Chapter 4 _ Power Hunger

Jace's POV

Christmas Eve came and went in a haze of forced cheer and unanswered questions.

I spent the holiday alone in my penthouse, staring at the city lights through floor-to-ceiling glass, the silver earring still in my pocket like a talisman.

Family was across the country. Friends were with their own people. I could have called any number of women who'd answer on the first ring, but none of them were her.

By Boxing Day, the restlessness had turned vicious.

I needed control. Something sharp. Something that would drown out the echo of Alexandra's voice saying my name like it hurt her to leave.

That's how I ended up at The Obsidian Room.

It was a private club, members-only, tucked behind an unmarked door in the warehouse district. Black walls, red velvet, low amber lighting that made every shadow look like sin. I'd been a member for a year—mostly observation, a few scenes when the need got too loud to ignore—but tonight I wasn't here to watch.

I needed to feel something other than this hollow ache.

The dungeon monitor checked my membership, nodded, and let me through. The main floor was quiet—early week, post-holiday lull—but the private rooms were booked solid.

I found a familiar face at the bar: Elena, a switch I’d played with twice before. Tall, dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and a smile that promised she could break you without raising her voice.

She saw me coming and tilted her head. “You look like you’re about to snap, Reyes.”

“I need a scene,” I said, voice low. “Hard. No aftercare required.”

Her eyes flickered with interest. “Top or bottom?”

“Top.” The word came out rough. “I want to give orders. I want obedience. I want to feel in control.”

She studied me for a long moment, then nodded. “Room Seven. Fifteen minutes.”

I waited in the corridor, pulse already hammering. Room Seven was one of the larger ones—black leather bench, St. Andrew’s cross, wall of impact toys, dim red lights.

I stripped to the waist, folded my shirt neatly, and selected what I needed: leather cuffs, a flogger with soft suede falls, a riding crop, a blindfold. Everything laid out like a ritual.

Elena arrived exactly on time, already changed into black lace lingerie and heels that clicked like gunshots on the hardwood. She carried her own kit—restraints, a ball gag, lube. Professional. Detached.

“Safe words?” she asked.

“Red to stop. Yellow to slow.”

She nodded. “Then kneel.”

I dropped to my knees in the center of the room. Not because I wanted to submit—I didn’t—but because the act of commanding her to command me felt like reclaiming power through proxy.

She circled me slowly, fingers trailing over my shoulders, down my spine.

“You’re tense,” she murmured. “What’s eating you, Jace?”

“Doesn’t matter.” I kept my voice flat. “Just use me.”

She laughed softly—dark, knowing. “Oh, I will.”

She bound my wrists behind my back with soft leather cuffs, tight enough to bite. Then she blindfolded me, plunging the room into velvet black.

My world narrowed to sound and touch: the rustle of her lace, the heat of her body as she stepped close, the faint scent of her perfume—jasmine and leather, nothing like citrus-vanilla.

“Stand.”

I rose. She guided me to the cross, facing it, and secured my ankles to the bottom, wrists to the top. Spread open. Exposed. Vulnerable in a way I hadn’t let myself be in years.

The first strike of the flogger was light, testing—warm-up across my shoulders. Then harder. Suede falls kissed my back in rhythmic waves, building heat, building sting. Each lash landed with precision, painting fire across my skin. I hissed, jaw clenched, but didn’t safeword.

She switched to the crop—sharp, focused. Snap. Snap. Snap. The tip bit into the curve of my ass, my thighs, the sensitive skin just below my shoulder blades. Pain bloomed bright and clean, cutting through the fog in my head.

“Count,” she ordered.

“One.” My voice was rough. “Two.”

By ten, my back was a lattice of heat. By twenty, I was breathing hard, cock straining against my briefs, aching with every strike. She noticed.

“Someone’s enjoying himself,” she purred, pressing her body against my back, her breasts soft against the welts. Her hand slid around to grip me through the fabric, stroking slow and firm. “But this isn’t about pleasure, is it?”

“No,” I gritted out.

“It’s about forgetting.”

I didn’t answer.

She released me, stepped back. A drawer opened. Then the sound of latex snapping—gloves. Lube. My pulse spiked.

She tugged my briefs down, freeing my cock. It bobbed heavy and leaking. She didn’t touch it again. Instead, she lubed her fingers and pressed one inside me—slow, inexorable.

I groaned, head dropping forward against the cross. She worked me open methodically, adding a second finger, scissoring, curling, finding that spot that made my knees buckle.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

“Quiet,” she snapped, and slapped my ass hard enough to make me jolt.

She fucked me with her fingers—deep, relentless—while her other hand wrapped around my cock, stroking in time.

The dual sensation was overwhelming: fullness, pressure, the burn of the welts, the blindfold stealing every visual cue. I was reduced to sensation, to need, to the desperate edge of release.

“You’re going to come like this,” she whispered, voice close to my ear. “Not because you deserve it. Because I allow it.”

I was too far gone to argue. My hips jerked, chasing her hand, her fingers. The orgasm built like a storm—low, rolling, inevitable. When she twisted her wrist just right and pressed hard against my prostate, I shattered.

I came with a broken groan, spilling over her gloved hand, thighs shaking, vision white behind the blindfold. The release was violent, emptying, but it left me hollower than before.

She withdrew slowly, cleaned me up with efficient wipes, released the cuffs. I sank to my knees when the cross let me go. She removed the blindfold. I blinked into the red light, skin flushed, back throbbing.

Elena crouched in front of me, eyes searching. “Better?”

I swallowed. “No.”

She sighed, not unkindly. “Then you’re chasing the wrong thing, Jace.”

She left me there to collect myself. I dressed in silence, the welts already rising into angry red lines under my shirt. They’d bruise tomorrow—deep purple reminders I’d have to hide under collars and jackets.

I walked out into the cold December night. The city glittered, indifferent.

The earring was still in my pocket. I took it out, held it to the streetlight. It caught the glow like a tiny star.

Control hadn’t helped.

Pain hadn’t helped.

All it had done was make me hungrier.

I needed her.

Not a scene. Not a stranger. Her.

And I was going to find her.

Even if I had to burn every bridge I had to do it.