Page 19 of Slick & Spooky
My brain’s stuck buffering, trying to process a sentence I’m sure I heard but can’t quite believe.
“Face the headboard.”
I poured gasoline on everything I’ve touched tonight and that singular sentence should’ve been the match that burned the whole illusion down. Instead, there is something lodged in my chest, while the rest of me goes cold.
“If you want this,” Knox says, “then move. Especially if you want it the way you should’ve gotten it this summer.”
My legs finally respond, carrying me toward the bed. I climb on and kneel at the edge, pulse hammering in my throat. The mattress dips beneath me, creaking like it’s nervous too.
“This is a mistake,” he says, quiet. “You know that, right?”
I nod like I’m being good, then dip low and present myself like a fucking offering.
Face buried, hips up, waiting.
“You need a safe word.”
“I don’t.”
I do. God, I do.
“I urge you to pick one,” he says.
He’s right. I know he’s right. I should be responsible and listen. It’s what every book and blog and friend with common sense would recommend.
The problem is I don’t want out. I don’t want limits. I don’t want safety nets or parachutes or plans for what happens if this goes too far.
I want to go too far.
Don’t I deserve to be stripped bare by someone who won’t apologize for the damage? It’s reckless, but it’s also the first thing in a long time that feels real.
“I promise there’s nothing you could do to me that I wouldn’t beg for again.”
He unleashes a puff of air through his nose like an animal trying not to pounce. It’s not the sound of a man in control.
In that moment, it’s not me who unravels. It’s him.
“Delicate things shouldn’t tempt me the way you do.”
“I’m not delicate,” I mumble, face pressed into the bed
“I know that now,” he murmurs. “You made it easy to hold back.”
His palm lands on my ass kneading through the thin fabric of my gym shorts.
“You’re not that boy,” he says as his fingers drift lower, teasing the curve of my thigh. “Never were, were you?”
I move without thinking, knees dragging across the sheets as I turn to face him.
“Don’t,” he snaps, voice like a whip. “Face forward.”
My body snaps back into place remembering exactly where he wanted me.
“You don’t turn around.”
I’m ready to talk shit, to prove I can take as hard as I give, but the second he grips my hips the words dissolve like sugar on my tongue.
The way his hands roam my body is firm and possessive, leaving no doubt that he’s cataloging every reaction I can’t hide. My skin burns where he touches, branded without fire.