Chapter 3 #2
But then she’d shifted, her thighs pressing together, her breath coming faster as she watched Marcus pin his sub to the mattress on the nearest bed.
And I’d watched her hand drift unconsciously to her own throat, her fingers pressing against her pulse point as if she could feel imaginary hands holding her down.
She wants it, I’d realized with a jolt of recognition. This sweet little kitten wants to be dominated. She just doesn’t know it yet.
And God help me, I wanted to be the one to show her.
So I’d approached her. Spoken to her. Watched her startle and flush and look up at me with those guileless blue eyes that saw too much and hid too little. I’d told myself I was just curious. Just scratching an itch. Just seeing if the attraction I felt was real or imagined.
It was real, and undeniably mutual.
Up close, she was even more intoxicating than I’d imagined.
Her scent—something floral and expensive underlaid with the unmistakable musk of arousal—had hit me like a drug.
Her voice, slightly husky with nerves and desire, had made my cock ache in my slacks.
And when I’d called her kitten and watched her pupils blow wide, I’d felt something shift in my chest. Something dangerous.
Mine, the beast had growled.
I’d pushed down the thought, but it kept resurfacing. When she’d held my gaze instead of looking away. When she’d answered my questions with trembling honesty. When she’d told me she didn’t need rescuing, and I’d seen the moment she’d chosen to stay—chosen me—over the safety of retreat.
And now she was looking up at me with those luminous eyes, her lips parted, her body swaying toward mine like a flower toward the sun, and she was saying words that destroyed what was left of my self-control.
Take me as far as you want.
She was giving me permission. This innocent, wide-eyed, achingly beautiful woman who had no idea what she was asking for. She was putting herself in my hands and trusting me not to break her.
The smart thing—the safe thing—would be to back off.
Take her to the bar and get to know her without any distractions.
Figure out what she actually wanted, make sure she understood what she was agreeing to or find her someone else to play with tonight who would be slow and gentle.
That was what a good man would do. A careful man.
A man who had his darker urges under control.
Instead, I stepped closer.
“Keep your eyes forward,” I murmured, moving behind her until my chest pressed against her back.
She was small against me—the top of her head barely reached my chin—and I could feel the delicate architecture of her shoulder blades.
Could sense the rapid flutter of her heartbeat as my breath stirred the hair at her temple. “And watch.”
She shivered but didn’t pull away. Just turned her gaze back to the room as I’d commanded, her body already trembling against mine.
Such a good girl, I thought, and the beast inside me purred with satisfaction.
The bed directly in front of our alcove had been stripped and cleaned and was now occupied by a new couple.
The man was seated on the edge, fully clothed except for his open trousers.
The woman knelt between his spread thighs, her dress hiked up around her waist, her bare ass on display as she took his cock into her mouth.
His hand was fisted in her hair, guiding her movements, and even from here I could see the tears tracking down her cheeks—not from pain, but from the effort of taking him deep.
“You see them?” I asked against Stella’s ear, my voice low enough that no one else around us could hear. “See how she’s kneeling for him?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“She’s waited for him all week,” I said, setting the scene as I settled one hand on her hip, feeling the sharp intake of her breath at the contact.
“Counted down the days until she could be here again with him. Until she could have his cock in her mouth and his hand in her hair and nothing else in the world to worry about except making him feel good.”
Stella’s breathing had gone shallow, her gaze riveted to the couple.
“That’s what submission is,” I continued, letting my thumb trace small circles against her hip through the silky fabric.
“It’s not weakness. It’s freedom. The freedom to stop thinking, stop planning, stop being in control every second of every day.
” I dipped my head, letting my lips brush the curve of her ear.
“The freedom to just feel. Is that what you want, kitten?”
“I—” Her voice caught. “I don’t know…”
“You don’t have to know anything tonight.
” My other hand came up to rest against her stomach, palm flat, fingers splayed.
I could feel the muscles jumping beneath her skin, the heat of her even through the fabric.
“You just have to feel. Can you do that for me, kitten? Can you stop thinking and just feel?”
She nodded, a jerky movement that sent a strand of blonde hair sliding across her cheek.
“Words,” I commanded softly. “I need to hear you say it.”
“Yes.” The word came out as a breath. “I can do that.”
“Good girl.”
She shuddered at the praise, and I filed the reaction away for later. Praise kink. Responsive to affirmation. Starving for it, if that full-body tremor was any indication.
On the bed, the woman had taken the man deep enough that her nose pressed against his pelvis.
He held her there for a long moment, her throat working around him, before releasing her with a growl of approval.
She gasped for air, mascara smudged beneath her eyes, looking up at him with an expression of pure devotion.
“Watch his hands,” I told Stella. “See how he holds her? Firm but not painful. Controlling but not cruel. He’s pushing her limits, but he knows exactly where those limits are. He’d never take her somewhere she wasn’t ready to go.”
“How does he know?” Stella asked, and there was genuine curiosity beneath the breathlessness. “How can he tell?”
“Communication. Trust. Time. Sometimes pure instinct.” I let my hand slide fractionally lower on her stomach, testing.
She arched into the touch instead of pulling away.
“A good dom learns to read his sub’s body like a book.
Every shiver, every gasp, every flutter of her pulse tells him what she needs, sometimes before she knows herself. ”
“And what...” She swallowed audibly. “What does my body tell you?”
That you’re soaking wet right now. That you want me to touch you so badly you can barely stand it. That you’ve never felt this alive in your entire life and it terrifies you as much as it excites you.
“That you’re curious,” I said instead, keeping my voice measured. “Aroused. A little scared, but not enough to run. And that no one has ever touched you the way you need to be touched.”
Her breath stuttered. “How do you know—”
“Because if they had, you wouldn’t be trembling in anticipation like this, from nothing more than my hands on your hip and your stomach.
” I pressed my palm more firmly against her belly, pulling her back until she was flush against me.
Until she could feel exactly what she was doing to me, with the hard length of my cock pressed against the curve of her ass through our clothes.
“You’d already know what it felt like to surrender.
To have someone take you apart piece by piece and put you back together better than before. ”
She made a small sound in the back of her throat. Almost a whimper.
“But no one’s ever done that to you, have they?” I continued. “No one’s ever seen what I see when I look at you. All that need, all that pent-up hunger, buried so deep you probably didn’t even know it was there until tonight.”
“No,” she admitted, and there was something raw in her voice now. “No one’s ever...”
“Then let me be the first.”
I turned her in my arms, slow enough that she could stop me if she wanted.
She didn’t. She let me move her until we were face to face in the shadowed alcove, the sounds of pleasure from the outer room still there.
She looked up at me, and what I saw in her eyes made something clench tight in my chest.
Trust. Fragile and new and probably unearned, but there nonetheless. She was putting herself in my hands—this woman who didn’t know me, didn’t know what I was capable of, didn’t know about the darkness I kept chained—and trusting me to be worthy of it.
I wasn’t going to let her down.
“Here are my rules,” I said, holding her gaze.
“You can stop this scene at any time. Immediately, no questions asked. You can say slow down, and I’ll ease up.
You can ask questions, voice concerns, tell me if something doesn’t feel right.
Your words have power here, Stella. I need you to believe that. ”
She nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.
“And in return,” I continued, letting my thumb trace along the edge of her jaw, “you give me your honesty. No pretending. No performing. If something feels good, I want to hear it. If something feels incredible, I want to hear that too. And if something feels wrong, you tell me immediately. Understood?”
“Understood,” she breathed.
“One more thing.” I let my hand drift down, fingers trailing along the column of her throat until they rested against her pulse point.
Her heart was racing—I could feel it fluttering beneath my fingertips like a trapped bird.
“I’m going to ask you for a safeword. A word you can say if things become too intense and you need everything to stop.
It should be something you wouldn’t normally say during sex.
Something that will cut through everything and bring us both back to reality. ”
She blinked, processing. “I’ve... I’ve read about those.”
Of course she has. Probably in some romance novel, some sanitized version of this world that hinted at the darkness without ever truly showing it. The reality was messier. Rawer. More demanding.