Last night looped endlessly: his voice dropping low, commanding. My body arcing toward him like it belonged to someone else. The heat pooling low in my stomach, spreading through my limbs until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything except feel.
And the begging.
God, the begging.
I'd meant every word.
That was the part that hollowed me out worse than shame ever could.
I set the book down harder than necessary and reached for another, forcing my eyes to focus on the author's name. Fiction. Contemporary. Shelve it in the back corner near the window displays.
Except my hands trembled when I picked it up, and the memory crashed over me again—his fingers threading through my hair, his breath against my ear, the way he'd whispered my name like it was something precious instead of something he owned.
I wanted him.
Not the contract forcing my compliance.
Not the money keeping my father alive.
Not even the punishment I'd earned by skipping his game.
Just him.
The realization sat heavy in my chest, impossible to ignore. I'd crossed some invisible line last night, stopped fighting long enough to admit—if only to myself—that part of me craved exactly what he was doing to me.
And I hated that part with everything I had. Hated how my pulse quickened when he walked into a room. Hated the flutter low in my stomach when his voice gentled, rare and devastating. Hated that I kept wondering what it would feel like if he touched me again—not as punishment, not as dominance, but as something softer.
Something real.
I grabbed the next book blindly, checked the spine without processing the title, and shoved it onto the nearest shelf.
Wrong section. Wrong genre entirely.
I pulled it back out, breath unsteady, and stared at the cover until the letters blurred together.
The truth was simple and horrifying: I wanted more. More of his hands on my skin. More of his control wrapped around me like armor. More of the twisted safety I felt when he held me in the dark, possessive and certain and utterly inescapable.
I wanted him to want me—not just my body, not just my obedience.
Me.
The admission cracked something open inside my chest, spilling shame and longing in equal measure.
I set the book down carefully and pressed both palms flat against the counter.
Alphabetizing wouldn't fix this.
Nothing would.
The bell rang.
I didn't look up immediately, muscle memory pulling the words from my throat before my brain caught up.
"Welcome in?—"
Then his voice cut through the quiet like a blade. Low. Unmistakable. Final. "We're closing."
My head snapped up fast enough to make my vision swim.
