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I planned every minute of her captivity. Created algorithms to predict her responses. Built contingencies for resistance, tears, rage, and attempted escape.

I never built a contingency for this, for her mouth soft against mine. For the way her weight feels on my lap. For how badly I want to taste her.

This isn’t dominance. This isn’t power. It’s new—something pure and unfamiliar, making my hands tremble against her skin.

I should reset, return to the programming, and get back on schedule with the next level, the next test, and the next step in making her mine.

But I don’t want to.

For the first time since I found control in code and calculations, I don’t want to follow the script. I want to stay here, in this unplanned moment, with her breath mingling with mine.

My entire life has been about control. It’s about never being the scared kid huddled in the dark again. It’s been about building systems where I dictate every outcome.

Yet here, with Kira looking at me like I’m not just the monster who took her, I don’t care that I’ve veered completely off course.

I don’t care that this wasn’t part of the plan.

18

KIRA

Iwake up with swollen lips and a mind full of contradictions.

My body aches in places it shouldn’t. Not from pain—from wanting. From yesterday. From him.

The sunlight streams through the window—fake or real? I’ve stopped questioning. My fingers brush my lips where Ryker’s mouth had been. His first kiss. The thought sits heavy in my chest, spreading warmth I don’t want to acknowledge.

He’d been so... different. Uncertain. When our lips met, he froze, completely seized up. I had to guide him and show him how to move against me. His inexperience should have been my advantage, my moment to manipulate him.

Instead, it overwhelmed me.

“Fuck!” I punch the mattress.

After that first hesitant press of lips, an ancient, feral part of him stirred to life. We didn’t leave that couch for hours. His hands memorized me, greedy and desperate, like he’d been starving his entire life. His breath was hot against my neck, whispering things that made me press against him harder.

The grinding... Christ. Even now, heat pools between my thighs, remembering how he pinned me beneath him, moving with devastating precision despite the layers between us.

He knows my body. Studies me like I’m the final boss level he can’t quite beat.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hating how my hand slides down my stomach, finding wetness before I even touch myself. I hate myself for needing this release so badly that I can’t stop my fingers from circling, pressing, and dipping.

“This isn’t real,” I tell myself, but my body no longer cares about reality.

When he brought me back here, something in his eyes had changed. He left me unrestrained. Trusted me. Or tested me. It doesn’t matter which now as I arch off the bed, chasing the sensation, imagining his weight over me instead of this hollow emptiness.

I know that this is fucked up. Stockholm syndrome. Trauma bonding. Whatever psychological label belongs to this mess.

But my body doesn’t care about labels, either.

My eyes flutter closed as my fingers move faster between my thighs. My breath hitches, back arching off the mattress. Images of Ryker flood my mind—his hands, mouth, and weight against me yesterday.

“Harder,” I whisper, circling that sweet spot that makes my toes curl. My free hand grips the sheets, knuckles white.

The pressure builds, hot and insistent. I’m so close. My hips rock against my hand, chasing the edge of release. Sweat beads across my forehead, hair splayed across the pillow.

“God,” I gasp, my body tensing. Just a little more?—

“Don’t stop now.”