I should be angry at this technical compliance that sidesteps true submission. Instead, I'm... impressed. Fascinated. Aroused not just by her body kneeling before me, but by her mind's refusal to break even as she follows orders.
Her breath continues to warm my thigh, each exhale a reminder of her presence, her vulnerability, her strength. I could reach down right now. Thread my fingers through her hair. Tilt her face up. See what truths lie in her eyes that didn't make it onto the page.
I don't move. Instead, I continue reading, looking for the crack in her armor, the weakness I can exploit to drive her away.
To save her life.
Even if it means destroying whatever this is between us.
His touch was clinical against my fall
Of hair, adjusting limbs with practiced ease.
I closed my eyes and thought of you, stood tall
Within my mind while kneeling. When his knees
Pressed firm against my back to arch me more,
I felt the heat of shame begin to seize
My breath. I wanted it to be you who?—
Then… nothing. The stream of words breaks off mid-breath, my own need hardening with it. Control demands I close the journal. Desire whispers that I beg her to finish the line.
I want to hear what comes next. Not her clinical plans to subvert my own. But her poetic longing for me, her King, in the place of Jino—who, in her mind, is a nameless, faceless stand in.
That last unfinished stanza is a weapon sharper than any blade I own. I’d raze kingdoms to know what word she meant to write after “you who?—”.
What comes next?
Your demise, Giovanni,my mind screams.
Her death. That's what comes next.
I must resist!
But how? How can I throw her away when she makes me absolutely crazy with longing like this? These words. Stupid words. Not her tits, not her wet pussy, her fucking words.
They're killing me.
They're gonna get us killed.
I snap the journal shut. The sound is louder than it should be, final as a judge’s gavel. Her breath still warms my thigh, pleading without words.
I can’t stay here. Not another second.
“Eat. Bathe. Dress. Sleep.”
The commands leave my throat ragged with fury I can’t explain. I don’t wait for her reaction. I rise, pushing her out of the way with such force, she goes reeling off the dais.
I throw the notebook down, ignoring her cries of pain, and walk out.
The echo of the steel door slamming shut behind me, reverberating through the concrete like a gunshot.
Distance is survival.
For her. For me.