CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
The air bites like it has teeth.
So I reach out. Slowly. My fingers close around the fabric.
I take the blanket.
The weight of it feels like surrender.
I walk past him without a word, keeping my spine straight, shoulders squared—like that might make up for the way I’m shaking.
The room is dark and quiet, shadows clinging to the corners like secrets. The air is marginally warmer inside, but not enough to feel like safety.
Then the door shuts behind me with a soft, deliberate hiss.
And locks.
The sound is final. Clean. Mechanical. Not meant to be cruel—but it is.
I stand still for a moment, letting it sink in.
The first breath I take burns as it scrapes down my throat, too sharp in my chest.
The second numbs.
Not just from the cold—
But from everything I had to give up just to survive this long.
I wrap the blanket around me, but it does nothing. It clings to my damp skin like paper. The walls are concrete, slick with condensation. The floor is colder than stone.
I try to keep moving.
I pace.
But within minutes, my body starts to betray me. Shivers become tremors. My fingertips sting. My knees weaken.
I crouch in the corner, holding my legs to my chest.
Why is he doing this?
Why is this necessary?
My pride screams louder than my body. I won’t beg like I did last night. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
But it breaks eventually.
“Please—” The words tear out of me before I can stop them, ragged and shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry—I called you by his name, I won’t do it again—please, I promise, I won’t do it again.”
The apology spills faster now, louder, unraveling into something I can’t contain. “I won’t say it, I won’t—please, I didn’t mean it, I swear I won’t do it again—”
My voice cracks on his name, on the memory of it, on the mistake that got under my skin and stayed there.
And still, I can’t stop.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp again, smaller now, broken down to something desperate. “I promise. I won’t do it again.”
The tremors become too violent. I can’t even think straight. The cold has wormed its way under my skin, into my spine, hollowing me out from the inside.
I press my forehead to my knees and tell myself I won’t cry.
The door opens.
I flinch, just a little.
Light spills in—then is shut off as he steps inside.
He’s dressed in black—always black. Crisp button-down. Slacks pressed sharp. His sleeves are rolled to his forearms, veins visible beneath taut skin. Every inch of him carefully restrained, like even stillness is something he’s chosen rather than something he’s surrendered to.
There’s a strange kind of warmth radiating off him, like his body holds onto heat even though he belongs to the cold. He doesn’t shiver. Doesn’t flinch.
I hate him for that.
He crouches in front of me.
“You’re cold,” he says softly.
No answer.
“You know what you need.”
I clench my jaw.
“I need to get out of here.”
“No,” he says, voice like velvet over steel. “You need me.”
He leans in slightly, enough for his warmth to reach me like a wave I didn’t ask for.
“No other man can warm you up the way I can.”
The words hang there—thick, heavy, intimate.
I shrink. The tremor isn’t from temperature—it’s from rage.
He opens his arms, calmly, like offering warmth is charity. Like it’s his to give.
“Say it.”
“Go to hell,” I hiss.
He kneels closer. “Say it, Starling.”
Tears sting my eyes. From fury. From helplessness. From the deep, guttural knowledge that my body does need him.
But I can’t.
I won’t.
I dig my nails into my arms, trying to hold myself together through the pressure building in my chest.
He waits.
Patient. Unmoving. Like time itself bends around his patience instead of breaking it.
The longer I resist, the colder something inside me starts to feel—like my refusal is burning out at the edges instead of holding firm.
And then my lips move.
Not because I want them to.
Because I can’t seem to stop them from obeying what everything else in me is already doing.
“Please,” I whisper. “I want—warmth.”
He leans in. “Who gives it to you?”
I feel my dignity unraveling, thread by thread.
“You,” I grit.
“Say it.”
“Please…sir. Please give me warmth.”
He exhales slowly.
Then pulls me forward—into him.
He is all warmth. My skin screams as it adjusts. My bones ache from the contrast. I gasp, not from pain—but from the sick, dizzying relief.
He holds me close.
But not kindly.
Like he owns the act of saving me. Like this was a favor I had to earn.
His mask where his mouth is brushes my ear.
“Every time you think about another man…” he begins, voice calm—too calm.
The words stall for a fraction of a second, like something in him tightens before it surfaces.
Then he continues, quieter now, controlled to the point of precision.
“Or use another man’s name for me…”
A pause.
Not hesitation—containment.
“Remember what it feels like to freeze.”
I shake in his arms. Not from the cold anymore—but from the truth.
This is not healing.
This is submission.
He’s not freeing me.
He’s bending me back into the shape he wants.
And God help me…
A part of me is already fitting.