CHAPTER NINETEEN
After that night, he didn’t speak to me.
No punishment rooms. No demands. No summons to his quarters. It was as if I’d been erased. Invisible again—only this time, not out of mercy. Out of calculation.
He ignored me completely.
And somehow, that silence was worse.
Each passing day tightened the knot in my stomach. I waited for the other shoe to drop—for the snap of his voice or the cold sting of a command. But it never came.
Until tonight.
Now I stand at the threshold of his room, the air thick and heavy with the quiet that always precedes something irreversible.
The door closes behind me with a muted click, sealing me in.
He doesn’t turn to acknowledge me. Just stands there, his back to me, tall and still and unreadable beneath the low light.
Everything in me coils tight. My body remembers the last time I was here—what he did, what he didn’t do, and all the things in between that felt like unraveling.
Then, his voice cuts through the stillness. Deeper. Sharper.
“On your knees. Now.”
It’s not barking or angry. It’s calm.
Dangerously calm.
Like he knows I’ll obey.
Like he’s already planned what comes next—and whether I break or not doesn’t matter.
I was already naked, exposed in every way that matters, and I obey without hesitation—dropping to my knees in front of him, my gaze fixed on the floor. Obedience is instinct now. Survival in muscle memory.
“Look at me.”
I lift my eyes, lashes heavy, heart heavier. I meet his gaze like I’ve been taught—soft, submissive, willing. But something inside me burns.
He reaches for me, fingers brushing my cheek. I don’ t flinch.
Fear is a currency here, and I’ve learned not to spend it so freely.
His hand, ungloved, engulfs my face, broad and rough with control. He could crush my jaw with that grip if he wanted to—but he doesn’t.
He just held me.
And the strangest thing?
I lean into it.
Why did his touch feel so familiar, so different than usual?
He’d touched me before—commanded, punished, restrained—but this isn’t any of that. This isn’t control for show. It isn’t part of the game.
I should be bracing for what comes next—for what he’ll make me do, what he’ll take without asking. But instead, I find myself sinking into his touch, letting him cradle my face like I’m something worth handling gently.
Because as twisted as it sounds…he feels safer than anything else I’ve ever known.
Not the kind of safe that’s soft or easy—but the kind that wraps around me anyway, steady and unyielding. Too close to the way I felt in Montgomery’s arms that night—when he kissed me, when he held me in that bed like the world couldn’t reach me there.
And maybe that’s the problem.
Because I remember how that felt.
And I remember how it ended.
And that’s the most dangerous part of all.
“Do you know why you’re on your knees?”
I swallow hard. “For questioning you, sir?”
He chuckles softly, the sound smooth and dangerous. “Of course not. We’re all human. We’re allowed to question nature.”
I blink. “Then I’m…confused, sir.”
“Are you, though?” His voice drops an octave, the air thickening between us. “Think about it.”
My pulse flutters. “Do you want me to pleasure you, sir?”
A long pause.
“I told you to think about it,” he says, sharp now. “I know you didn’t come to that conclusion in two seconds.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t apologize.” His tone shifts again—colder, more controlled, but there’s something beneath it now. Tight. Restrained. Like the words cost him more than he lets show. “Just do as I say.”
“Yes, sir.”
I can feel the heat of his body radiating down toward me. Then, slowly, he brings his finger to my lips—a single commanding gesture, soft but electric. A hush without a sound.
I should’ve just obeyed.
Kept still. Kept blank.
But the moment his fingertip brushes my mouth, my mind betrays me.
All I can think about is sucking on it.Taking him into my mouth—first his finger, then more.
Then reaching up. Unfastening his slacks. Watching them fall to the floor like an invitation.
“Penny for your thoughts, Starling.”
His voice is a growl this time, yanking me out of the fantasy.
“Sir?” I blink, looking up at him through my lashes.
He stares down at me, unreadable behind the mask, but I can feel the tension radiating from him.
“Would you care to share what you were just thinking about?”
A moment passes.
Then another.
“Do I have permission to show you, sir?”
A low, satisfied sound rolls from his throat—dark and approving. He nods once, slow and intentional, savoring the control. Even without seeing his mouth beneath the mask, I know he is grinning.
That is all I need.
I hold his gaze—sharp, obsidian eyes hidden behind the mask but no less piercing. I lean forward and kiss the pad of his finger. Just a whisper of a kiss, soft and careful, like a question dressed in lace.
He doesn’t stop me.
I part my lips slowly, willfully, and draw his finger into my mouth with aching reverence.
Inch by inch, I let it slide over my tongue, warm and thick, until my lips close snugly around it.
Then I suck—gentle at first, then deeper, hungrier—pulling him in with soft, wet pulls that make my cheeks hollow.
My tongue swirls around his finger with devoted care, tracing every ridge and knuckle, savoring the intoxicating taste of him: warm skin, faint leather, salt, and raw masculine power.
I moan softly around him, the low vibration humming against his flesh as I suck harder, eyes fluttering half-closed in surrender.
The act feels sacred and filthy all at once—a quiet ritual of submission that leaves me breathless, aching, and leaves me wetter than I want to admit, lost in the weight of his control.
He inhales sharply, barely audible—but I feel it.
The shift.
The tension pulling tight through him, like something just beneath the surface has been struck.
I release his finger with a wet pop and my hands drift to his waistband. My fingers tremble—not with fear, but anticipation. With want.
I unfasten the button of his slacks, then tug the zipper down inch by inch. I want him to feel it. I want him to ache for it. For me.
His pants slide to the floor in a whisper, leaving only thin, dark briefs between us. His cock is already straining against the fabric—thick, defined, and pulsing with demand.
He still hasn’t spoken. He doesn’t have to. His silence is louder than any order.
I sit up higher on my knees, lean in and press my lips just above the waistband, letting him feel the heat of my breath. My tongue darts out, tracing the line of his abdomen, teasing the sensitive skin just above his shaft. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. But I can feel his self-control cracking.
And I love it.
When I finally hook my fingers into the elastic of his briefs and pull them down, his cock springs free—hard, heavy, flushed at the tip. My mouth waters.
I look up through my lashes.
“Still want to know what I was thinking about, sir?”
His jaw flexes.
“Show me.”
His voice catches on the words, a subtle crack breaking through the control he usually holds so tightly. He clears his throat right after, like he can smooth it over, like it didn’t slip at all.
And I do.
I wrap one hand around the base of his cock, the other gripping his ass to hold him still. I lean in and lick him from root to tip—slow and filthy, watching his stomach tense as I drag my tongue up his length. When I reach the swollen head, I kiss it, then wrap my lips around it and suck.
His breath hitches, and then the groan comes— deep, guttural, entirely wrecked.
That is all the confirmation I need.
He leans forward, closing the space between us in a single, unhurried movement, and palms the door behind me. The sound is soft, final—trapping me in without needing force, without needing to say anything else.
I take him deeper, inch by inch, until he hits the back of my throat. I don’t stop. I can’t.
I breathe through my nose, open my throat, relax my jaw—just like he taught me. Just like he trained me. My hands grip his hips as I let him slide in and out of my mouth, coating him in spit, moaning softly as he fills me over and over again.
His voice cracks—a gravelled whisper that cuts through the dark.
“Fuck…” he rasps, voice rough and strained.
He pauses, chest heaving, hips still rolling slowly so his heavy cock glides across my tongue.
“Why do you…”
Another deep thrust pushes him toward the back of my throat. I whimper around his thickness, eyes watering as I take him eagerly.
“…feel so fucking good?”
The words come out ragged, like a tortured confession, dripping with raw desperation and pleasure.
I look up at him through tear-filled lashes, my cheeks hollowed as I suck him harder, taking him deeper in response. His head falls back with a deep, guttural groan, every muscle in his body pulling tight as he fights desperately to stay in control.
When his gaze finally drops back down to me, I keep my eyes locked on his—shining, watery, and full of wicked innocence—my mouth still stretched obscenely around his throbbing cock. The silent question is clear in my stare: Do you want me to stop?
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
His hand fists in my hair. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t force. His hold is an anchor. A silent claim.
And I give him everything.
My mouth. My tongue. My breath. My obedience.
I suck him like he is divine, like I can earn my absolution with every slow drag of his thick length across my tongue. I moan around him, letting the vibration roll deep in my throat as I worship every inch with reverent lips, slick heat, and raw hunger.
I don’t care if my eyes water. I don’t care that I am trembling. I want to come apart like this—on my knees, full of him, used by him, his.
There is no gentleness now.
No illusion of equality.
No pretending I am free.
I am his.
Utterly.
Willingly.
Obscenely.
And the worst part?
I don’t want it to end.
Even with everything I’ve lived through. Even with the warning bells screaming in the back of my mind. I want to stay in this moment—on my knees, in his hands, and wanted.
But then he says it.
A moan.
A name.
“My rose.”
A nickname that almost makes me choke.
A nickname I swear I’ve heard before—once, maybe, somewhere buried under everything I’ve tried not to remember.
A nickname I can’t quite place no matter how hard I reach for it, like it’s sitting just beyond the edge of recognition, refusing to come into focus.
But in that one breath, something in me shifts.
Because it isn’t the name he called me. It is how he says it. It was the way he said it.
It drags something up from deep inside me—something half-buried, half-forgotten, like a memory I’ve held under too long and can’t tell anymore if it’s real or made from wanting it to be.
The same way Montgomery had once whispered it to me in the dark—when he wasn’t masked by duty or violence or expectation. When it was just us, and I was still something to him that felt human.
He used to say it like I was fragile. Like saying it too loud might shatter me.
And now this man—this faceless, brutal thing standing in front of me—said it exactly the same.
Like he knew.
Like he remembered.
And in that moment, everything inside me recoils and reaches for him at once. Because I’d buried that girl. Let her die quietly in the dark so I could become someone who didn’t need saving.
But in that one breath, he brings her back.
And I don’t know what scares me more—that he can speak her into existence again…or that some part of me still wants to be her.