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“I couldn’t say—”

“How long ago!?”

He takes an uncertain step toward me.

“Has something happened, my lord?”

I swallow with difficulty, I feel every fiber of my neck and shoulders strained.

“Laurence, patience has never been one of my virtues. Answer my question.”

He stops, motionless, his eyes not daring to meet mine fully. “Perhaps twenty minutes have passed.”

I sigh letting my chest sink a little, trying to gather the control that still eludes me. I drag a stool over and sit down, my bare thighs come into contact with the cold, dirty wood. The dust clings to the sweat, to the skin, and stings me slightly.

I take a sheet of paper between my fingers and find a stub of charcoal. I grab it, my hands trembling slightly, still warm from what occurred. I trace a mark on the paper. I look at it, dissatisfied, and with a nervous flick of my hand, I smudge it out. The charcoal mixes with the sweat and the heat of my skin, the paper is now stained, blackened, irregular beneath my fingers. I tear it up and take another. Laurence offers me the pen and ink without a word, I seize them without sparing him a glance.

“It is not lust that I desire.”

A drop of sweat falls from my hair and settles on the word lust.

“It was not just a hand. You know it well.”

It is useless for him to attempt to lie, in his eyes the same torment that burns in mine is betrayed.

“I am not finished with you. And you are not finished with me.”

My eyes slide down my thighs, over the taut skin, over the dried fluid that pulls at my belly. Lower down, it is still tumid.

It does not yield. It gives me no respite.

I grit my teeth and add:

“Come back. D.V.A”

I fold the paper carefully, clutching it for a moment; Laurence already has the envelope and wax in his hands, but I do not turn.

I do it myself.

The paper slides inside, and my hand remains suspended for a moment over the surface of the envelope, as if to imprint one last intention upon it. I grab a match from the table. The flame trembles between my fingers, burning slightly, illuminating the ridges of the wax as it melts slowly, liquid and viscous.

I pour the hot liquid onto the envelope; instead of the ring, I bring my thumb down. I press, I hold, and the heat sears my skin slightly.

The wax conforms, leaving a unique imprint.

Mine.

Laurence’s eyes go wide.

“My Lord—”

I block him with my other hand, without lifting my thumb from the wax. I feel the skin reacting, slightly aching, and with it the resistance of the matter beneath me.

It is hot, sticky, motionless, but it yields under my will.

As he will.

Because there’s no way I’m letting him escape after the fucking spell he just cast on me.