Chapter 5 #2
She's still thinking. Still processing. I can see it happening behind her eyes—the war between terror and submission, between self-preservation and the desperate need to please me.
Her breathing has changed again. Deeper now. More controlled.
She's trying to calm herself down. Trying to find her courage in the middle of the panic. Her gaze drops briefly to the plank, then back to my face. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. "You promise you won't let me fall?"
The question comes out small. Vulnerable. Nothing like the confident, filthy writer who pens stories about women being chased through forests and fucked against trees.
This is the real Scarletta underneath all those fantasies.
Scared. Uncertain. Desperate for someone to tell her she's safe even while putting her in danger.
"I promise."
Two words. Absolute. No elaboration needed.
Her chest rises and falls with another deep breath. Her nipples tighten even further with the movement, if that's even physically possible.
Christ.
I want to fuck her so badly right now that my hands are shaking with the effort of staying still.
But this moment isn't about what I want. It's about what she needs to give me.
Trust. Surrender. Obedience even when every instinct screams at her to refuse.
She swallows hard. Then… she begins to cry. "I trusted another man before."
"I know," I say, brushing the back of my knuckles against her cheek. She leans into my touch like a wounded baby seeking comfort.
"He…" she sucks in a deep, trembling breath. "He…" She looks over her shoulder at me. Her eyes find mine. They are gushing tears. "He… raped me."
It occurs to me that she's never admitted that before. Not to herself. That maybe she took the blame. She didn't signal enough. She didn't stop him in time. She let it go too far.
"I know that too," I say, placing both my hands on her face. "I killed him for that, Scarletta. Tortured him. Made him pay."
She nods, eyes drifting away now as her chin trembles. "If I trust you and…"
She doesn't finish. But I already know what she's going to say. "If you trust me and I let you down, you'll never trust anyone again."
She nods, more tears. Some hiccuping sobs. They ride down her cheeks, soaking into my hands that are still holding her face.
I shift my grip to her shoulders and turn her slowly toward me. Both hands cupping her jaw now. My thumbs brush away the tears still streaming down her cheeks.
The platform isn't designed for two people standing this close. We're sixty feet up and I'm repositioning her weight while she's crying and vulnerable and not thinking clearly about where her feet are.
If she panics, if she jerks away from me, if I miscalculate the angle—we both go over.
The net will catch us. Probably. If we don't get tangled in vines first or slam into a branch hard enough to crack ribs.
I do it anyway.
I need her looking at me when I fix this.
Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. Her lips are trembling.
Beautiful.
I lean down and kiss her.
Soft. Controlled. Nothing like the rough claiming I've been doing to her body for the past hour.
Just my mouth on hers. Gentle pressure. My lips moving against hers with deliberate tenderness.
She makes this shocked little sound against my lips. Like she can't process that I'm capable of kissing her like this after everything else.
Her lips are warm. Soft. They taste like salt.
I like it.
Not as much as having my fingers buried in her pussy while she begs. Not as much as watching it clench around nothing while she's denied release.
But I like it more than I expected to.
I pull back just enough to look at her face. Her eyes are still wet but they're focused on me now instead of spiraling inward with fear.
Good.
"You're my good little slut," I tell her. Quiet. Steady. "And you're going to walk across that plank because I'm asking you to."
She shakes her head, crying harder now.
"Scarletta," I say, my voice softer than I ever thought it could be. "Come on. You're not gonna let six feet stop this day, are you? You're not gonna let six fucking feet keep you from experiencing my amazing cock again, are you?"
She snickers. Looks up. Meets my eyes.
I brush my thumbs across her cheekbones, wiping away the fresh tears that keep falling. Her eyes are locked on mine now, searching for something she doesn't know how to name.
"You've written this scene five times," I tell her. The words come out quieter than I intended. "At least."
Her brow furrows. Confusion cutting through the fear.
I should stop talking. Should turn her around and make her walk the plank and get this station over with. But my mouth keeps moving anyway.
"In Breaking Point, Natasha had to cross a ravine on a fallen log while her kidnapper watched from the opposite side.
You wrote: 'I picture the fall. Picture my body broken on the rocks below, but his voice keeps pulling me forward—not commanding, just certain I would not fail him. Certain that I could do it.'"
Scarletta's eyes widen. Her lips part.
I'm not finished.
"In The Ledge, Kira had to climb up a fire escape to prove she trusted Leo. You wrote: 'Fear is trying to convince me I'm going to die, but his hands on my hips tell a different story—one where I'm already safe.'"
Her breathing has changed. Shallower now. Not from panic anymore.
"In Running from the Rangers, Simone jumped off a bridge holding hands with Justin because he told her the river would save them. You wrote: 'The terror is real, but so is the certainty in his eyes. He'd never let me break.'"
I watch her face as recognition floods through her. She knows these stories. Obviously. She wrote every word.
But hearing me recite them back to her—exact sentences she typed months or years ago in the safety of her apartment—that's different.
That's proof I've consumed every single thing she's ever created.
"In Trust Fall, Elena had to stand on the edge of a rooftop while blindfolded and wait for him to tell her when to step back. You wrote: 'I can'tsee the drop, but I can feel it pulling at me like gravity has intentions. His voice is the only thing tethering me to solid ground.'"
My thumbs are still moving across her cheeks. Wiping away tears that have slowed to a trickle now.
Her mouth opens like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out.
"And in Depths of Despair, Claire had to walk a makeshift bridge between two buildings to escape her captors while her master encouraged from below. You wrote: 'Every step feels like dying, but I take them anyway because losing him is worse than losing my own life.'"
I stop talking.
The silence between us feels heavier than it should. Like I've revealed something I didn't plan to give her.
Scarletta stares at me. Her eyes are still wet but they're not crying anymore. Just wide and stunned and searching my face for an explanation I'm not sure how to provide.
"You remember all of that?" Her voice comes out hoarse. Barely above a whisper.
"I remember everything you've ever written."
The truth of that statement hits me as I say it out loud. Not just the dark romance scenes I've used to plan our encounters. Not just the sex, or the bondage, or the psychological games.
All of it.
The throwaway lines about her characters drinking coffee black because they can't afford cream. The descriptions of empty apartments that smell like loneliness. The protagonists who apologize too much, and think too hard, and sabotage their own happiness.
Every word she's put on a page, I've absorbed like it was scripture.
Because it wasn't just research.
It was her.
The realization makes my chest tighten in a way that feels uncomfortable. Foreign. Like something shifted that wasn't supposed to move.
"Why?" she asks.
I don't have a good answer. Or maybe I do, but admitting it feels like handing her a weapon I'm not sure she knows how to use yet.
My obsession isn't just about sex. It's not even about control, though that's part of it.
It's about her talent. Her mind. The way she builds worlds, and characters, and psychological depth that most published authors can't touch. The way she understands power dynamics, and fear, and desire better than people who've spent decades studying it.
She's brilliant.
And she has no idea.
"Because you're exceptional," I tell her. The words feel too honest. Too raw. I force my voice back to something neutral. Controlled. "And exceptional things deserve to be appreciated."
Her eyes search mine. Looking for the lie. The manipulation.
She won't find it.
This is the truth, even if I'm wrapping it in language that sounds like dominance instead of devotion.
Her laugh is belated, but real. "I write… smut, Master. It's… OK, I guess but…"
"I'm not talking about the smut." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone.
"I'm talking about the way you build psychological tension.
The way you understand character motivation.
You could write beautiful literary fiction if you wanted to.
Dark literary fiction that would make critics uncomfortable and readers obsessed. "
She stares at me like I just told her she could fly.
"No one's ever—" Her voice cracks. "No one's ever said that to me. In person, I mean. It's… thank you."
The confession breaks something in my chest I didn't know was locked.
She's twenty-two years old. She's been writing since she was a teenager. Posting stories online for years. Pouring her talent, and darkness, and brilliance into thousands of words that strangers consume and comment on.
And no one has ever looked her in the eye and told her she's good at it.
Not her mother. Not her professors before she dropped out. Not the ex-boyfriend I killed for raping her.
No one.
Until me.
She reaches up and touches my face. Her fingertips trace along my jaw. My cheekbone. The corner of my mouth.
"You're really hot," she whispers.
I laugh.
I actually laugh.
Not the controlled chuckle I use to put people at ease or the dark amusement I feel when I'm hunting. A real laugh that catches me off guard with how genuine it feels.
"That's what you're thinking about right now?"
"You took off the mask." Her fingers keep exploring my face like she's memorizing it. "I thought you'd be... I don't know. Scarier looking. But you're just really attractive and it's confusing."
I kiss her again. Harder this time. My tongue sliding between her lips to taste her properly. She opens for me immediately, letting me in, kissing me back with desperate enthusiasm that makes my cock throb.
When I pull away, we're both breathing hard.
"Backwards," I murmur against her mouth. "Small steps. I've got you."
I walk her. Slow. Controlled. My hands on her waist now, guiding her.
She's gasping into my mouth as I kiss her between each step. Her pulse hammering so hard I can feel it vibrating through her skin.
"That's it. Good girl."
Her heel finds the edge of the plank. Six feet of narrow wood between her and the adjacent tree. Nothing but air on either side. She whimpers.
"Eyes on me," I tell her. "Not down. Just me."
Another step back. Her foot settles on the wood. It doesn't wobble. Doesn't creak. Solid and stable under her weight just like I promised.
"I've got you."
I keep kissing her. Keep my hands firm on her waist. Keep walking her backwards inch by inch while her breathing comes in sharp, terrified gasps against my lips.
Her back foot finds the platform on the other side.
She made it.