then," I continue, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper, "you want someone who'll hold you afterward. Who'll tell you that you're perfect exactly as you are. That your darkness doesn't make you broken—it makes youmine."
A sob tears out of her.
Raw. Uncontrolled.
