Chapter 3: First Ruin

SAESHA POV

I brace my hands on his shoulders and sink down deeper. My breath stutters. My eyes sting and my nails bite into his skin as my body tries to take all of him and almost refuses.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough and pleased. “That’s it. Take it.”

A tremor runs through me. I hate how much I love the way he sounds when I struggle.

“Too much?” he asks, but it isn’t really a question.

I shake my head. “No.”

He smiles like the devil. “Then keep going, pretty thing.”

I do it with an inch more. I can feel my pulse in places I shouldn’t. My thighs shake but my pride keeps my chin up.

“Look at you,” he murmurs. “My brave little troublemaker. Trying so hard to fit it all.”

I make a sound I’ve never made before. I don’t even know if it’s a yes or a please but it’s just heat pushed through my throat.

“Eyes here,” he orders and I look in his eyes and his eyes pin me in place.

“Breathe,” he says.

“I am,” I whisper.

“Again.”

I inhale deeper, and that tiny surrender flips a switch in him.

“Good girl,” he says, low and dirty. “Now sit all the way.”

I drop that last inch, and the shock of it rips a cry out of me. My body clenches hard around him and he swears like it hurt him too and tips his head back for a second like he’s trying not to break the chair.

“Fuck” he breathes. “This sweet little squeeze.”

I swallow air, my thighs tremble in pain and restrains but I feel full, claimed, ruined in the best possible way.

He looks back at me. His mouth is a sin. “Say how it feels.”

“Big,” I rasp. “Too big.”

His grin is pure hunger. “Say thank you.”

My pride flares but I hold his stare and refuse. He laughs, low and mean. “You’ll learn.”

I try to move and the drag makes my lips part. Heat spills through me as I rise a little, then sink again, slower. My body finds a rhythm before my brain does. He watches me like a man tracking a storm he ordered.

“That’s it,” he says. “Ride, Principessa. Show me what that mouth promised.”

“Shut up,” I pant, and roll my hips because the angle sparks right through my center.

He groans from his chest. “Mouth like a brat. Body like a prayer.”

I hate the way my cheeks burn at that. I love it too. He tests the silk with his wrists. Leather creaks beneath us as he stays tied, he lets me work for it.

“You’re shaking,” he says.

“I’m not stopping.”

“I didn’t say stop.” His gaze drags down my chest, my stomach, to where our bodies meet. He looks wrecked and in charge and it makes my pulse stutter. “You’re making a mess on me.”

My face flames. My body answers him anyway. I move again, faster, because now I want the mess he’s talking about, I want it enough to forget everything but the heat.

“Good,” he says. “Be greedy for me.”

I swallow a whimper. The chair rocks beneath us. The air feels thick enough to drink. I roll my hips again, and his breath rips out of him like I surprised him.

“You feel that?” he says, voice gone rougher. “That’s me owning every inch you give me.”

I lean forward until our foreheads touch. “You think I’m giving,” I breathe. “I’m taking.”

His laugh is dark. “You’re taking what I let you.”

I want to be mad at that. I can’t be. Not when the way he says it makes my stomach drop and my core clench hard around him.

“Say it,” he tells me. “Say who you’re riding.”

I grit my teeth. He waits for my response and I try to hold but I fail.

“You,” I whisper. “I’m riding you.”

“Who am I, Saesha?”

I swallow. “Veeraj.”

“More.”

“My father’s best friend,” I say, and the forbidden of it rips through both of us like a match to dry leaves.

His eyes flare hot. He pulls at the tie again and the chair groans. “There she is.” I push down harder. The friction is a live wire and everything turns brighter, louder.

“Look at these sounds you make,” he says against my mouth. “Listen to yourself. That’s mine now.”

“Nothing about me is yours.”

“Everything you give becomes mine,” he counters, quiet and lethal. “And you’re giving me all of it.”

I hate that he’s right. I move anyway, he watches every flinch, every tremble, every sharp breath I can’t swallow back.

“Say thank you,” he commands again, softer this time, worse somehow.

I shake my head. “Make me.”

His jaw flexes. He leans in and bites my lower lip just enough to make me gasp. “Thank me.”

“Why?”

“For letting you ride what you can’t handle unless I hold you together.”

I choke on a laugh that isn’t a laugh at all. “You’re tied, remember?”

“One word and I’m free,” he says, voice pure threat, pure promise. “Don’t test me.”

“Then stay,” I whisper. “Watch me.”

His eyes cut deeper. “Then show me.”

I do. I plant my hands on the chair back and move like I want him to forget any other mouth, any other body, any other night. I take what I came for. My hair sticks to my neck, my thighs burn with this new sensation. My pride and need wrestle and neither of them wins because he does.

“Pretty,” he says, breath ragged. “Dirty pretty. Look at you using me.” I hate the way my chest swells at the praise.

“Say thank you,” he repeats, relentlessly.

“Make me,” I bite out again. He smiles like a man about to drop a city.

“Okay.”

He braces his feet, drives his hips up once, sharp and deep, and my whole body breaks sound without permission. I grab his shoulders, nails in deeper and my eyes wide.

“Yeah,” he says, voice wrecked. “That.”

“Do it again,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

“Use your words.”

“Please,” I breathe. “Again.”

“Good girl.”

He does it again and the jolt rips me. The heat coils hard, shame and want tangle until they’re the same thing.

“You feel owned?” he asks.

“No.”

He gives me that slow, awful smile. “Liar.”

I move to argue and then I move for real because the wave is coming and I’m not ready and I’m so ready I could cry.

“Already?” he taunts, voice low and delighted. “Look at you. First time and you’re about to come on command without me even touching you.”

“Shut up,” I gasp. “Don’t talk.”

“Say thank you.”

“I hate you.”

“Say it.”

I clench my teeth, riding him harder, and the words rip out of me like they were always there. “Thank you.”

He inhales like that fed him. “Louder.”

“Thank you,” I cry, and the sounds echo off his walls and I can’t care.

“Who are you thanking?”

I glare and break. “You.”

“For what?”

“For ruining me,” I say, and the moment I say it I feel the wave hit, hot and heavy, and my body falls apart on him.

It’s messy. It’s too much but It’s not enough and I know it will never be enough.

I shudder hard, my jaw loose, my breath gone, my vision whites out at the edges. I grip him and shake until the world stutters back into place.

He laughs in my ear, low and vicious and full. “Already,” he says. “Pathetic little brat can’t last on me.”

I try to bite him, but he catches my chin between his fingers and makes me look at him. That grip says mine more than anything he’s said all night.

“You don’t get to close your eyes,” he says. “You come for me with your eyes open.”

I am still shaking. “I-”

“Again,” he says.

“I can’t.”

“You will.” His tone leaves no air in the room.

“I’m done.”

He looks at my tied knot on his wrist, then back up at me. “No,” he says, calm and cruel. “I’m done when I say I’m done.” Heat sparks again, traitor that it is.

“Untie yourself then,” I taunt, breathless. “Do it.”

He holds my stare, then lifts his wrists. Silk slides. He could have pulled free ten minutes ago. He didn’t but he does now. The tie drops to the floor and my pulse trips.

“Hands,” he says, and clamps them hard on my hips like he’s been starving for it. The relief in his grip is feral but the control that follows is worse.

“Wait,” I breathe.

“No.” His thumbs dig in. “You had your pretty little ride. Now I take what I’m owed.”

He lifts me, sets the rhythm himself, slow enough to make me whine, deep enough to make my head tip back and moan louder.

“Eyes,” he reminds me.

I fight to keep them open. He rewards me with a filthy praise that burns. “That’s right,” he says. “Stare at the man who owns your sounds.”

“I don’t belong to you.”

“You belong,” he says, voice like smoke. “You just haven’t learned the address.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I snap, breathless.

“It will.”

He drags me down harder. I cry out. He catches my mouth with his and swallows it like he owns it too. His kiss is hungry, mean, and it tastes like victory. When he breaks away, his gaze is all heat.

“Say please,” he orders.

“For what?”

“For more.”

I want to be proud, I want to be stone but I am neither. “Please.”

His smile is sin. “There she is.”

He gives it to me. Not gentle. Not kind. Controlled but ruthless like himself, the chair complains under us. The desk light trembles and I cling to him because there is no other choice left.

“You’re going to remember this every time you close your eyes,” he says. “Every time you lie in your bed and pretend you’re good.”

“I never pretended.”

“You will for everyone else,” he says. “Not for me.”

The way he says it knocks breath from my chest. Heat surges again too soon in my lower stomach. My body is betraying me with how quickly it climbs the highs.

“No,” I whisper. “I can’t again.”

“You will,” he says. “Because I want it.”

“I hate you.”

His mouth brushes mine. “You’ll thank me later.”

“I won’t.”

“You already did.”

His hand slides up my spine, he cups the back of my neck, and holds me where he wants me while the other hand keeps my hips moving at his designed pace. My pride is in pieces on the floor with the silk and clothes.

“Say what you are,” he murmurs.

“I’m not saying that.”

“Say what you are to me.”

Silence stretches between us and he waits. He can wait all night, the worst part is I love that he can.

“I’m your problem,” I say.

He chuckles, low. “You’re my favorite problem.”

I bite his jaw. He hisses, and then laughs like I did exactly what he wanted. The heat spikes hard, too fast, and too much this time.

“No,” I breathe. “Don’t let me-”

“Look at me,” he says and I do.

“Now come,” he orders, soft as sin.

I shatter again, crying out against his mouth, my nails digging in his shoulders, my vision gone bright. It hits harder, meaner, and I ride it because he told me to and because I want to, because there’s nothing else left in the room but that command and my body obeying it.

He doesn’t follow me. He holds me through it, cruel, patient, and in charge of everything that happened tonight.

When I slump, shaking, he is still hard, still thick, still there inside me, not even close to finished.

I blink up at him, wrecked. “Please,” I whisper, not sure if I’m asking him to stop or to keep going.

He smiles like a knife. “Now,” he says, “we really start.”

He stands with me caged on him like I weigh nothing, then turns, and pins me to the desk with a casual strength that steals the rest of my breath. His hands spread my knees wider. His mouth brushes against my ear.

“Hands on the edge,” he says. “Don’t let go.”

“I can’t-”

“You can,” he says. “And you will.”

I grip the edge until my fingers ache. He leans in, his voice soft, brutal and certain. “Count for me.”

“What?”

“Every time I take you,” he says. “You count. And if you lose the number, we start over.”

My stomach drops. Heat floods back in my body like I never broke at all.

“Veeraj-”

“Start,” he orders.

“One,” I whisper, and then he moves and my voice breaks with moans.

He chuckles in my ear, low and pleased. “We’re going to be here a while, Principessa.”

I bite my lip hard, the first tear I refuse to shed threatens anyway. He kisses my temple like he saw it and likes that I fought it.

“Good girl,” he says. “Open wider.”

I do. And then he shows me what it means when he’s done letting me pretend I’m in control.

End of Chapter 3