Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
"What's your safeword, Scarletta?" I ask.
She flinches at the sound of my voice coming from a different location.
"I—" She swallows. "Red."
That came right out of her stories. It's always red. "And if you can't speak?"
"Three taps."
"Good. Those are the only two things that will make me stop. Use them if you need to."
I pause.
"But you won't."
She makes a small, desperate sound.
"You won't use your safeword because you've been fantasizing about this for years. You don't want gentle. You want real."
I lean forward slightly in the chair.
"You want someone who'll push you past every limit you thought you had. Who'll make you cry, and beg, and break. Who'll fuck the shame right out of you until you can't remember why you were ever embarrassed."
Her knees buckle. She catches herself, head against the door.
"And then," I continue, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper, "you want someone who'll hold you afterward. Who'll tell you that you're perfect exactly as you are. That your darkness doesn't make you broken—it makes you mine."
A sob tears out of her.
Raw. Uncontrolled.
There it is.
The truth she's been hiding from herself.
I stand. Cross the room. Stop directly behind her.
"You wrote yourself a roadmap, Scarletta," I murmur against her ear. "Every story. Every scene. Every filthy confession your characters made to their Doms so they could be shaped into something perfect."
I grip her hips.
"Now you're going to live it."
She's crying openly now. Silent tears streaming down her face, soaking the blindfold.
I turn her around to face me. Cup her face in both hands.
"But I need you to understand something very important."
I lean close. So close my lips brush hers when I speak.
"You are already perfect."
Chapter 11
Scarletta
You are already perfect.
His words sting me for some reason. It's… I can't explain the feeling.
It's almost invasive, this seeing me.
Almost mean.
I'm already perfect?
I'm not perfect. Not even close. I don't shower. I don't work. I sleep in blanket forts—
"You will confess every thought you just had out loud. Now."
His command is so absolute, I whimper.
Fuck!
Fuck!
I know better! I mean, he's right I wrote the dam rules, over and over again, story after story, the same fucking rules—and this was always rule number one!
You will never hide your thoughts from me!
"Now, Scarletta. And if you lie, I'll know. Do you know what your punishment will be?"
I want to say no, but it's not true. I know. Because again, I'm the one who wrote this fucking scene! "You'll stop touching me."
"I'll stop touching you." His voice is quiet. Matter-of-fact. Like he's explaining the weather. His fingertip—just one finger—trails down my front. Right over the peak of my nipple. It pauses there…
Oh god.
He squeezes it. Gentle at first. Then he twists.
I gasp—no, I fucking choke on air—and my pussy clenches so hard I nearly come. Right there. Just from that. My thighs go slick and I can feel it, the wetness spreading, humiliating, impossible to hide.
That's how hard my body reacts to his expert touch.
Expert.
Jesus Christ, Scarletta. Expert? What are you, writing purple prose in your head while a stranger twists your nipple?
But it's true. He knows exactly how much pressure. Exactly when to release. Exactly how to make my body betray every single shred of dignity I'm clinging to.
"Is this what you want, Scarletta?"
His voice is closer now. Right against my ear. His breath is warm and I can smell whiskey and something sharper—mint maybe—and underneath that, something male, and clean, and fuck, I shouldn't be cataloging his scent like some kind of—
"To fake your way through this amazing experience?"
Amazing.
He called this amazing.
I'm naked. Blindfolded. Handcuffed. Standing in a stranger's house after being sold at an auction I didn't know was fake. My nipple is still throbbing where he twisted it, and my clit is screaming, and I haven't been touched—really touched—in two years and he thinks I'm going to fake this?
"Because if so, get the fuck out."
My stomach drops.
No.
"I'm not interested in anything other than reality."
Reality.
Reality is I signed a contract for forty-four thousand dollars that I desperately need. Reality is I filled out a questionnaire admitting every sick fantasy I've ever had and this man—whoever he is—read every word of those sick fantasies and is now holding me accountable for desires I can barely admit to myself.
Reality is I want this.
God, I want this so much it hurts.
But he's asking me to say it out loud. To confess what I just thought. To strip away the last protective layer between who I pretend to be and who I actually am.
"I—"
My voice cracks.
Pathetic.
Start again.
"I don't want to fake it."
The words come out small. Ashamed. Exactly like I sound in real life when I'm trying to tell someone what I need and failing spectacularly because I'm fundamentally broken at human interaction.
His finger moves. Trails down from my nipple to my ribs. My stomach. He's going lower and my breath hitches because I know where he's going, and I'm so wet it's obscene, and he's going to feel it and know exactly how desperate I am.