Page 67 of Safe Word

Cain sat across from me without even taking a break to use the toilet. A thundercloud in human form, typing like he’d just sold his soul for a spark of brilliance. His jaw was tight, stubble framing it like a dare, and he had that look that said he saw something wicked unfolding in his mind and was about to make you feel it.

Me?

I was staring at the last line of Chapter Twenty like it had wronged me.

My process wasn’t elegant. I wrote raw first – gut before grammar – then polished it to suit whatever invisible style guide he kept in his very complicated, very haunted brain.

Damien held Chloe by the throat in the final paragraph, promising to ruin her. A line that made my heart stutter even as I typed it.

Because if it were me…

I’d let Ghost do just that.

And then it hit me – the weight of observation. I could feel Cain reading, his gaze crawling across the sentence like fingers dragging over flesh.

Shit.

I realigned my spine, fingers poised on the keyboard, pretending I hadn’t just had an orgasmic flashback at work.

Suddenly, he hummed low in his throat – a disapproving sound that rumbled like distant thunder.

‘No,’ he said finally, voice cutting through the silence like silk drawn tight.

My fingers recoiled from the keyboard as if burned.

He gestured at the screen without looking away from it. ‘Just like you said: it’s not the act; it’s the emotion. Chloe reacts like it’s a novelty – superficial – but it’s not.’ His voice dropped a register. ‘We keep coming back to this. Being held like that, if done right… it’s not about fear or arousal. It’s about submission. She should feel it in her breath, her pulse – not just her panties.’

My tongue felt like sandpaper.

She feels it all right, I thought to myself.

‘She does feel it,’ I said quietly. ‘How could she not? She lets him touch her… she leans into it.’

‘That’s not the same,’ Cain murmured, his voice calm with a low cadence that suddenly pulled at the memory of Ghost. Fuck, I had it bad. ‘Leaning into a touch isn’t the same as giving your breath to someone else.’

‘She’s not afraid of it. That has to count for something,’ I argued.

‘It does,’ he said, raising his brows thoughtfully. ‘But fear and surrender aren’t opposites.’ Then he angled his head slightly, watching me. ‘Sometimes they hold hands.’

I hesitated as I held the gold of his eyes. ‘So… you’re saying she’s not supposed to enjoy it, or…?’

‘Oh, she is,’ he said, eyes sharpening. ‘But not because it’s kinky and she feels it’s wrong. But because it strips her bare. Because she knows, right then, that she belongs to him – and she’s…’ he paused, taking in a deep breath and holding it in as his eyes slanted to the side, ‘relieved.’

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

He watched me for a beat longer. Weighing. Thinking. And whatever he saw on my face made him move.

He stood, the motion rattling my bones.

Measuredly, he walked around the desk.

My pulse tapped against my neck unsteadily. I didn’t move. Just watched him through lashes too still, too wide.

He stopped beside me.

Close.

‘May I?’ The question was low. Careful. A string of consent stretched taut as he presented his large hand to me.