Page 3 of Ascension

But there’s one place I shed all that armor. One place where I control the narrative.

Provocateur.

No names, no attachments, no promises, and no apologies.

Only power, MY power. And I wield it for my own comfort and control.

There, I become the Mistress in the black mask, the woman whose heels make grown men kneel and whimper. Who bends CEOs and senators over her knee like disobedient schoolboys. Who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fold, and damn sure doesn’t feel.

Or at least, I didn’t until he showed up.

James Carter Jr.

The human embodiment of my inconvenience. He was too close for comfort at his brother Maverick’s wedding, 6’4” of lickable dark skin reminding me of onyx, with a smile that should come with a warning label. His slow Southern charm was wrapped in perfectly tailored suits, his bottom grill yellow gold with diamonds in the fangs, and a low-cut Caesar with deep waves. At the reception, he kept making me laugh, his hand grazing the small of my back, his mouth dipping close to tell me some stupid joke that still made me snort like a middle schooler.

I avoided him after that. Did everything I could to keep things polite and distant, but Winston Hills is small, and somehow he’s always there, posted up with my nephew CJ at my brother’s cigar lounge, dropping by Caleb’s unannounced, suddenly friends with everyone I love.

I was doing good, remaining distant, until the night he walked into Provocateur.

At first, I didn’t realize it was him. The lights are low there, the air cloaked with cedarwood and desire. I was in the back, tightening the buckles of my harness, when Mistress Carmen came to get me.

“A new client is asking for you specifically. Says he’s requesting ‘The Black Dahlia.’”

That was my alias. Very few knew it. Even fewer said it with that kind of conviction.

When I stepped into the room and saw him, James, standing there with his sleeves rolled, chest rising and falling like he’d just run a mile, my breath caught.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I snapped, voice flat beneath the mask.

“I need to be,” he replied, his eyes darker than I’d everseen them. “I need you, Mistress. I need to be broken, owned.”

In that moment, I realized he had no idea it was me behind the mask, and for some reason, my pussy twitched knowing it. I should’ve turned and walked out, but instead, I stepped forward.

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“I hope so,” he whispered, “Because I don’t want safe.”

My fingers twitched against the leather crop in my hand.

My body was already betraying me, blood racing, thighs tightening, breath short.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I had built a life around distance and control. And this man, this fine ass man, had found his way into both.

I circled him slowly, watched him shiver under my gaze.

“Strip.”

He obeyed like he’d done it a thousand times before.

And as I snapped the crop against his thigh, not too hard, just enough to mark the moment, something shifted in me.

Because for the first time in years, the lines between control and surrender blurred, and I wasn’t sure if I was making him submit...

...or if I was the one finally coming undone.

My trauma made me quiet, but my desires gave me my voice.

The door clicked shut behind me.