Chapter 4 #3
He laughed—a dark, breathless sound—and obliged.
His next thrust drove the air from my lungs.
And the next. He was relentless now, fucking me with an intensity that bordered on brutal, and I loved every second of it.
The leather cuffs bit into my wrists as I pulled against them, needing something to anchor me as pleasure built inside me like a storm.
“That’s it,” he panted, his hand coming up to wrap around my throat—not squeezing hard, just holding me down while he ravaged my body. “Take all of it like the good girl you are,” he growled.
The pressure against my throat, the fullness of him inside me, the relentless stimulation of those piercings against my most sensitive spots—it was too much. I was going to break. I was going to fly apart and never come back together.
“I’m—I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he commanded, his thumb pressing against my pulse. “Come all over my cock. Now.”
Somehow, that demand triggered something in my body and shockingly, I obeyed.
The orgasm that ripped through me was transcendent—beyond pleasure, beyond sensation, beyond anything I had words for.
My entire body locked up, every muscle seizing, my inner walls clamping down on his cock so hard I heard him shout my name.
I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t do anything but feel the ripples of ecstasy crashing through me, drowning me, destroying me, then remaking me into something new.
Distantly, I felt Tate’s rhythm falter, felt his thrusts become erratic, then he buried himself to the hilt and held there as his own release claimed him. He groaned against my throat, his entire body shuddering, his cock pulsing inside me in a way I could feel through the condom.
We stayed like that for a long moment, breathing each other’s air, our hearts pounding in tandem. Then, Tate lifted his head and looked at me.
His expression was wrecked, undone in a way that made my chest ache with something I didn’t want to examine too closely. He looked at me like I was something precious. Something rare. Something he hadn’t expected to find and wasn’t sure what to do with.
“Stella,” he breathed, my name like a prayer on his lips.
I didn’t have words. Didn’t need them. I just smiled—exhausted, exhilarated, utterly transformed—and let myself float in the aftermath of the most intense experience of my life.
He reached up and unbuckled my restraints, one wrist at a time, then gathered me against his chest and held me close. His heartbeat was a steady rhythm against my ear, his hand stroking soothingly up and down my spine. I lay there in his arms, floating in that hazy space between bliss and reality.
“You did so well,” he murmured into my hair. “Such a good girl. So brave. So beautiful.”
The praise washed over me, warm and sweet, and I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
Not from sadness, but from the overwhelming emotion of what we’d just shared.
From the realization that I’d done it. I’d been brave enough to ask for what I wanted, and I’d received more than I’d ever imagined.
One night, I reminded myself. This is just one night. Tomorrow, you’ll go back to your real life and this will be nothing but a perfect memory.
But the thought rang hollow, because nothing about what had just happened felt like something I wanted to leave behind.
“Stay here,” Tate murmured, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he gently disentangled himself from me. “I’m going to get you some water and something to eat. You need to replenish after...” He trailed off, a sexy smirk playing at his lips. “After all that.”
I watched him rise from the bed, dispose of the condom, and pull on his boxer briefs. Even that simple movement was graceful, controlled, like the man himself. He retrieved a light blanket from the shelves and draped it over me, then gently threaded his fingers through my hair.
“Don’t move,” he added, pointing at me with mock sternness. “I’ll be right back.”
Then he slipped through the sheer curtains and disappeared.
I lay there for a moment, staring at the canopy above me. Don’t move, he’d said, but already my mind was racing because I knew I couldn’t stay. In his absence, the glow of what we’d just shared began to fade beneath the weight of everything waiting for me outside this mansion.
Doubts and insecurities crept in like shadows, reminding me how complicated my life really was. How I was still entangled in family expectations I hadn’t yet figured out how to navigate. How I was chasing a dream I wasn’t even sure I could afford to have, let alone protect.
And Tate... he felt like a detour I couldn’t take.
A temptation too easy to fall into. Staying would mean risking more than just my emotions—it would mean losing focus and possibly jeopardizing the delicate balance of everything I was barely holding together.
And who was to say he’d want anything more than just this one hookup, either?
He’d given me something beautiful tonight. A confidence I hadn’t known I was capable of. A glimpse of power and possibility. A taste of the woman I could be with a man like him, if things were different.
But they weren’t. And maybe escaping now was the only way to preserve the memory before reality could tarnish it.
Better to leave while it still felt perfect, I told myself as I sat up, wincing at the pleasant soreness between my thighs. A clean break. No awkward conversations, explanations, or illusions that this could ever be more than just this one night, which was all it was meant to be anyway.
I slipped out of bed and quickly dressed, knowing he’d be back any minute. My hair was a disaster, my makeup probably smeared beyond recognition, but there was nothing I could do about that now.
I didn’t look back as I passed through the sheer curtains, then walked out of the room.
Didn’t let myself hesitate as I made my way back to the entrance and collected my things.
Didn’t allow myself to consider all the possible what ifs as I sent Melissa a quick text and summoned an Uber to pick me up.
Because if I did, I knew I wouldn’t leave at all.
I breathed deep of the night air as I stepped outside and made my way to the valet to wait for my ride, trying to ignore the ache in my chest.
You did the right thing, I told myself, but as my car drove through the gates and stopped to pick me up, I couldn’t shake the image of Tate returning to that curtained bed and finding it empty. Find me gone.
Would he be disappointed? Angry? Or maybe relieved? Would he even care? Probably not. He struck me as the kind of man who didn’t get attached to any one woman.
It doesn’t matter anyway, I told myself firmly. You’ll never see him again. That was the whole point of tonight and going to a sex club and being with a stranger.
I climbed into the back seat of the car and leaned my head against the cool window as the woman behind the wheel headed toward my apartment, my body still humming with the memory of Tate’s touch.
My wrists still tingled where the leather cuffs had lightly chafed me.
Between my thighs, I was still achingly aware of how he’d filled me, how those piercings of his had branded me with a pleasure so deep I could still feel the echo of it.
It was only supposed to be one night, I reminded myself, repeating those words like a mantra as I closed my eyes against the regrets already taking hold.
So why did leaving feel like I was losing something I’d only just found?