The lights were dim, but everything inside her burned.She stood in front of the black door, naked except for the collar and a sheer slip of lace that did nothing to hide her arousal. Her thighs were already damp. Her lips swollen from hours of anticipation. Her hands clasped behind her back the way Marlo had taught her—shoulders back, spine straight, head lowered, obedient.The door creaked open.She didn’t move.Not until she heard his voice.“Come in, girl.”Her body obeyed before her mind could catch up. Bare feet crossed the threshold into the dark room. The scent of leather and candle wax greeted her. Shadows flickered across velvet walls. Chains dangled like jewelry from iron hooks. But none of it unnerved her.This space, this hunger—it was all part of her now.He stood at the center.Marlo.No shirt. Black pants hanging low on his hips. His body gleamed in the candlelight, his muscles cut from stone and sin. He looked like something carved by lust itself—dangerous, calm, unsh
The room smelled of cedar, sweat, and sin.She stood near the door, wearing nothing but the collar he’d given her. Thin, black leather with a silver ring in the center. The tag dangling from it still made her thighs clench—etched in neat, serif letters:His.Marlo watched her from across the space. He hadn’t moved since she entered. He sat in a tall leather armchair, legs spread, eyes dark, his shirt unbuttoned halfway, revealing the hard lines of his chest and the veins trailing down his forearms. There was something almost feral in the stillness of him. Like a beast waiting for the moment to strike.“Come forward,” he said, voice low.She stepped onto the rug, her bare feet silent against the wood.“Stop.”She froze mid-step.He stood slowly and walked toward her, stopping so close she could feel the heat from his skin. His fingers lifted her chin.“Do you know why you’re here tonight?”She nodded.“Say it.”“To serve.”“To surrender,” he corrected.Her breath hitched.He circled he
She didn’t sleep.Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again—Marlo on his knees, back arched, that leash pulled tight against his throat. He hadn’t begged. Hadn’t whimpered. He had offered himself—and still remained in control.That was the part that haunted her.He was the one being used, and yet he looked more powerful than the man who had taken him.She wanted to understand how.Why.And a part of her—a dark, unholy part—wanted to see it again.By the time the clock hit 9 p.m., she was already at the door to the basement, palms sweating, stomach twisting with something that felt like fear but tasted like arousal. The contract said she had to watch.It didn’t say how close.It didn’t say what would happen when the man she watched began to notice the way her breathing changed.⸻The room was different tonight.Gone were the velvet chairs and cold metal. In their place was a low, black platform at the center of the space, soft rugs surrounding it, candles flickering along the ed
The rain didn’t bother her anymore.It had soaked through her shoes, chilled her skin, clung to her hair like fingers. But she barely felt it. All she could feel was the rising panic in her chest, a gnawing pressure that had wrapped around her lungs since the call from the hospital. Her brother needed the surgery by Friday. And she was still short five thousand.Five thousand might as well have been five million.And there was only one man who could give it to her.She hesitated outside the door, her hand hovering near the iron handle. The building loomed behind her like a secret, a place most people passed by without noticing. But she noticed. She always had. She’d lived in the apartment upstairs for almost a year, and she’d only seen him twice.Marlo.The landlord. The collector. The man who made grown men whisper his name like a curse.Everyone had a story.And she was about to become one of them.Her hand closed around the door and pushed.Inside was warm, too warm. Dim lights lin
The collar around her throat had changed.The black leather was the same. The gold D-ring still glinted against her flushed skin. But now, just beneath it—engraved into a small, darkened tag—was one word:Bride.She wore nothing else.The mansion was darker tonight. The air heavier. Shadows lingered in every corner, thick with anticipation. She felt it in her bones—the tension, the silence before chaos. Her knees pressed into the padded velvet of the ceremonial circle in the center of the room. A ring of black marble framed her naked, kneeling form, glowing faintly under the light of seven overhead chandeliers.Seven figures stood behind those lights. Watching. Waiting.Seven men.Seven masks.Each one had once bid for her. Now, they stood not as owners—but as witnesses.Her body trembled, not from fear, but from need. From the memory of last night’s climax still echoing in her spine. From the bruises Elias had left across her hips. From the delicious ache between her legs that still
The world was quiet after ruin.She lay in a bath of rose-scented water, warm and dark like blood. Her body floated—weightless, sore, satisfied. The flicker of candlelight danced over the high marble walls. Each part of her ached. Her lips were swollen. Her thighs, bruised. Her skin, branded with invisible fingerprints.Yet none of it compared to the storm inside her.He hadn’t spoken since carrying her from the bench.She remembered the way his arms had locked around her, protective in their possessiveness. How the other masked men had watched him, not her, like they answered to him—like he wasn’t one of them but the one above them.And now, the mansion was silent.Too silent.The candles flickered as the heavy door creaked open.She turned her head slowly.He stepped inside. Still masked. Always masked.He wore black slacks, a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and his sleeves were rolled just like before—exposing forearms that had gripped her throat, held her down, taught her pa