Page 56 of Safe Word

Him.

Ghost – with Cain’s voice.

Shit, I was slipping.

I sank back into the couch.

The soft throw blanket curled around my legs, but was now useless against the slow-burning ache that crept deep enough to numb my toes.

Leaving Obsidian last time felt like surfacing after being held underwater for too long. Like the first gasp of air when my lungs stopped screaming and I’d realised I’d made it. I’d survived.

The session had wrecked me in the most profound – but necessary – way.

I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t even ashamed. I was exhausted. But not the kind that drained – the kind that cleansed. As though every cell in my body had let go of something so heavy that was never meant to be carried.

And it terrified me because I wasn’t sure if it was because of Ghost and how easily he did that to me – or because I was so broken I’d let him do it without putting up a fight.

It wasn’t normal to feel safe beneath the cold touch of a knife. It wasn’t normal to feel seen behind a mask.

A tremor worked through my fingers as I brushed them over the laptop keys. I couldn’t write about fiction when my reality was still echoing with both Ghost’s and Cain’s voice.

That kind of poison had to be dosed slowly.

I’d wanted to stay with Ghost. I would’ve stayed all goddamn night curled beside that jagged man with his phantom voice and his haunted hands. I’d wanted to disappear into his ruin and let him keep me.

But he wouldn’t let me.

And maybe…

That was the kindest thing he could’ve done.

Because I could already feel the shape of addiction forming under my skin. Not just for the pain, or the release, or the control. For him.

The way he spoke. The way he moved. What he did to me. He hadn’t looked away when I’d shattered – he’d steadied me, guided me, held me together with nothing but a word, a command, and his restraint. And it had fed his own hunger.

I hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Free… Beautiful.

My gaze dropped to the blinking cursor again.

How was I supposed to write when all I could think about was how I’d made it to the surface – and how desperately I already wanted to go under again?

With him.

I drew a shallow, unsteady breath. And started typing.

Not with intention. With need.

It was meant to be a turning point in the book – the chapter where the female character’s walls came down, where she let him in, fully and without fear. Where the masks slipped and nothing was safe any more. A scene of utter undoing.

Just like they made me feel.

My mind wandered back to Ghost’s duffel. To the glimpse of silver I’d caught last time – a sleek, heavy plug tucked beside the restraints. Purposeful to the point of hurt. I’d never used one before, but I had an idea how it worked. What it was for. And the thought of him using it… of pushing me further with nothing but that calm voice that promised punishment and release in one…

I took in a deep breath, the cool air sobering me. My thighs shifted instinctively, the phantom of his fingers still branded between them.

The scene I wrote blurred into memory: her on her knees, him behind her, one hand on the base of her spine, the other guiding her to breathe, to open, to take.

The rhythm of the words pulsed like a heartbeat. Like a warning—