Page 5

Chapter 5

No Going Back

I shouldn’t crave the sound of a command.

Shouldn’t want to obey.

But when Cole tells me to take off my panties, I don’t hesitate.

I can’t.

My body moves before my mind catches up—driven not by fear but by something darker. Deeper.

A need I’ve never acknowledged, let alone acted on.

This is the first time I’ve ever let a man take control.

Not just of my body.

Of me.

And instead of shame, I feel… free .

Weightless. Exposed in a way that doesn’t scare me—not with him.

Because his voice?

It’s the spark and the fuse.

The lock and the key.

The anchor I never knew I needed.

I hook my thumbs into the lace and begin to lower them?—

“Eyes on me.” The command slices through the haze like lightning.

I lift my gaze to his, and the moment our eyes lock, it happens?—

I fall.

Not away. Not apart.

Into him.

I swallow hard, sliding them down slowly, aware of how exposed I am, how much power he’s taken—and how much I’ve given.

When I’m bare before him, he leans forward, one hand reaching out to skim the outside of my thigh, the barest graze of knuckles.

“Perfect,” he murmurs. “Every inch of you. And now that you’ve undressed for me, sweetheart…”

He looks up at me with eyes full of heat and possession.

“I’m going to take my time making you forget how to breathe.”

He pulls his henley over his head, revealing a body that makes my breath catch. Broad shoulders, thick with strength, taper down to a narrow waist. Ropes of lean muscle shift beneath golden skin, a dusting of dark hair trailing down his chest, disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.

I stare, helpless to hide it.

“Like what you see?” he asks, smug and dark with amusement.

I reach for him, fingertips grazing the heat of his chest, tracing the ridges of muscle and the line of his sternum.

He lets me touch—for a moment.

Then he captures my wrists in one firm hand, stilling me with nothing more than strength and a low command:

“My turn.”

My pulse spikes.

“Lie back.”

The words leave no room for argument. My body obeys before my brain catches up, sinking into the cushions, heart hammering.

He shifts over me slowly, deliberately—his weight caging me in. Not trapping. Claiming . One hand braced beside my head, the other free.

His mouth finds my ear. Breath hot. Close enough to feel but not kiss.

Teasing.

Torturing.

“Do you have any idea,” he murmurs, voice low and frayed, “how many nights I’ve imagined you like this?” His hips press between my thighs. Hard. Heavy. Unmistakably ready. “Beneath me. Needing me. Arching. Gasping.” A pause. His voice dips lower, darker. “Begging to be filled. To be fucked?”

A moan slips from my throat, broken and involuntary.

His lips drag just beneath my ear, tracing fire along my skin.

“I’ve jerked off thinking about this,” he growls. “So many fucking times I lost count.”

Each word is sharp. Ripped from somewhere deep.

“Fisting my cock to the thought of you writhing under me, whimpering my name. Coming so hard your legs shake while I keep you wide open and begging for more.”

I arch, breath shattered.

He groans against my neck, the sound guttural, like my reaction feeds something primal inside him.

“Every time,” he says, voice hoarse. “Every single time, I told myself the real thing would wreck me.” His hand slides down my ribs, not soft—sure. “And fuck, Tess…” His mouth claims mine in a kiss that’s all teeth and heat and hunger. “…I was right.”

A growl rumbles in his chest. He claims my mouth again, deeper this time, hungrier, more demanding. My bra loosens with a flick of his fingers, sliding down my arms as he pulls it away like wrapping off a gift.

I resist the urge to cover myself—bare, exposed—under the full weight of his gaze.

His eyes flare.

“Perfect,” he murmurs, possessive and reverent. He palms one breast, rough fingers teasing as his mouth closes around the other, tongue circling, then sucking hard enough to make me cry out.

“That’s it.” His voice is thick. Commanding. “Let me hear you. Let me know exactly what I’m doing to you.”

My nails dig into the couch. I can’t hold back. Not from him.

His hand trails lower, slow and deliberate, fingertips brushing my abdomen, making my muscles jump. When he reaches my hip, he doesn’t ask.

He just waits.

The silence between us grows heavy, charged—a question without words.

And I answer it.

“I want… I want to feel you.” My voice is barely a whisper. “I want your hands on me. I want you to take me.”

His hand stills, just for a second.

“Slow and soft?” he asks, voice a low murmur, dark and coaxing. “Or fast and hard?”

My breath hitches. I know what he’s doing—testing me. Giving me a choice before he takes the rest.

“As hard as you need.”I meet his gaze. I swallow. “I want to feel you.”

My words detonate something between us.

His eyes darken like a storm rolling in.

“That’s my girl.” His hand slides behind my neck. He fists my hair as he leans in, his voice brushing my skin like a kiss. “Hands above your head.”

My heart stutters.

He waits. Watching.

I obey.

“Keep them there. You move, I stop. Understood?”

“Yes.” My voice trembles.

He tilts his head. “Yes, what?”

I blink, confused, mouth parting. “What do you mean?”

His grip tightens, a slow smile curving his lips as he whispers in my ear.

“When we’re like this, I want you to call me Sir.”

The words slam through me, hot and electric.

Not just because of what they mean—but because of how it feels.

I’m a woman who’s used to control, to clinical precision, to being in charge. Saying Sir —especially during sex—feels foreign on my tongue, like stepping into a version of myself I’ve never allowed before.

It should feel awkward. Embarrassing.

But instead, it feels like heat crawling up my spine.

Sir .

The syllable lands in my mouth like something forbidden—foreign, intimate, and laced with power.

Not his power. Mine .

Because I’m the one giving it. Offering it.

I pause and then breathe it out, excitement curling in my belly like a fuse lit at both ends.

“Yes… Sir?” It feels like I’ve just handed him the reins to my body and my soul. And God help me, the look on his face when I say it?

The triumphant expression he gives me is pure sin, full of dark promise. His fingers slide through slick heat, deliberate and unhurried, parting me with the kind of precision that says he already knows exactly how I’ll come apart.

The weight of control slips off my shoulders, landing square on him, leaving me with pure, visceral sensation.

“Christ,” he mutters, voice low, reverent, ruined. “You’re soaked for me already. You like giving up control that much?”

My breath catches. My hips jerk against his hand, but I don’t drop my arms.

“I’ve never…” The words snag in my throat, fragile and raw. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

His hand stills. Just for a second.

Then his gaze locks onto mine—dark, intense, completely focused.

“No one’s ever taken control like this?”

"No." I shake my head.

“No one’s ever made you call them Sir?”

"No…" And then I remember. "No, sir." Another shake. Barely a breath.

“No one’s ever bound you with their voice and made you beg?”

The flush rises fast—neck to cheeks, shame and excitement tangled so tight I can’t tell them apart.

“No, sir,” I whisper.

A beat of silence.

Then—

“Fuck.”

The word is rough, reverent.

His forehead drops to mine, and for a second, he breathes me in.

“Good,” he says finally, voice like gravel and smoke. “Because that means I get to be your first.” His grip tightens in my hair, and his other hand resumes its slow, merciless exploration. “Your first and last surrender.”

Last?

My head tips back, lips parting on a gasp.

“And sweetheart?” His mouth finds my throat, open and hot. “It’s gonna ruin you for anything less.”

He presses the heel of his palm against my clit, grinding slow, devastating circles. His other hand grips my hip tight, holding me perfectly still.

I try to move—just a little.

He stops.

“What did I say?”

My eyes fly open. “Don’t move.”

“Good girl.”

When he touches me again—the press of his fingers against my center sends a jolt through me. My hips buck involuntarily. He chuckles, the sound dark and satisfied, as he strokes me with deliberate skill.

"So responsive," he murmurs, watching my face as he circles the bundle of nerves at my core. "So perfect for me."

His touch is exquisite—confident without being rough, knowing without being mechanical. He reads my reactions with the same intuitive understanding I've seen him apply to his patients, adjusting pressure and rhythm based on the catch in my breath and the tension in my muscles.

When he slides one finger inside me, then two, I moan his name, beyond caring about our semi-public location. The building pleasure is too intense and consuming to allow for such mundane concerns.

"That's it," he encourages, crooking his fingers to find the spot that makes me see stars. "Let go for me. Let me watch you come apart."

His thumb circles my clit in time with the thrust of his fingers, and the dual sensation sends me spiraling toward a precipice I didn't know could be reached so quickly. When he lowers his head to take one nipple between his teeth, applying just enough pressure to skirt the edge of pain, I shatter completely.

The orgasm crashes through me in waves, my body arching off the couch as I cry out his name. He works me through it, gentling his touch but not stopping until the last tremor subsides and I collapse boneless against the cushions.

"Beautiful." He kisses my collarbone softly as I struggle to catch my breath. "So fucking beautiful when you come for me."

I’ve never felt anything like it—not just the blinding rush of release, but the obliteration of everything I thought I had to be.

For those moments, I wasn’t Dr. Tess Carrington with all her sharp edges and perfectly stacked ambitions. I was just a woman—his woman—undone beneath his hands, stripped bare in every way that matters.

Raw. Real. Completely his.

As my awareness returns, so does the press of him—thick, hard, unrelenting—still pulsing against my thigh like a promise he hasn’t yet made good on.

I reach for him, instinctive and aching to give something back.

But his hand snaps around my wrist—not rough, but unyielding.

His grip stops me cold.

“No.”

The word lands like a slap of heat, sharp and immediate.

His eyes flash, dark and uncompromising as he leans in.

“You don’t get to touch me like that.”

My breath catches.

“You don’t take from me.” His voice is low, commanding. “That’s my job. My hands. My mouth. My body—they’re yours, but only when I give them to you.”

He brings my hand to his lips, brushing a kiss across my knuckles with a softness that contrasts the steel in his tone.

But I see it now. Feel it.

That softness? It’s not permission. It’s the calm before the storm.

“Don’t reach for control,” he murmurs against my skin. “You won’t find it.”

He lets my hand go slowly, deliberately. His gaze never wavers.

“You’re going to learn how good it feels to let me take care of you.” A slow, satisfied smile curves his lips. "How amazing it feels to obey…"

The last of my breath leaves in a shudder.

"As for fucking you. Not here.” His voice is wrecked with restraint. Barely leashed hunger coils beneath every word. “Not like this.”

“But—”

“When I take you…” His voice cuts through the room like a blade. Low. Unapologetic. Possessive. “I’m going to spread you out in a real bed and taste every inch of your skin. I’m going to fuck you so deep and so slow you’ll forget your name before I let you come again.” He holds my gaze. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t waver. “…I’m going to wreck you.”

My breath leaves me in a rush.

“I’ve waited too long to rush this. And when I slide inside you, I want your legs wrapped around me. I want your nails clawing my back. I want to feel every tremble when you break for me again and again.”

His hand trails down my ribs, over my bare stomach. Just a brush. A warning.

“This isn’t going to be quick and dirty.” His voice drips with molten steel. “I’m going to take all night to fuck you."

The heat that sparks low in my belly reignites like gasoline to flame.

I look up at him, flushed, trembling, already half wrecked and desperate for more.

“Then take me to bed,” I whisper, every word soaked in need. “Take me upstairs.”

He studies me. Not with uncertainty—but with precision.

Still. Silent. Waiting.

The air thickens, charged and heavy.

His gaze doesn’t flicker. Doesn’t soften.

And that’s when I realize—he’s waiting for my submission.

My pulse stutters.

Heat floods my chest.

He’s giving me the choice—but only once.

A beat of silence stretches between us, thick with expectation.

Then I exhale, shaky and sure all at once.

“Please, take me upstairs… Sir.”

The shift is instant.

His eyes darken like smoke swallowing fire. His jaw tightens. A slow, dark smile curls across his lips.

“There she is.” He steps forward, towering, consuming me. "My sweet submissive."

His voice is all command now. Smooth. Cold fire.

“Get dressed.” He bends, retrieves my sweater from the floor, and hands it to me without looking away.

Every nerve in my body hums with anticipation.

Whatever he sees on my face must satisfy him. Because his expression shifts—dark, decisive.

I feel his hunger. Every word of it.

In every inch of my still-burning skin.

As I readjust my clothing with trembling fingers, he banks the flames, his movements efficient and practiced. The firelight plays across his muscular back, highlighting strength contained in grace, power held in check.

He returns to me only when I’m fully dressed, extending a hand to help me up from the couch. The simple courtesy, after the intimate moments we've just shared, touches me deeply.

"Ready?" he asks, and though the question is simple, I hear the layers beneath it.

Ready for more physical pleasure? Yes .

Ready for whatever this connection between us might become, whatever path we're starting down together? I think so.

"Yes, sir." I place my hand in his, feeling the strength in his grip, the sureness in his touch.

Hand in hand, we walk toward the elevator, leaving the dying embers behind us and moving toward a fire of our own making.