9. Kane #3
“Good girl.” I watch the way it lands on her — the flush that spreads across her cheeks, the slight widening of her eyes.
“Here’s how this works. No orgasms without my explicit permission.
None. Not by yourself, not with anyone else.
You’ll build arousal, learn to sit with it, carry it through your day. I’ll check in with you every day.”
Her eyes widen as the full shape of it registers. Daily contact. Daily accountability.
“And if it gets to be too much, you text me immediately. No suffering in silence. This is about expansion, not punishment.”
A flicker of defiance cuts through like a spark catching. She rolls her eyes — fully, unmistakably, the specific eye roll she deploys when she thinks she’s being managed — and says something under her breath that is not quite inaudible.
My eyes find hers and I hold them there, patient and entirely unmoved, until the smirk begins to falter at its edges.
“Would you like to repeat that?” I ask, my voice level.
She doesn’t. Smart girl.
I take her chin between my fingers, tilting her face up until her eyes meet mine. “When we get there,” I say, “when you’ve earned it — I’m going to take you apart so thoroughly you’ll forget your own name. I’m going to make you come until you’re begging me to stop.”
Her breath catches and a flush spreads down her throat.
“But first,” I continue, “you need to go home. Let tonight settle.”
“But—”
I touch her face, my thumb tracing along her cheekbone. “Be patient with me,” I murmur. Her face cycles through three things at once: protest, frustration, the beginning of trust. She’s not hiding any of it. Just raw, honest want fighting against reluctant understanding. “Trust the process.”
She opens her mouth. Closes it.
I guide her toward the door, and collect her coat from where it hangs. She lets me help her into it, but her movements are stiff, resistant. The night ending like this: without a scene, without release, without even the promise of when.
“Kane—”
“I know.” I settle the coat on her shoulders, my hands lingering there a moment longer than necessary. “I know what you want right now. But this is what you need.”
Her jaw tightens. But she nods. Barely.
I walk her to the elevator. Press the button and wait with her in the charged silence.
When the doors slide open, she steps inside. Then turns to face me.
Her eyes meet mine. “How long are you really planning to make me wait?”
I smile. “Until you stop asking that question.”
The doors close on her expression — wide-eyed, aroused, furious.
I lean against the wall and let out a long breath.
That was closer than I wanted to admit.
When she kissed me. When her hands went to my belt. I nearly threw her against that Cross and gave us both exactly what we wanted.
But she needs to learn this. That she can’t seduce her way past my control. That surrender means trusting my timing, not my touch.
That I’ll deny both of us what we want in service of what she needs.
My phone buzzes.
Vera: I hate you right now.
I smile.
Me: No, you don’t.
Vera: You kissed me like that and then sent me home alone.
Me: I did.
Vera: That’s cruel.
Me: That’s control. Get used to it.
Three dots. Disappear. Appear again.
Vera: How am I supposed to sleep like this?
Me: Carefully. And remember, no touching.
Vera: You’re genuinely the most infuriating man alive.
Me: And yet here you are. Go to bed. Text me when you’re home safe.
A long pause.
Vera: Yes, Sir.
I pour another scotch.
And smile into the dark.
Vera
The elevator doors close and I face myself in the mirror.
Wide eyes. Flushed cheeks. Hair undone where his hands were.
I look like someone who just had the floor pulled out from under them and is still in the air, not yet sure which way is down.
The elevator reaches the lobby. I step out into the cool night and stand on the sidewalk for a moment, not moving. The city hums around me.
And then, somewhere underneath the ache and the want and the orgasm denial I’m already deeply regretting agreeing to — there’s the Sloane-shaped thing I’ve been not looking at all night.
I told her the room holds confidential client work. She’s never questioned it.
He said it without flinching. Without apology. And I understood exactly what that lie costs him, and exactly what it’s going to cost us both when it ends.
Not if.
When.
I pull out my phone. Type before I can overthink it.
Me: I hate you right now.
His response comes in seconds. I read it, smile despite myself, type back.
By the time I reach my car, I’m grinning and furious and aching and more certain than I’ve been about anything in years.
He showed me that room.
And I looked at everything in it: the Cross, the implements, the aftercare couch with its weighted blankets, and I wasn’t frightened.
I saw him.
Organized and careful and tender underneath the control. A man who plans the aftercare as meticulously as the scene. Who labels his medical supplies. Who chose warm amber lighting so it wouldn’t feel harsh.
It’s just you. All of you.
I said it to reassure him.
I meant every word.
I sit in my car in the dark, phone warm in my hand, the city lights moving across the windshield.
Then I start the engine and drive home.
I’m going to need a cold shower.