Touch Me Not

“To want is dangerous. To be wanted back is a war.”

The envelope was sealed in black wax.

It arrived on her breakfast tray in the Order’s guest quarters, balanced between a steaming pot of lavender tea and a croissant she wouldn’t eat.

Dominique’s hands trembled slightly—not with fear, but with something hungrier.

She cracked the seal.

Inside was a single name, handwritten in sharp calligraphy:

Damien Rios

Alias: WolfEyes

Requested Position: Submissive. Unmasked. Voluntary.

Safe Word: Declined.

Dominique read it three times.

Once with disbelief.

Once with a smirk.

And once with breath caught in her throat.

The Velvet Chamber pulsed with low red light and soft shadows. A single velvet chaise stood in the center like a stage, backed by heavy drapes. No audience tonight. No tribunal. This wasn’t a test.

This was private.

Between her and him.

She stood behind a curtain, cloaked in black lace and her own silence. She wore no mask. No lipstick. Only a slick line of kohl beneath her lashes and the antique corset passed down from Madam—midnight blue, structured with steel and memory.

When the chamber doors opened, she felt it before she saw him.

A hum. A shift in gravity.

Damien entered barefoot, wearing only linen pants low on his hips. No shirt. No mask. No bravado.

His body was taut, sculpted, glinting faintly with a light sheen of sweat. His dark hair was damp and pushed back, exposing a jawline that could slice pride in half.

He looked like he’d fought the urge to run—and lost.

But here he was.

Kneeling.

Hands open on his thighs. Head bowed.

Waiting.

Dominique stepped into view.

The sound of her stilettos against the marble echoed like a drumbeat between them.

He didn’t look up.

Not yet.

She circled him once.

Then again.

Letting the silence stretch.

Letting his breath grow heavier.

“You volunteered,” she said, voice silk-wrapped steel.

“I did.”

“No safe word?”

“No retreat.”

A pause.

“Then you trust me.”

He finally raised his eyes.

“I don’t know if I do,” he murmured. “That’s why I’m here.”

Her hand moved to the silk stocking she’d worn beneath her corset. She slid it off slowly, sensually, then tied it over his eyes with a practiced knot.

His breath hitched.

She didn’t touch him—not directly.

Instead, she ran the back of her nails down his spine. He arched slightly.

Next came the ice.

She pressed a cube just beneath his navel.

He gasped—then hissed as it slid lower, trailing down the faint line of muscle leading toward his waistband before she pulled it away.

Still no direct touch.

She was starving him on purpose.

Then came the leather strap.

She draped it across his shoulders. Let it hang. The weight alone made him tremble.

She leaned in—her breath against his ear.

“You wanted this?”

“Yes.”

“You thought submitting would be easy?”

He shook his head.

“Good.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Because I’m not here to touch your skin, Damien. I’m here to tear open the part you don’t let anyone see.”

She kept him blindfolded.

Tortured him with slowness.

Feather against chest.

Nails across inner thigh.

The faintest drag of her corset boning as she brushed close—but never gave him what he wanted.

Not a kiss.

Not her fingers.

Not release.

And when he finally groaned—deep, involuntary—she said:

“Say my name.”

“Dominique.”

“No. The other one.”

His lips parted.

“Domica.”

“Louder.”

“Domica.”

His voice cracked on it.

And that was when the tear came.

Not from pain.

From surrender.

One perfect, defiant tear that fell from beneath the silk blindfold.

She leaned down. Licked it clean.

“Mine.”

She didn’t stay to watch him recover.

She turned, heels echoing as she left the chamber.

But her hands shook behind her back.

Because what she took tonight wasn’t just power.

It was the first time she’d let him give it.

She stepped closer.

Close enough that he could feel the heat of her skin, the whisper of lace dragging across his chest as she leaned down, saying nothing.

Her breath grazed the shell of his ear.

He shivered.

Still blindfolded, he couldn't see her—but he could smell the faint notes of bergamot and leather clinging to her. The scent of someone in command.

He tilted his head instinctively, drawn like a tide to the moon.

“Touch me,” he whispered.

She didn’t.

Instead, her fingers hovered just above his sternum. So close. So maddeningly close. The space between skin and skin vibrated, an invisible string pulled tight.

Dominique traced the air above his body with her palm—drawing lines across his chest, up his throat, down his arms—each path leaving a phantom trail of fire in its wake.

And still, she hadn’t laid a single finger on him.

His body strained forward.

His breathing turned shallow.

When she finally touched him—a single fingertip pressed beneath his chin—it was like setting off a spark in a gaslit room.

He moaned.

Low.

Unfiltered.

A sound dragged from the bottom of something deep and buried.

She smiled.

“So responsive,” she murmured.

Her fingers slid down his throat slowly, pausing at his collarbone, then following the dip of his chest, all the way to the waistband of his linen pants.

Still she did not give in.

Instead, she lifted a cube of ice from a silver bowl, holding it between two fingers. She brought it to his lips and pressed.

He gasped.

She dragged the ice across his collarbone, then down his ribs. When it reached his lower abdomen, his entire body arched toward her.

“Tell me what you want,” she said.

“You.”

“No,” she corrected, voice a whip wrapped in velvet. “Say what you really want.”

“I want your control,” he rasped.

“Better.”

She pulled the ice away and replaced it with her palm—flat against his stomach.

The heat of her skin against the lingering cold made him twitch.

His moan this time was louder.

Guttural.

Raw.

His hands fisted in the air, aching to touch her back, to ground himself somehow—but he stayed still.

Obedient.

When she straddled his lap—fully clothed, fully commanding—the tension was unbearable. Every inch of her pressed down on him, reminding him who held the reins.

Their lips were so close she could taste the exhale.

And yet she didn’t kiss him.

She cupped his face instead.

Gently.

And whispered:

“You moan for me like I already own your soul.”

Another tear escaped from beneath the blindfold.

Another electric silence.

She brushed her thumb along his jaw.

“I do.”

The chamber door closed behind her with a whisper-soft click.

But inside Dominique, it slammed like a scream.

Her heels echoed down the long stone corridor as she walked, but her steps slowed. Stumbled. Stopped.

The pendant WolfEyes had once given her—the key—burned cold against her chest.

She pressed her palm to it, trying to still the tremor climbing her spine.

Why did I lick his tear?

Why did it taste like surrender and salvation at once?

She reached the sanctuary hallway, a long glass tunnel overlooking the dark gardens below. The moonlight poured in silver streams across the floor, but she couldn’t see beauty tonight.

Only the parts of herself that had been… exposed.

Not by him.

By herself.

Her reflection in the glass didn’t look like Domica.

It didn’t even look like Dominique.

It looked like someone unraveling in silence.

She slid down the glass wall and sat.

For a moment, she just breathed.

One inhale. One exhale.

And again.

Until the adrenaline started to fade and the ache behind her eyes turned to heat.

Her power had never felt more alive.

So why did her chest feel so… hollow?

Across the compound, Damien remained kneeling.

Still blindfolded. Still silent.

The staff hadn’t moved him.

He hadn’t asked them to.

His chest rose and fell with the rhythm of something slow and deep—remembrance. His muscles ached from tension, but not pain.

The kind of ache that came after holding in too much for too long.

No one had ever taken from him what she did.

And no one had ever left like she did.

His voice—when it finally came—was quiet.

“She didn’t break me.”

He smiled to himself.

Just a little.

“She unmade me.”

And then he lay back on the velvet, a lone man in a dark room, still bare, still blindfolded.

A tear slid sideways into his hair.

Back in her quarters, Dominique stripped off the corset with shaking hands.

She climbed into the bath—naked, raw, flushed with sweat and ghost-touch.

But when the water covered her, her hand floated to her own lips.

She touched the corner where his tear had been.

And whispered to no one:

“What did you do to me, Wolf?”

Her inbox pinged.

A single new message.

No subject.

No signature.

Just a sentence:

“If that was your version of mercy, I’m terrified to see what your wrath looks like.”

She didn’t reply.

Not yet.

But she read it over and over, chest tight.

And smiled—barely.

Because something was growing in the silence between them.

Something neither safe word nor mask could contain.