This.
The candles burning down while he waited upstairs, certain I'd refuse.
The wine breathing, temperature-perfect.
The food timed to finish exactly when defiance would force his hand.
He'd orchestrated my resistance before I'd even thought to offer it. Planned the response. Prepared the stage. All that remained was watching me perform the role he'd written.
I hated him. Hated the certainty in his stillness. Hated that my pulse jumped when his hand lifted?—
And hated more that I couldn't tell if it was fear making my breath catch.
Or something worse.
He stepped between my knees. The space I didn't realize I'd been guarding vanished. Just—gone. Claimed with the simple act of moving forward, of deciding that distance was negotiable and I had no say in the terms.
My spine locked. Every muscle coiled tight, preparing for?—
Nothing happened.
He didn't touch me. Didn't grab or grope or do any of the things my body braced for with sick, animal certainty. Just stood there, close enough that the heat of him pressed through my jeans, turning the air between us into something thick and difficult to breathe.
"I'm hungry."
The words fell quiet. Measured.
But they landed wrong.
Too heavy for something so simple. Too layered with meaning my brain refused to unpack because doing so would require acknowledging implications that made my skin crawl.
Or burn.
I couldn't tell which anymore.
His hands moved.
I flinched—sharp, instinctive, graceless.
But he didn't reach for my throat or my face or any of the vulnerable places that suddenly felt too exposed.
He reached lower. Palms settling on my knees. Warm. Solid. Impossible to ignore.
Then he pushed. Spread my legs wider. Not violently. Not fast. Just steady, inexorable pressure that moved my body exactly where he wanted it despite every scream of protest trapped behind my teeth.
The denim stretched. My thighs parted. The position opened me up in ways that had nothing to do with clothes and everything to do with surrender.
"Don't."
The word barely made it past my lips.
Whispered. Cracked. Pathetic even to my own ears.
He leaned in. Close enough that his breath ghosted across my jaw. Close enough that I could see the individual shades of blue in his irises—dark around the edges, lighter near the center, pitiless in every variation.
"You don't get to refuse me."
Quiet.
