CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I lay curled on my side, facing the wall, the sheets twisting around my legs. He punished me again—edged me until I was wrecked, aching, and denied. Over and over. Never allowed to fall apart. Never allowed to finish.
The sheets feel too soft for this place—too clean, too careful. Like something meant to convince me this isn’t what it is.
It should unsettle me.
But tonight?
It doesn’t.
The air between us is thick with unspoken things.
He asked me to stay the night in his bed, and now I’m awake, heart drumming, throat dry, every nerve attuned to the heat of his presence behind me.
I thought about slipping away. Back into my own bed across the hall. Back to where I know how to pretend.
But I didn’t move fast enough.
His hand slides across the curve of my bare hip, slow, unhurried, like I’m something he’s memorizing with his fingertips.
I tense.
“Are you still awake, Starling?” He asks, voice hushed, low, like he doesn’t want to startle me—or maybe like he already knows the answer.
Again the name sounds wrong coming from him. Like it leaves a bitter taste behind it. Like he’s forcing himself to use it, each syllable laced with something close to distaste…or restraint.
I don’t respond. I don’t move.
I try to melt into stillness, into silence. If I don't react, maybe he’ll stop. Maybe he'll—
He doesn’t stop.
His hand lingers. Drifts.
My skin betrays me, pebbling under his touch.
I’ve trained myself to regulate my breathing. To slow it. To control every rise and fall so precisely that even panic can’t find purchase.
Because stillness is safer than honesty.
His fingers press a little harder now, circling, kneading—slow, methodical—like he’s marking his territory, staking his claim.
I swallow hard, forcing my body into obedience, into silence, into something he can't read.
But my body rebels in secret.
A forbidden warmth coils low in my belly, tugging me toward him. Confusing me.
Why does it feel good?
Why does my body lean toward him when my mind recoils?
“Starling” he breathes. His voice is almost chivalrous. “Wake up. I need your body against mine.”
He presses closer, one arm sliding beneath me to draw me near. The warmth of his chest against my spine makes my breath catch.
I still don’t open my eyes.
He leans in. His lips brush my ear.
“I am not Mr. Hirsh. You don’t have to hide your pleasure from me,” he murmurs. “I treat you so much better than he ever could.”
I want to scream that they are the same men. That no matter how careful his touch, no matter how soft his voice, there’s still a cage around my ribs. A cage with my name carved into the bars.
But the scream doesn’t come.
Only silence.
Because a part of me knows he’s right.
His thumb drags torturously slow across the hypersensitive skin just above my hip crease, pressing firmly, circling, then sliding downward in long strokes that skim dangerously close to where I’m already aching and wet for him.
Each pass makes my pussy throb and clench with desperate need, heat flooding between my thighs as my hips twitch involuntarily, silently begging him to go lower.
The contrast between his scorching palm and the cool air sends shivers racing over my skin, every sluggish glide leaving a trail of burning sensitivity that makes my breath come in shallow, needy pants.
He leans in until his chest presses against my back, his body heat enveloping me as his warm breath fans slowly over my neck.
His lips brush the tender skin behind my ear in a feather-light, wet trail, teasing, tasting, drawing it out until I’m trembling. Then his teeth graze me—sharper this time, a possessive nip followed by the slow drag of his tongue, sucking the sting away.
A broken moan slips from my throat as sharp pleasure spikes straight down to my core, my nipples tightening painfully against the fabric of my gown.
I’m soaked, aching, every inch of me pulsing with raw, humiliating want… and still he takes his time, like he knows exactly how close I am to falling apart.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he murmurs, voice thick and husky with intent. “You’ll learn to want this…to need it.”
His mouth captures my earlobe, sucking gently while his hand slides beneath the sheets, fingers skimming the warm, bare skin of my thigh. The subtle heat there throbs against his touch, a silent invitation.
I’m caught between wanting to recoil and aching to lean into every deliberate caress—his control both terrifying and intoxicating. Maybe because I am so frustrated from having no release.
His fingertips trace the delicate, quivering curve of my inner thigh with agonizing slowness, gliding upward in feather-light strokes that make my legs tremble and part instinctively for him.
Each pass brings him closer, closer to my aching center, teasing the sensitive skin until every nerve is screaming with anticipation. The closer he gets, the deeper the ache blooms—hot, liquid, and shameless—my pussy already slick and pulsing with desperate need.
His mouth descends along my neck, lips brushing, then parting so his warm, wet tongue can drag slow, lethal trails across my skin. He tastes me like he’s savoring every inch, sucking lightly, then grazing with his teeth just enough to draw a broken whimper from my throat.
At the same time, his hand edges higher, fingertips brushing against the soaked heat between my thighs, stroking the slick outer lips with torturous patience.
The soft friction of his fingers sliding through my wetness, the ragged heat of his breath against my damp skin, the low, hungry rhythm of his touch—it all weaves into an overwhelming storm of sensation.
“Let me show you,” he breathes, voice low and urgent. “Let me teach you how to trust this—how to want it.”
And even as my mind fights, my body answers in the only way it knows—arching toward him, surrendering to the slow, deliberate claim of his hands and mouth.
Why does it betray me like this? I hate how his touch stirs something dark and hungry inside me—something I can’t name, something I’m terrified to admit.
I’m not supposed to want this. I’m not supposed to crave control, not from him, not from anyone.
But the way his fingers glide—slow, sure, and devastatingly confident—feels like pure ownership.
They slide over my slick, overheated skin as if every inch of me already belongs to him, stroking higher between my trembling thighs until my breath catches sharply in my throat.
I’m sweating, panting, my body growing wetter with every teasing pass.
His broad palm cups the curve of my hip possessively, pulling me tighter against him, while his thumb finds that swollen, aching spot just above my dripping pussy.
He rubs slow circles over my throbbing clit, pressing just hard enough to make my hips jerk and my thighs quiver uncontrollably.
Each lazy stroke sends molten pleasure spiraling through me, drawing fresh slickness from my core as my inner walls clench desperately around nothing.
I’m burning, melting, completely undone by the filthy patience of his touch.
It feels good. It feels…like safety. Like being held when the world is nothing but chaos.
And for a second, it’s familiar in a way I don’t want to admit—like something I felt before, in quieter moments, when Shoemaker would sit too close or look at me like he already understood more than I’d said.
Not the same.
But close enough to make something in my chest tighten.
His hand lifts, slow and deliberate, fingers brushing along my jaw before tilting my face toward him—coaxing, not forcing, like he already knows I’ll follow the movement whether I want to or not.
His lips brush down my neck, warm and soft, then bite lightly—sharp enough to sting, not enough to hurt. The contrast sends a jolt through me, fiery and unsteady all at once. I want to pull away—no, I need to—but my muscles betray me, melting against his touch.
How can this feel so forbidden—and so right?
He whispers my name again, voice thick with want and command. “You’re mine tonight, Starling. No masks. No walls.”
The words twist through me like a rope, pulling tight around my heart. I want to scream that I don’t belong to him, that I’m not his to claim. But when his mouth covers mine, soft and demanding, the fight drains out of me.
The Warden doesn’t kiss. But this…this feels like something else.
His tongue slips inside, coaxing, claiming. The taste of him—salty, dark—fills me, and I forget how to think at all.
His hands roam lower with bold, hungry intent, tracing the curve of my ribs, sliding down the small of my back, then venturing even further until his fingers brush against the slick, swollen heat between my thighs.
A sharp, broken gasp tears from my lips as his fingertips glide through my drenched folds, spreading my wetness with slow, possessive strokes.
The friction is unbearable — hot, slick, and perfect. Every teasing circle over my throbbing clit sends white-hot pleasure ripping through my body, making my thighs shake violently and my hips buck shamelessly against his hand.
I can feel myself dripping down his fingers, my pussy clenching and pulsing with raw, desperate need as liquid heat floods through me.
I am trembling uncontrollably, breathless and burning, completely lost in the filthy pleasure of his touch.
God, I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t crave the control he offers. But I do.
His voice is a low growl in my ear. “Let go, Starling. Trust me.”
I’m drowning in sensations—his weight, his heat, the way his touch melts my defenses. The part of me that’s scared and broken quivers beside the part that aches to surrender, to be consumed.
And trust? Trust him?
The man who has punished me again and again these past weeks?
How am I supposed to trust when every lesson has reminded me I don’t belong to myself anymore?
I close my eyes and let the storm inside me rage.
“Shoomaker…” The name slips out before I can stop it, trembling on my lips like a forbidden prayer.