Chapter 1 #2
He rewards good manners. Two fingers trace the edge of my panties and slip beneath. He finds me already wet and groans like I did that to him, like my body made his need. He rubs me in small circles until my thighs shake and my breath turns ragged. Then he stops.
I glare at him, and he laughs. “Greedy.”
“You brought me here to ruin me, and you’re stalling.”
“Edging you is not stalling.” He strokes again, slower, firmer, until I climb toward that first glittering edge. “It’s conservation.”
I hate that I love his words. I love that I hate this part and beg for it, anyway.
He plays me like a song he knows by heart.
He pulls me up to the brink and lets me see it, bright and blinding, then eases me back down with a thumb pressed steady and sweet.
Again and again. My eyes flood with frustrated tears that don’t fall.
I shake my head and bite my lip as he kisses the mark he left earlier on my throat.
“Use your words.”
“I want to come.”
“How?”
“Your fingers. Your mouth. I don’t care. Please.”
He drags the lace down my thighs, slow enough to make me tremble, and tosses it aside.
Then he slides two fingers inside me, slow at first, then deeper, and curls them against my G-Spot repeatedly like he’s typing in Morse code.
His mouth takes my nipple through the sheer fabric and bites, not cruel, just enough.
The knot at my wrists tugs, and my back arches. I am going to fall, and he knows it.
He pulls away.
“Silas.” It is almost a sob.
He studies me like art. “You like the ache.”
“I like the relief afterwards.”
“Then you’ll love what I do next.”
He strips down to his open shirt and nothing else. The sight of him is a blow. Broad chest, a cut line of muscle leading down, a body that looks like it works as hard as it plays. He climbs onto the bed, straddles my thighs, and drags the head of his cock along the slick of me without pushing in.
“Fuck!” I try to lift my hips, but he holds me down with one palm on my stomach.
“Eyes,” he says. “On me.”
I keep my eyes on him and feel how close he is to sliding in.
The denial is torture. He strokes himself with my wetness, slow, deliberate, and the sounds he makes batter my restraint.
He edges me again with his fingers while he uses me to bring himself to the edge, and the sight of his control unravels mine.
“Now,” I plead. “Please, let me.”
The next stroke of his fingers, pushes me over. It’s sharp and messy, heat spreading through me in waves I can’t contain. I shake, whispering his name until it breaks apart on my tongue.
He curses, a beautiful, helpless sound, and pulls his hand away to grip himself harder. He doesn’t push inside; instead, he paints me with his pleasure. Heat hits my skin in pulses, and he groans through his teeth, eyes locked on mine, as he comes all over my tits.
We breathe together. The room smells like sweat and sex and something sugar-sweet from the towels warming on the tray. He releases my wrists, and I bring my shaky hands around slowly; the silk falling away.
“Good girl,” he says again, voice rough. He reaches for a towel and cleans me with a care that makes my throat close. Warm cloth, gentle touches, a kiss at the corner of my mouth that lands like a thank you.
He tips my chin up. “Your number.”
I lick my lips and pretend to think about it even though I already have. “I’m seeing someone.”
“You’re too much for one someone.” It’s not jealousy. It’s certainty. His eyes are almost soft. “You’re not a one-man woman. You’re a storm who needs to be chased.”
I laugh. “That’s not the saying.”
“It is now.” He hands me his phone, the contact open. “I’ll not take what you don’t offer. But when you want to be doted on and cared for, you’ll call.”
I type my name, my number, and add a single black heart. He glances at the screen and looks satisfied in a way that makes heat curl back up my spine.
“Thank you. Are you excited about tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “First time taking the crop instead of the collar. New client. New dynamic.”
His smile goes wolfish. “Then tonight I’ll let you leave with your legs steady. Come here.”
He kisses me until the steadiness fails anyway, then takes me to the shower and makes a point of washing the mess from my skin with his hands. We dress without hurry. He walks me back to the bar like we’re ordinary people who didn’t just fuck.
He presses a kiss to my wrist softly and murmurs something I don’t quite catch before disappearing into the crowd.
I linger for a moment, letting the noise and low light settle around me again before I slip off the stool. The hostess catches my eye as I pass; I thank her quietly, promising I’ll see her tomorrow.
I Uber home with my legs crossed and my mind already writing the script for tomorrow. I’ll take the power I keep under the table and set it out where everyone can see it. I’ll hold the crop and set the rules. I’ll ask the newbie what he wants and then tell him what he actually needs.
At my apartment, I text Gideon before I can talk myself out of it.
Me: Home. Safe. Thinking about your hands on me at dinner.
His reply arrives fast.
Gideon: Be ready to be looked at like you are the only thing worth wanting. Sleep, Pen.
I set the phone on the nightstand and slide beneath the sheets. My skin still smells like Silas and the soap from the club.
But as the pleasure settles into something softer, something steadier, my mind drifts somewhere I haven’t let it go in a long time.
Not to Silas but to Gideon.
God, Gideon.
I remember the first time I saw him.
Not touching anyone or being touched. Just leaning against a wall like he didn’t belong but refused to leave. Watching everything—watching me.
I should’ve walked past him.
But when our eyes met, something in my chest stuttered. He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away. Just dipped his chin once, like he was giving me permission to approach—or warning me that he’d see straight through me if I did.
He didn’t play the way the others did.
Didn’t kneel.
Didn’t ask.
He just followed when I told him to. Not because he needed the role. Because he needed me.
And God, I wasn’t ready for someone like him. He made me feel… powerful. But not in the way others did.
With Gideon, it wasn’t performance or fantasy.
It was real.
So I kept him separate. Nights with him were quiet, private, careful. He never asked for more, and I never offered. If he wondered about the other men I saw, he never said. And I told myself it was better that way.
But lying here now, my body loose from Silas’s hands, my mind wandering where I don’t want it to go, I can finally admit what I wouldn’t back then: Gideon was the first one who made me feel something beneath the pleasure.
The first one who looked at me like I wasn’t just a role or a fantasy or a night.
The first one who made me think I was in trouble in a way that had nothing to do with the games we played.
So when he asked for my number to take me to dinner, I said yes without a second thought.
And after that first dinner—when he only kissed me goodnight and nothing more—I knew I was hooked.
We went out again and again, and before I knew it, we were talking every day, sending texts through the night like neither of us wanted to let the other go.
Thinking about it now sends a tight, aching warmth through my ribs. I shouldn’t let myself linger there. Not tonight. Not when everything is already shifting under my feet. I drag in a breath and force my mind forward—to what tomorrow demands of me.
Tomorrow I’ll be the dominatrix I’ve always wanted to test out—with a new submissive who says he’s never let anyone touch him that way before. His application said he’s freshly nineteen and wants to learn how to give up control without feeling small.
I close my eyes and dream in velvet.