003

MACEY

My hands were moving too fast. Too desperate. I couldn’t slow down, couldn’t breathe right. My body was already trembling, caught between wanting release and hating myself for how badly I craved it.

His name kept slipping past my lips in a whisper. Damien. Over and over, like I was summoning him, like I wanted him there.

“Damien… please…” My voice cracked, half-plea, half-confession.

It was insane. I shouldn’t have thought about him like this. He was wrong for me in every possible way. Too dangerous. Too controlled. Too much older. But every time I tried to push him out of my head, he came back sharper, stronger.

I could hear him in my mind, low and commanding, that dark rasp that wrapped around my spine like a fist. Strip for me, Macey. Do it slowly. Let me see all of you.

God. My body clenched, traitorous and eager.

I hated how easily he slipped inside me without ever touching me. Just his voice, his eyes, and the way he said my name like he owned it.

I pressed harder, my breaths coming short and jagged. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. I wanted him. Not a memory. Not a fantasy. Him. Damien.

“Good girl.” The words weren’t real, but I heard them like they were. My chest arched, chasing them, chasing him.

Tears stung my eyes, hot and humiliating, because I knew what this meant. I wasn’t in control anymore. He was. Even in my fantasies, he was the one pulling the strings.

And the sick part? I loved it.

My head fell back, mouth open, his name spilling out again, louder this time. I wanted to believe he could hear me somehow, that he knew what he did to me.

“Damien…” My body jolted, heat crashing through me. The room blurred, my pulse racing wild. For one blinding second, I let go completely—

—and then my eyes snapped open.

Someone was there.

Not just anyone. Him. Damien.

He was leaning in the doorway, eyes locked on me like he’d been there the whole time. Dark. Silent. Watching.

My heart stopped. My breath caught. Shock ripped through me so hard I thought I’d choke on it. But it only lasted a second. The shame didn’t come. Not yet. Because even with his stare burning me alive, I couldn’t stop moving. Couldn’t stop dragging myself toward the edge he’d built inside me.

My hands stuttered, faltered—but only for a beat. Then his gaze pinned me down, and I was gone.

Our eyes locked, and I swore the room tilted. He didn’t look away. He didn’t blink. He just stood there, arms loose at his sides, gaze fixed on me like he was already touching me, already inside my skin.

“Damien,” I whispered, my voice breaking on his name. My whole body flushed, a rush of heat crawling up my neck to my ears.

He didn’t answer. Just watched. Watched me come undone for him. Watched me beg without words.

I should have stopped. I should have pulled my skirt down, hidden, and screamed at him to leave. But instead, my body betrayed me again, moving rougher, needier, chasing that wicked high while he looked on.

It was humiliating. It was filthy. It was the most freeing thing I’d ever felt.

My breath came out harsh, ugly, almost sobs now. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. His eyes held me there, forced me to keep going. Forced me to break under the weight of his silence.

“Do you see what you do to me?” I whispered, voice trembling. “Do you see what you’ve made me?”

My body jolted, shaking, every nerve alight. The shame curled in, sharp and hot, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. Not with him standing there. Not with him owning the air between us like he owned me.

I let out a strangled cry, half his name, half broken sound, and my body shattered again, harder this time, because he was watching. Because he was silent. Because he knew.

And he still didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

That was the cruelest part.

He stood there, drinking me in like I was a performance he’d paid for, like I was nothing more than a toy unraveling in his hands.

Tears spilled down my cheeks. My throat burned. “Damien… please…

He didn’t answer. Just watched me fall apart under the weight of everything I’d tried to hide.

And then it happened—I shattered completely. My whole body clenched, trembling, the rush tearing through me with a force that felt almost violent. My eyes slammed shut, my breath catching as I cried out his name again, helpless, raw.

When it was over, I collapsed back, chest heaving, sweat slicking my temples.

Silence.

I opened my eyes.

He was gone.

Like he’d never been there at all.

I couldn’t sit still.

My body was still trembling, even though the rush had already faded. I kept pacing the length of my office, back and forth like a caged animal, my heels clicking against the floor. My skin felt hot, sticky, like I’d been branded, and every time I blinked, I saw him. Damien. Standing in the doorway. Watching me fall apart.

I pressed my palms to my face and groaned. “God, what the hell did I just do?”

It was insane. I was insane. Who did that? Who let themselves go like that—knowing he might see, knowing he could? Worse, knowing that a part of me wanted him to?

I stopped at the window, staring out at the night city. My reflection glared back at me. I didn’t look ashamed enough for what had just happened. My cheeks were still pink, my lips swollen from biting down on them, and my eyes… they looked hungry. I hated that.

Or maybe I loved it.

I spun away, dragging a hand through my hair. My thoughts were louder than the silence, clashing into each other, messy and impossible to control.

Did he really watch? Or did I imagine it?

Maybe I’d finally broken. Maybe all the late nights of wanting him had snapped something in my head, and I’d created him standing there. Maybe my brain was cruel enough to throw me hallucinations when my body was already wrecked.

But no. No, I knew better. He was there. His eyes were too sharp to have been a dream. His silence too heavy to forget.

So he watched. And he didn’t stop me. Why?

That was the part clawing at me, burning through me worse than the embarrassment. He’d stood there. He’d seen me lose it completely. And he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t touch.

I pressed a hand to my stomach, my breath shaky. “Why didn’t you stop me, Damien?”

If he’d wanted, one word from him would’ve frozen me. He had that kind of control over me. But instead, he let me finish. He let me break.

A hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. “Sick bastard,” I whispered to myself. “And sicker me for liking it.”

I walked back to my desk, sat, then immediately stood again. Sitting felt impossible. The memory of the chair made me blush all over again. I grabbed my water bottle and gulped half of it, but the coolness didn’t calm me.

Guilt pressed down, hot and suffocating. I wasn’t that girl. I wasn’t the type to beg for a man’s attention with my body like some reckless fool.

Except I had.

I slammed the bottle onto the desk, my voice sharp in the empty office. “You’re pathetic, Macey.”

I’d made him watch. He could’ve looked away, but he didn’t. I’d held his attention with nothing but my body and my desperation.

The shame and the pride twisted together until I couldn’t separate them.

“You’re losing your mind,” I muttered, pacing again. “Completely gone.”

My phone buzzed.

The sound shot straight through me. My heart stuttered, and my legs nearly buckled. I fumbled it off the desk, hands shaking so badly I almost dropped it.

A message.

From him.

Mr. Damien Blackwood.

I stared at his name lighting up the screen. My mouth went dry, my heart hammering so loud it filled the room. Every nerve in me screamed to open it, while another voice whispered not to. Don’t. Pretend it never happened.

But I couldn’t. I swiped.

One line.

Cold. Sharp. Cutting straight through me like a blade.

“Next time, you’ll do it for me properly.”

I sank into the chair, my knees giving out, the phone clutched so tightly my knuckles whitened. My breath came fast, too fast, like I couldn’t get enough air.

Properly. What did that even mean? Was he warning me? Promising me? Ordering me?

I read it again. Then again. The words pulsed on the screen like they were alive. Like they were dragging me deeper into something I wasn’t ready for but couldn’t pull away from.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, my lips tingling, my body betraying me all over again.