TWO #2
With unhurried confidence, he lifted the mask just enough to reveal the lower half of his face. My lips parted as I watched, transfixed. He brought the blade to his mouth, his tongue darting out to lick the dampness. It traced the blade’s edge, tasting me. Like an offering.
My thoughts reeled from the intoxicating mix of fear and power it gave me. I wanted to see more – to watch his tongue move against the blade, to see his expression as he tasted me. But the mask obscured most of his face like a reprimand for wanting wrong things.
Rising slowly, he moved with a fluidity unusual for a man his size. His footsteps were heavy on the naked tiles as he circled me, the faint rustling of his jeans the only sound as he disappeared behind me.
The anticipation tugged at the fraying edges of my composure, and when the blunt side of the blade pressed against my neck again, fear bloomed across my skin.
It wasn’t the touch of the knife that startled me – it was the flood of memories it brought with it.
Dark, suffocating memories that clawed at my mind, threatening to pull me under.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my heartbeat erratic as I fought against the rising tide of panic. But before it could consume me, the blade shifted. The flat side of the steel nudged under my chin, tilting my head upwards.
‘Eyes on me,’ he said, his voice firm and calm, unlike the voice that came with the memories. And it cut through the chaos in my mind just like that.
I blinked, my gaze snapping up to meet the hollow black of his. The world around us narrowed, and I latched onto the sound of his voice as if it were the only solid thing in the dark.
‘Calm your breathing,’ he instructed, his tone softer but no less commanding. ‘Use the safe word.’
I hesitated for only a breath, the warmth of his touch coaxing me to submission.
He waited.
Calming myself was easier said than done. Each inhale came shallow, but the weight of his presence was steady, anchoring me in a way I hadn’t felt in years.
‘Green,’ I exhaled.
Slowly, I pulled air back into my lungs, matching the rhythm of his own. He was patient, but unyielding, until my pulse began to slow, my panic dissolving under the sheer certainty of his control.
‘Good girl,’ he soothed.
The knife began its journey again, tracing a path down the column of my neck. Each inch it passed sent contradictory signals through my body – pleasure and panic, heat and ice. I flinched, just once, when it passed my collarbone.
Not because he hurt me – but because another room flashed over my eyes, another hand… another knife, but without rules.
But this wasn’t that room. This was me choosing this blade. Me, watching Ghost wield it in pleasure – not punishment.
The weapon dipped lower. This time, I met it without a tremor, following its arc with a held breath.
The muffled rip of the dress at my chest broke the silence, each thread conceding to the blade.
I felt his gaze following its path, its weight as tangible as any touch.
He wasn’t just stripping away fabric – he was peeling back every layer of me, leaving nothing hidden under the merciless gaze of the chandelier.
And just like that, the forbidden memories that had haunted me evaporated, replaced by the heat of his breath and the chill of the weapon. He had managed what years of therapy couldn’t – a single moment of freedom, of release, where ghosts of my past held no power.
The lace clung to my waist in tatters, sheer and useless like the last defence of a fortress already conquered. His gaze travelled over me as if he was memorising every inch he had claimed.
I shifted, my throat labouring to catch air.
‘Is something wrong?’ I murmured when he lingered too long, suddenly too aware of my body.
His gaze lifted, and when it met mine, it felt as if he were surfacing from someplace dark and indulgent.
‘No,’ he breathed. ‘There’s nothing wrong.’ A pause. ‘You need to learn something.’ He crouched, his mask level with my breasts, barely hidden behind the blue lace. ‘This… what I am doing… what I am not yet doing… is restraint.’
His knife ran down the slope of my breast without touching. His breath ghosted over my collarbone even through the fabric of his mask.
‘Something tells me you haven’t known it.’
I pressed my lips tighter.
‘I don’t want to rush this,’ he whispered. ‘You have no idea what it takes not to mark you… Not to bend you over and erase any doubt you ever had about yourself.’
My mouth slid open slowly, the ache throbbing low between my thighs.
Fuck, I cursed inwardly. He was killing me.
‘Mark me… how?’ I whispered, desperately needing him to at least say it.
His gaze dropped to my breasts and stayed there. Raising the sharp tip of the knife, he lifted his head to look at me with a silent question.
‘Green.’ It left me on a breath, a plea almost slipping alongside the word.
The blade made contact to the right, its tip circling the lace over my nipple.
‘Here… Teeth. Just a little,’ he rumbled, inclining his head sideways as if to get a better view. ‘Then tongue, to soothe what I’ve taken.’
I wanted this. The pain. The pleasure. All of it.
‘I’d mark you where only I’d know to look. And every time you moved, you’d feel me there.’
My skin pebbled as the blade descended further, slicing through the centre of my dress with a soft, decisive sound. The knife paused as it reached the lace below.
His body went rigid as he stared over me. The quiet thickened, his gaze lingering longer than expected on that spot, longer than I could endure.
I was burning, fighting the urge to look away, but the tension in the room kept me locked to him. I could see the muscles in his neck working, a subtle betrayal of the battle he waged within himself.
The sight sent a surge of satisfaction through me. Could I truly affect him so much?
The contract we’d signed suddenly felt like a cruel boundary, a line neither of us could cross. Yet the unspoken promise in his every movement, the way his hand flexed on the hilt of the knife, left me yearning for more.
I wanted him to break me further, to take every fractured piece of me and break it into nothing until there was no trace of the person I used to be. My chest heaved, my breathing quickening again as I watched him wrestle with his own restraint.
‘I won’t touch you,’ he murmured, more to himself.
‘Do it,’ the whisper came, breathless – too eager.
‘It isn’t allowed.’
‘I won’t tell.’
The knife paused. For a moment, I wondered if I had crossed some invisible line.
No…
He rose, his frame dominating the space as he brought the weapon to my chin. The knife hovered near my lips, the smooth edge brushing lightly against them – a touch that promised but strangely did not make me feel threatened.
I forgot how to breathe. Time folded in on itself.
‘Good girls get rewards,’ he rumbled, tilting his head, the shadow of the mask obscuring his look but not the intent behind it. ‘And bad girls—’ His voice dipped lower, a tantalising pause. ‘—get exactly what they ask for.’
My throat worked around a swallow.
I didn’t know which he saw me as, and the uncertainty burned through me like fire.
But I knew what I wanted, what I needed, even if it defied reason.
It was unnatural to want someone this much, this quickly, but it was the naked truth of it.
Because I was Scarlet in front of him, a woman stripped of history.
‘Then give me what I need,’ I said, my gaze steadying enough to hold his.
His breathing grew louder, heavier, echoing through the mask as he seemed to teeter on the edge of control.
The knife slid into my mouth, the cold of the steel biting my tongue. I opened instinctively, careful not to let the blade nick me.
I didn’t recoil. I welcomed it – because I had asked for it.
Because he waited.
The knife’s side pressed down, urging me to open my mouth further. The stretch left me feeling utterly exposed. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me – somehow, I knew – but the danger increased every sensation, every second of this wicked ritual.
‘I want those lips around me, little angel. But you are not ready to take me yet,’ he rumbled, leaning closer.
His soapy scent was overwhelming. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating off him, and it made me ache to pull the barrier away, to see him, to feel him.
‘I want to load that mouth,’ he continued. ‘I want to hear you choking on it.’
A moan trembled at the back of my throat, shameless.
The sound seemed to break something in him.
He jolted upright, towering over me, his body tense as he fought himself.
For a moment it felt as though the world had stopped, leaving only us in this suspended moment of need.
With a ragged breath, he stepped back.
The distance felt unbearable, a loss so acute it left me fragmented.
‘You did good, little angel,’ he murmured, his voice gravelly.