Chapter 4 #2
“You’ve been pretending for so long, you don’t even remember what it feels like to want something without guilt choking it down.”
God.
His words cut deeper than any touch.
He sees me. And that’s so much worse than just wanting me.
He leans closer.
So close his lips almost brush mine.
But they don’t.
Instead, he whispers, “I won’t take what you’re not ready to give. But I will show you what’s already yours.”
I blink at him.
“What if I don’t know how to take it?”
He smirks.
“Oh, butterfly,” he breathes. “That’s where I come in.”
He stands again, slow, every inch of him dripping control. He turns, grabs something off the table—a simple object. A blindfold.
He holds it up like a dare.
“You ready?”
I stare at it.
At him.
At the mirror.
And then I nod.
Because I don’t want to see the girl I’ve been pretending to be anymore.
I want to see the one he sees.
He walks behind me, slow, and my whole body tenses.
I feel the brush of silk against my skin.
Then darkness.
The blindfold ties in place.
And I feel his breath near my ear.
“Good girl.”
His breath is still at my ear.
The blindfold is tight, but not painful.
It’s like losing one sense made every other part of me hyper-aware—of his nearness, of the silence, of the soft flicker of candlelight I can’t even see but feel in the air.
I don’t know what makes me ask.
Maybe the quiet.
Maybe the way his voice turns me inside out.
But I whisper, “Why do you call me that?”
A pause.
I think he’s not going to answer.
“I was stationed overseas,” he says, voice like gravel smoothed over steel. “Hot as hell. Dust everywhere. I hadn’t slept in three days. We were in a safe house, waiting on a call that never came.”
I don’t move.
I barely breathe.
“There was this crack in the wall. Barely anything. But out of it, this little butterfly crawled through. Tiny. Delicate. Could’ve been crushed by the heat, the boots, the fucking war happening ten feet outside.”
He shifts behind me. Not touching. But closer.
“I sat there watching it for two hours. Everyone else was passed out. I should’ve been too. But I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”
My heart stutters.
“It had no idea it was in danger. No idea it wasn’t supposed to survive there. It just existed. Beautiful. Untouched. Like it didn’t care the world was burning.”
He’s quiet for a second.
“You walked into that club tonight with eyes too big for this place. Soft steps. A dress you kept tugging at like you didn’t know how dangerous you looked.”
I suck in a breath.
“And I thought—fuck. She doesn’t even know.”
His voice dips, lower now.
Rougher.
“That she’s the most dangerous thing in the room.”
My chest aches.
“You call me that because… I’m fragile?” I whisper.
“No,” he grows. “I call you that because people will think you are.”
His breath brushes my skin again.
“But I see your wings, butterfly. And I know what happens when a creature like you finally learns how to use them.”
My throat burns.
“Which is?”
“You destroy everything that tried to trap you.”
He moves then—just a step.
But I feel the loss like a wound.
“Don’t let them clip you,” he says softly. “Not even yourself.”
And before I can respond—before I can fall apart entirely—his hands find my wrists.
Gentle.
Grounding.
And he guides them up—slow, reverent—until my palms rest against the mirror.
“Feel that?” he says.
I nod, even though he can’t see.
“That’s you. Right now.”
His lips brush the shell of my ear.
“And I want you to remember exactly who the fuck you are when you walk out of this room.”
His hands are still on mine.
Firm. Intentional.
Guiding me like he already knows what I need before I ask for it.
The mirror is cool beneath my palms, but I’m burning. From the inside out.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
But maybe that’s the point.
“You feel that, butterfly?” His voice is low, rich, like molasses poured over sin. “That pulse under your skin. That ache in your throat. That part of you that’s begging for permission to misbehave?”
I can’t speak.
I don’t need to.
He leans in closer, breath hot at the back of my neck. “That’s not fear,” he whispers. “That’s recognition.”
My lips part, but nothing comes out.
“You’ve spent your whole life waiting for someone who sees you,” he says. “Not the version you clean up for the world. Not the girl who smiles when she wants to scream.”
His fingers skim up my arms—so slowly it’s maddening.
“You wanted someone who looks past the pretty,” he murmurs, “and sees the chaos beneath.”
His mouth grazes my ear.
“You found him.”
My knees nearly buckle.
His hands trail down again—back to my wrists, where he holds me against the mirror like he’s pinning me to myself.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Fucking breathtaking. You don’t even know what you do to people, do you?”
I shake my head.
He chuckles darkly. “Of course you don’t. You’re too busy surviving.”
The silence stretches, thick and gold and devastating.
“Want to know what I saw when I first laid eyes on you?”
I nod.
His voice drops lower.
“Power.”
That catches me off guard.
Not beauty. Not innocence. Not temptation.
Power.
He leans in so close I can feel his words on my skin.
“You walked into that club like you didn’t belong but every man in there turned toward you like you were gravity. Like you were the fucking centre of the universe and they’d just figured it out.”
I can’t look away from the mirror.
Not when he’s behind me like that.
Not when I can see the wild in my eyes—the want.
“I don’t chase,” he says. “Not women. Not fantasies.”
My breath catches.
“But you…”
His hand brushes my hip. A whisper of touch. Barely there.
“You’re not a fantasy, are you, butterfly?”
I try to shake my head, but he tsks.
“No,” he whispers. “You’re the warning they never listened to. The storm that looks like a sunrise. The pretty little thing that men underestimate until she’s got her foot on their throat.”
My pulse kicks hard.
“Say it,” he murmurs.
“S-Say what?”
“Say what you want.”
His voice is velvet and command.
“Say it like you mean it. Like your body’s already screaming it. Like you’re not ashamed of wanting more than soft hands and pretty promises.”
My lips tremble.
I look at myself in the mirror.
At the girl I don’t recognise—but want to become.
And I whisper, “I want to be ruined.”
The second I say it, the air shifts.
Dax goes completely still.
And then—
A sound.
Low.
Dark.
Hungry.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re going to kill me.”
His hand slides up my spine—slow, reverent—until it cups the back of my neck.
Not tight. Not rough.
Just there.
Claiming.
“You don’t get to say things like that to a man like me, Cassandra,” he breathes. “Not unless you mean them.”
“I do.”
“Don’t lie to me, butterfly. I won’t be gentle just because you flinch pretty.”
“I want all of it,” I whisper. “Whatever this is.”
He drags his thumb along my jaw, forcing my head back just slightly.
“You don’t want sweet,” he says. “You want to feel something real. Something raw. You want someone to hold you down and see you.”
My breath leaves me in a shaky rush.
“I’m not a good man, Cassandra.”
“I don’t want a good man.”
He smirks—slow and dangerous.
“Careful, butterfly.”
He leans in, his mouth just beside mine in the mirror.
“Say one more thing I like, and I’ll make sure you never forget what it feels like to be wanted by someone who knows how to ruin you right.”
I can’t see him.
And somehow, that makes it worse.
Because I can feel everything.
The silence wraps around me like velvet soaked in gasoline—soft, thick, and waiting to ignite. I can’t hear his footsteps, but I know he hasn’t moved far. I feel his hesitation like a hand hovering just above my skin, not touching—but aching to.
The blindfold makes every breath louder, every heartbeat sharper.
I’m in the dark.
But I’m not alone.
Not really.
Not with the way the air keeps shifting, like he’s circling me—like he’s trying to decide whether to devour me or drag himself out of the room before he does.
I feel his voice before I hear it.
Low. Gritted. Like it’s tearing itself out of his throat.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
I don’t say anything.
I can’t.
Not when the heat of him is so close I could lean back and fall into him without even trying.
“But you said show me,” he whispers, more to himself than me. “And I don’t half-ass anything, butterfly. Not this. Not you.”
His fingers graze my arm.
Not enough.
Too much.
A shiver dances across my skin like it’s been waiting for him.
“I want to touch you,” he says, so quietly it’s almost not there. “God, I want to.”
I flinch.
Not because I’m afraid.
But because it sounds like it hurts him to admit that.
“Do you know what it’s like,” he breathes, “to want something so badly it makes you hate yourself?”
My lips part.
But still—I say nothing.
He moves again, slow. Controlled. I can hear the restraint in the way he breathes. Like every inch of him is at war with itself.
“I don’t just want your skin,” he growls. “I want inside your fucking soul.”
The words hit like a blade.
Soft in the way they’re said.
Sharp in the way they sink.
“You shouldn’t let a man like me this close,” he whispers, rough now. Like the leash he’s holding is fraying at the edges. “I don’t stop. I don’t know how. I’ll take and take until there’s nothing left to give—and then I’ll still want more.”
I breathe in. Slow.
The scent of him settles in my lungs—cologne and sin and something warm I can’t name.
“I could bend you over that chaise right now,” he says, his voice dipping lower, “and you wouldn’t say no.”
I whimper. Quiet. Barely audible.
But he hears it.
Of course he fucking hears it.
“But I won’t,” he growls. “Not yet.”
A pause.
And then—closer now.
“Because if I touch you like that tonight, I won’t stop.”
I swallow, hard.
“You think you’re ready to be ruined,” he breathes, “but you’re still a little bit whole, aren’t you, butterfly?”
His hand brushes my wrist, featherlight.
“You still have hope in you.”
He sounds like it kills him.
Like he hates that part of me even as he reveres it.
“I touch you now,” he rasps, “and you’ll be mine. And I don’t do temporary. I don’t do careful. I will take you apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left but the part that chose me.”
The silence crackles.
Thick.
Devastating.
And then—so quietly it’s almost a secret:
“I don’t want to be the thing that breaks you.”
I don’t realise I’m crying until he lifts the blindfold.
Gently.
Like even now, even wrecked, he’s careful with me.
The world rushes back in—dim light, velvet shadows, the flicker of candles around the room—but all I see is him.
Standing in front of me.
Breathing like a man who’s just survived a war.
Eyes blazing.
Jaw clenched.
And I realise—
He’s already broken.
Not because of me.
But because he’s finally found the one thing he can’t have without destroying it.
Me.
Butterfly.
His ruin wrapped in softness.
And he’s trying—really trying—not to clip my wings before I learn to fly.
But what he doesn’t know—
Is that I don’t want to fly.
I want to fall.
With him.
Into him.
For him.
And I think he knows.
Because when I reach up and touch his chest—slow, sure, no hesitation this time—he covers my hand with his.
And he shakes.
Not a lot.
Just enough to prove that I’m not the only one trembling.
“Dax,” I whisper, voice cracking. “Then don’t break me.”
His eyes lock with mine.
And his answer is the softest thing I’ve ever heard from a man that dangerous.
“I don’t know how not to.”