Page 69 of Safe Word

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, but I didn’t type. How could I?

The man had just edited the scene – and me – at the same time.

THIRTEEN

Idiot.

What the fuck was I thinking?

I shouldn’t have touched her. I had signed the damn HR brief. Boundaries. Zero tolerance. Just like with Scarlett.

One moment like that was a one-way ticket to a lawsuit, steel bars and a record.

My hand burnt with the imprint of her soft, warm skin as if the contact itself carried consequences.

She’d looked at me like I was about to grant her ruin in place of mercy. Eyes wide, oceans and skies and meadows bleeding into one impossible shade. Earth and air and water – all open and waiting. Her lips had parted slightly. And fuck me, I wanted to see her fall.

Not just physically. I wanted her cracked. I wanted to slither into that space between breath and thought where obedience lived and submission was pleasure.

Because I could see it in her eyes. She didn’t know it yet, but she would thrive on it.

And so would I.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Clenching my teeth together, I dragged my chair back and feigned nonchalance as I reached for my laptop. Pretending to write. Pretending I hadn’t just felt her pulse beat like a secret against my fingers.

I typed a few useless words, then deleted them.

Instead, I watched her write from my end of the workspace.

She was rewriting the last part. Her sentences had softened, but they also deepened. The emotion was threading in now, the breath between each line tighter. Real.

She’s learning, I thought. The faint stutter in her breath told me she wasn’t only writing lines – she was reading me, too.

And she was a quick study.

I shifted slightly in my seat. And then—

Ah, fuck.

The next paragraph opened with a line about the plug. The one Damien was about to use on Chloe. Described perfectly.

I stiffened.

Because my mind wandered off to the dark side. Only instead of Scarlett…

Shit. Fuck. Idiot. Motherf—

I groaned, gulping down the glass of water next to my mouse.

My mind flashed with the image of my masked beauty. On her knees like last time, that quiet gasp she’d let out when the blade touched her skin, the way she’d begged without ever using words. And as I followed the text Paula trailed on the page, it reminded me I had a plug for my little angel tonight, too.

Smaller. Stainless steel, heavy enough to own her once inside.

But suddenly, I wasn’t sure who I was thinking about more. The one who called herself Scarlett – or the woman sitting five feet away. Still flushed from my touch.

Still writing me onto the fucking page.