TWENTY-THREE
Terrified. That’s what I was. Because I realised he wasn’t going to play nice tonight.
The flogger, the restraint, the sheer force of him – it should’ve triggered something deep and ugly, the way Travis used to.
But it didn’t. Ghost was ruthless, yes, but not cruel.
Every strike had a purpose, every denial a lesson – and underneath it all, a strange kind of mercy.
He didn’t touch me to diminish me. He stripped me down to show me I could survive it. Still crave it.
In the heat of that punishment, I saw a man teaching my body the difference between pain as control, and pain as freedom. And I needed that. I needed that difference to exist.
My lungs seized when the low droning of the vibrator filled the space, deceptively soft and almost soothing. I’d never owned one. Never even thought to.
The first contact made my hips twist and my arms tug at the cuffs that bound my wrists to the headboard. His hands were gentle, the pressure firm.
There was no build-up, no coaxing sweetness. Just sensation. Raw. Fucking exciting.
Replacing the vibrator with the flogger, hearing it snap, had me shuddering all over again.
Then—
A lash across my clit – it pushed me to the edge so fast I couldn’t breathe.
I bit down a cry, the pleasure unbearable, the ache still ricocheting through me.
Every nerve was set alight, but it wasn’t just arousal – it was… relief. A silent scream unwinding inside me, tearing free all those years of restraint I hadn’t even realised I’d still been carrying quietly.
Travis had used pain to silence me. Ghost had used it to undo the silence itself – unchained it. Each wave that crashed through my body felt like a scream I hadn’t been allowed to release back then. And now, bound, trembling, I was finally free to feel everything.
He said nothing. Just watched me intently, as though every twitch, every gasp was scripture he was memorising. It wasn’t about control any more. It was about how far I could let go and still be safe. And fuck if I didn’t feel safe.
Even tied down and stripped bare to his gaze, I had never felt so irrevocably… my own.
I was so close.
My legs shook, every muscle strained and coiled around the need to come. The edge loomed – hot, pulsing, right there.
But just as the crescendo began to take shape in my spine, he pulled the toy away.
No…
A broken sound tore from me. The emptiness that followed was unbearable.
‘No,’ he echoed, calm. Certain. Not cruel, just… perfect.
I whimpered, shaking, tears pricking at the edges of my mask. The denial cut deeper than the flogger – not because of pain, but because of the agonizing weight of expectation. Because I knew he would give me more than I needed, and I craved his approval more than release.
My knees sank deeper into the bed, my legs quivering, my heart still racing.
Then his touch changed.
His weight shifted, the mask no longer looming but retreating.
A damp, fragrant cloth touched the welts he’d raised on my skin, gliding carefully.
Slow, patient strokes. A second cloth followed, warmer, as he dabbed gently along the backs of my thighs, then up my spine.
There was reverence in the way he cleaned the sweat off me, as though each bruise was a verse in a language only we knew how to read.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, tattered. ‘You did well, little angel.’
He reached above me. The shackles gave, and my arms slumped to the crumpled sheet.
A breath shuddered out of me. Something inside my breastbone cracked, but it wasn’t broken, just open. I didn’t realise I’d been crying until cool air brushed the wet tracks on my cheeks.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
He kissed each welt, then lay down beside me without a word. One arm pulled me into his chest, my face tucked against the curve of his throat, while his hand settled over my hip like a shield.
Warmth. Safety.
The kind of safety that rewrote old scars and showed me a new way to breathe.
My wrists ached but not from pain, yet the absence. The pressure of the metal had been welcome, grounding, and now that it was gone, I felt the aftermath of those cuffs. Even if his kisses had sealed something irrevocable into the skin they marked.
His chest moved rhythmically beneath my cheek, and I allowed my breathing to sync with his. It felt like lying underneath a storm that had finally quieted.
His hand was a steady weight on my hip, his thumb moving in slow circles as if still soothing something in me I had no name for. I stayed with curled into him, his breathing cradling me like a tide.
‘What happened tonight,’ he murmured finally, ‘wasn’t anger. It was structure.’
I blinked slowly, not moving, letting the sound of his words settle into me like heat. ‘You took control without asking. That’s not how this works.’
I opened my mouth to say something, but his thumb brushed over my lips to stop the words from coming.
‘Submission’s not theatre, Scarlett. It’s permission. And it’s power. But only if it’s earned.’
He shifted behind me, his heartbeat settling closer against my back.
‘When you’re mine…’ The word wracked through me, and my body embraced it wholly, my heart flipping inwards.
‘When you give me that role, you don’t just hand me your body.
You surrender the frame around it. I decide when you’re touched.
I decide when you’re denied. I decide when you’re finished. ’
My skin pebbled beneath his hand. His voice alone felt like a shackle locking back into place, soothing.
‘There is no power struggle between us, Scarlett.’ He paused, just long enough for it to sink in. ‘You submit. Or you don’t. But if you do – truly – then I make the rules. And I enforce them.’
The tips of his fingers ran over my jawline.
‘You needed that tonight.’
I exhaled shakily..
He was right. I’d needed it, and I hadn’t even known how much until I was beneath him, begging.
I took his hand. He let me.
‘I need more,’ I whispered. And then I kissed each knuckle, then turned his palm and pressed my lips to its centre as if it were something sacred.
He was so still. Watching. Waiting.
His scent was intoxicating, his powerful frame breathtaking.
I turned his hand slowly, guiding his thumb to my mouth. Tilting to lay on my back, I looked up and met his gaze. My lips parted and took the tip in until the pad pressed against my tongue.
He rumbled, a low, dark sound that rolled through his chest and into mine. His hips pressed forward, grinding his thick length against my soaked centre.
I gasped at the friction.
Sucking gently, my tongue swirled in a wordless, wet, hungry request to appease my need. I dared not say it. Because then he wouldn’t give it.
Another rumble, deeper. His free hand tightened at my waist.
Then he pulled away.
I almost whimpered at the loss, but he was already standing, already walking to the duffel.
My heart started racing.
When he returned, I saw the silk in his hand. He straddled me, dipping until the fabric of his mask brushed the shell of my ear.
‘Lie back,’ he murmured. And though it was low and soft, it wasn’t a request.
I obeyed, allowing my back to sink into the mattress.
His weight was the cage I craved.
Carefully, methodically, he tied the silk over my mask and eyes. The darkness came instantly, blotting out the world and sharpening every other sense.
His fingers stroked my jaw. ‘Safe word.’
The gravel in his voice had deepened. No longer explanation – command again. Ritual resumed.
My lips parted. I breathed once, slow and steady.
‘Green.’
The darkness pressed in. Every breath sounded louder in my ears, every heartbeat echoing down to where my thighs still throbbed with denied release.
Then I heard the fabric shifting. A soft rustle.
Clothing being removed?
My lungs forgot their rhythm. I wanted to see him completely unrestrained.
I tensed slightly, the urge to lift the blindfold rising, my hand inching to my face—
‘Don’t,’ he said, voice close again, no longer muffled by fabric.
God, he’d removed the mask.
I fought the urge with fervour – I knew pulling the blindfold would shatter what we had, this dark, healing rhythm. Even though I couldn’t see him, he’d pushed the boundary, offered something pure – his mouth. His breath. His self.
So I stayed put.
‘Don’t touch it,’ he warned, as if he knew exactly where my mind had gone. Something in his tone made my stomach knot deliciously.
Time stretched. My skin tingled where his heat had been. I couldn’t see him. Couldn’t guess what came next. The anticipation curled hot in my core.
Then—
Contact.
Fingers brushed my throat. His hand curved up, thumb grazing my jaw with surprising tenderness. I angled my head instinctively, baring more of my neck to him. Offering.
When his breath ghosted over my lips, I could almost taste the mint in it.
‘I don’t usually do this,’ he murmured. The confession was quiet, but no less dangerous. I knew then – this wasn’t about control any more. This was about letting me see the man behind the mask, even if I never saw his face.
He was taking a leap.
And I would let him.
His mouth met mine.
And everything else disappeared.
The kiss was deep, possessive… devastating. Nothing like any of the others I’d ever felt. Not rushed. Not rough.
His lips moved against mine with slow hunger, tongue sliding past the seam of my mouth as if he were savouring something forbidden.
I opened up to it, spellbound.
The world dissolved in the heat of his mouth, the drag of his tongue, the way he tasted like control and sin and the silence I’d always needed. His hand cradled my face, keeping me still as he kissed me like no one ever had.
He unravelled me – thread by aching thread.
The past dissolved on his tongue, and the future could burn for all I cared.
I’d been so lost in the way his mouth claimed mine, in the ache thrumming low inside, that I hadn’t even heard the whisper of fabric as he stripped the jeans from his body.
But I felt him.
The searing heat of his skin brushed against mine as he parted my legs with a patience that was anything but gentle, inching close until his weight hovered over me and the kiss broke on a shared breath.
Somewhere between that heartbeat and the next, there was the soft snap of foil tearing – protection – a sound small enough to miss, but sharp enough to make me quiver with anticipation.
‘Green?’ he rumbled against my lips, the vibration of his voice sinking into my bones.
‘God, Ghost,’ I gasped, the words dragged from somewhere far more damning.
But I didn’t plead.
My legs coiled tightly around his waist, pulling him into me – forcing the decision he’d made.
I knew I’d defied him again, took what wasn’t mine to take, the way only trust would allow. Because I was starving for him.
A dark, knowing chuckle rolled out of him, his lips ghosting the shell of my ear again. ‘Punishment is due.’
I smiled and dragged the tip of my tongue slowly along the freshly-shaved line of his throat, tasting salt and skin and ecstasy, until I reached the corner of his jaw. His breath fractured as he pushed in and took away the remaining space between us.
‘Teeth or flogger?’ he rasped just as he gave that first slow drag of his length and turned my thoughts into dust.
‘T—’
He branded both the question and answer into the crook of my shoulder, the sharp edges of his teeth sinking in.
Each thrust that followed came rough, relentless, driven by the same desperate rhythm he always offered. Our bodies clashed and clung through the atmosphere heavy with sweat and need, the summer night swallowing our breathless sounds.
There was nothing but the ragged pull of air between our lips, the sting of his bite, and the brutal poetry of two bodies healing in the dark.