Tahlia
Ihear him before I see him.
The sound of footsteps echoes through the darkness—slow, steady, measured like he’s counting down to something inevitable, like every step is carved from purpose and hunger and the kind of power that doesn’t need to announce itself because it already owns the air.
The old floorboards beneath his feet groan in protest, each creak a harbinger of what’s coming, and the sound reverberates through the walls of this gothic prison he’s made for me, through the heavy silence that tastes of dust and expensive cologne and my own shame.
My body moves before my mind catches up, instinct overriding reason in the way prey always bolts when the predator’s scent floods the air.
I scramble off the bed, hand still damp from the shame I swore I wouldn’t feel, legs unsteady as heat pulses between them like a second heartbeat I can’t shut off, can’t ignore, can’t pretend isn’t there.
The lights are still out, but I feel him—the shift in the air, the weight of something unseen curling around my ribs like wire drawn tight.
The temperature in the room seems to drop and rise simultaneously, my skin prickling with awareness, every nerve ending screaming that he’s close, that he’s been watching, that he knows exactly what I’ve done.
I reach the door, fingers scrabbling for the handle in the darkness, but it doesn’t budge beneath my grip.
Of course it doesn’t.
I’m trapped in this room with its heavy velvet curtains and antique furniture that costs more than my life, trapped like something precious he’s decided to collect and cage.
I touched myself.
I gave him a show I didn’t even know I was performing, my fingers working between my thighs whilst his cameras—I know there are cameras now, must be cameras—recorded every arch of my spine, every breathy moan, every moment of weakness.
I’m still wet, still aching for something I shouldn’t want, still clenching around an emptiness that feels like punishment and promise all at once.
The lock clicks from the other side with the finality of a judge’s gavel.
A pause follows, heavy and deliberate.
A silence that screams louder than any words could, that fills the space between us with anticipation and dread and something darker that I don’t have a name for yet.
Then the door creaks open on ancient hinges—and he fills the doorway like a shadow swallowing the light, like something biblical and terrible, his silhouette backlit by the dim corridor behind him.
Hook.
His suit jacket is gone, discarded somewhere between wherever he was and here, and his sleeves are rolled up to reveal forearms corded with muscle and intent.
His jaw clenches so hard I can see the muscle twitch with every breath he drags through his teeth, and he looks like he’s holding himself back—but not from mercy, never from mercy.
From madness, perhaps. From the urge to do things to me that even he knows cross lines he hasn’t yet decided whether to respect.
“I should break your fingers,” he says, voice low and dragging across my skin like gravel wrapped in silk, each word measured and deliberate and dripping with the kind of threat that makes my stomach clench. “For daring to touch something that doesn’t belong to you.”
My chest heaves, ribs expanding and contracting too fast, breath coming in shallow gasps that fog the cool air of this room.
I take a step back, bare feet silent on the Persian rug that probably costs more than everything I’ve ever owned.
He follows, his leather shoes a counterpoint to my retreat, predator tracking prey with the patience of something that knows the hunt is already won.
And suddenly I’m moving again, muscle memory and fear propelling me backwards until my spine hits the wall with a soft thud, breath catching in my throat as he closes the door behind him with a soft click that sounds like a coffin lid sealing.
“But I won’t,” he murmurs, approaching like a storm disguised in satin and expensive tailoring, like violence wrapped in civility.
“Because you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You want me to be brutal, want me to lose control, want me to prove that I’m the monster you’ve already decided I am.
You think pain is the worst I can give you. ”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body, can smell the dark spice of his cologne mixing with something earthier—sweat, perhaps, or arousal, or both.
Close.
So close I can smell him properly now—dark spice and sin and something uniquely him, the scent of my ruin already burnt into his skin like he’s already been inside me, like he’s already claimed every part of me that matters.
His hook lifts with practised ease, the cold curve of polished silver sliding under my chin with a gentleness that contradicts the violence implicit in the gesture, forcing my head up until our eyes meet in the darkness and I can see the way his pupils have blown wide with want.
“You touched my cunt, Tahlia,” he whispers, and the possessive cuts through me like a blade. “So now I’m going to punish my cunt for misbehaving.”
I tremble—not from fear, not entirely, but from need that coils in my belly like something alive and hungry.
I hate that more than anything, hate that my body betrays me so completely, hate that he knows it and loves it.
“Bed,” he says, the single word a command that brooks no argument.
I don’t move, some last vestige of defiance keeping my feet planted on the expensive rug.
His mouth curls into something that might be a smile if smiles could cut, cruel and knowing and infinitely patient.
“I won’t say it again.”
So I go, legs carrying me across the room because I hate him, because I hate myself more, because I need something I can’t even name.
I just know my legs carry me back to the mattress with its rumpled silk sheets and scattered pillows, and when I reach it, he’s already behind me, already pushing me forward with one hand between my shoulder blades until I’m on my back again, legs falling open instinctively, shamefully, knickers still clinging to the slick evidence of my arousal.
He kneels at the edge of the bed with the reverence of a penitent at an altar, except there’s nothing holy about the hunger in his eyes.
Right there, positioned between my spread thighs like this is worship and punishment and possession all at once.
When he hooks his fingers around the waistband of my knickers and drags the fabric down, he does it slowly, torturously, like he wants to savour the wet sound of my humiliation as the cotton peels away from my skin with a soft, damning noise that fills the quiet room.
Then his breath hits me—hot and close and dangerous, fanning across sensitive flesh that’s already too warm, too needy.
“No touching,” he murmurs, pressing one hand flat on my stomach to hold me down, his palm burning through my skin like a brand. “No begging. No lies. You’ll take what I give you, and nothing more.”
Then he leans in, and his tongue drags hot and slow through my slick folds like he’s tasting a lie I didn’t mean to tell, like he’s memorising the flavour of my shame.
I arch instinctively, hips lifting towards his mouth.
He pins me harder, fingers digging into the soft flesh of my stomach.
“Stay down,” he growls, the command vibrating against my sensitive skin. “Don’t you fucking move.”
He does it again—tongue dragging through me with deliberate slowness, learning every fold and ridge and secret place before pausing, pulling back just enough to make me whimper at the loss.
Like he’s learning me, mapping me, memorising the way my thighs twitch when he swirls his tongue just under the hood of my clit—then pulls back cruelly before the pleasure can crest into something unbearable.
“I want to feel you shake,” he murmurs, voice thick with filth and promise. “But you’re not going to cum, not until you learn to ask properly, not until that pride breaks and you beg me like the desperate little slut you are.”
He keeps going, tongue punishing and slow and relentless in its measured cruelty, fingers digging into my hips when I try to move, when I whimper, when I pant, when my body begs without words because my mouth refuses to give him what he wants.
“Poor little fairy,” he croons between licks, the condescension dripping from every syllable. “So desperate, so wet, cunt clenching around nothing. But still too proud to beg for a single fucking thing.”
My hands fist the silk sheets until I hear threads pop, my jaw locks tight enough to ache, my thighs tremble with the effort of holding still under his relentless attention.
I’m close—so close it hurts, so close the edges of my vision blur and my breathing turns ragged.
And he knows, because he stops with the precision of a man who’s made a study of denial.
Pulls back slowly, deliberately.
Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, my arousal glistening on his lips in the dim light.
Then smirks, and it’s the cruellest expression I’ve ever seen.
“Say thank you.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first, the words caught somewhere between my pride and my need.
The heat is still there, low and molten and throbbing deep in my core, my clit still slick from his tongue, still aching for the release he’s dangled just out of reach. My body twitches with the phantom memory of pleasure that was ripped away before it could bloom into something devastating.
The ache isn’t just between my thighs now—it’s in my teeth, clenched so hard my jaw aches, in my chest where my heart pounds against my ribs, in my fingertips that tingle with frustrated need.
I’m shaking and half-sobbing and I hate how much I want him to keep going, hate it more than I’ve ever hated anything in my miserable life.
I want it.
God help me, I want it.
His voice cuts through me again, sharp and low and filthy in the darkness of this room that smells of sex and expensive furniture polish.
“Say thank you.”