Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

—Aphrodite—

Dawn kisses the sheets with the softest light.

And I hate it.

Not because it’s morning, not because I didn’t sleep—though I didn’t.

I hate it because it reveals everything. It touches Duncan’s face with a gentleness I don’t deserve. It softens the edges of the room, the air, the illusion I’ve spent the night crafting.

It makes this look real.

But it isn’t.

He’s still asleep beside me. One arm sprawled over my waist, his body curled against mine like I’m safe, like I belong to him. I don’t. Not really. His body is warm, the scent of sex and sweat still clinging to us, but none of it sinks into my bones.

Because something else is still there.

Still inside me.

Still watching.

I ease out of bed silently, Duncan’s arm falling to the mattress with a soft thud. I move like a ghost—because that’s what I’ve become in this space. In his world. A beautiful haunting. A lie in silk.

The bathroom mirror doesn’t lie.

Not like I do.

My reflection hits me hard. My eyes are rimmed with exhaustion. My cheeks flushed from hours ago, not from pleasure but from survival. There’s a mark beneath my jaw. Another on my hip. I tilt my shoulder and spot the faint shape of teeth. A bite, not from hunger, but ownership.

His.

The man in the dark.

I run cold water and splash it over my face. The shock of it grounds me, just for a second. Long enough to stop the panic rising in my throat.

Last night was too much.

Duncan touched me like I mattered. Like every inch of me was a treasure. His fingers traced worship into my skin, his mouth whispered reverence into the space between moans. He didn’t fuck me—he loved me, in the only way he knows how.

And I let him.

Worse—I wanted it.

I close my eyes and steady my breathing.

I can’t afford this. Not now. Not when the leash is tightening.

I wrap myself in my robe and return to the bedroom. Duncan stirs as I crawl back under the sheets, his arm finding me in his sleep again. It lands heavy over my waist, fingers brushing against my stomach.

“Where’d you go?” he mumbles, half-awake.

“Bathroom.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I lie.

He hums and pulls me closer. His breath is warm against my neck, his touch gentle. Too gentle.

“I could get used to this,” he says, words muffled against my skin.

“Used to what?” I whisper.

“Waking up with you.”

It hurts more than it should. Not because it’s false.

Because it isn’t.

And I can’t let that happen.

---

Hours later, after breakfast he insisted on making and small kisses he insisted on giving, Duncan finally leaves. I stand in the doorway, waving like a good girl, like the perfect lover he’s convinced himself I could be. I close the door softly.

I wait.

The air shifts.

I don’t move.

He’s already here.

The silence feels like pressure on my chest—thick, suffocating, cold. I turn slowly, already knowing where he is.

He stands near the window, cloaked in shadow despite the sunlight. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak.

The mysterious man.

Not a lover. Not a protector.

A master.

“I didn’t tell you to kiss him like that,” he says.

His voice is calm. That’s how I know I’m in trouble.

“I did what you asked,” I say quickly. “I made him need me.”

“You touched him like you cared.”

“I don’t.”

“Your eyes said otherwise.”

He crosses the room slowly, measured like always. A predator stalking prey that’s already too weak to run.

“I watched,” he says.

I flinch.

“Do you think I don’t see everything?” he asks, close now. “Do you think the walls between us matter?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t insult me.”

His hand closes around my jaw and forces my head up. His eyes are black holes—consuming, endless. He doesn’t glare. He studies. Like he’s cataloguing the shape of my weakness.

“I should remind you,” he murmurs.

“I remember,” I whisper. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

His mouth tilts in a cruel smile.

“Prove it.”

He turns me roughly and pushes me forward. I stumble into the couch. My robe opens. I don’t stop it.

His hand is already on me, spreading my thighs from behind, baring me completely.

“You think I didn’t notice the way you moaned for him?” he growls. “You think I didn’t hear the way you begged?”

“I didn’t—”

“You let him inside you.”

“So you told me to.”

“I told you to make him obsessed. Not to enjoy it.”

He enters me without warning.

I gasp, nearly falling forward, catching myself on the arm of the couch.

My body protests—sore, used—but it doesn’t matter.

I stopped being the owner of my body the day he found out what I did.

He fucks me like he’s punishing me.

Each thrust is bruising. Deliberate. Merciless.

“You think you can slip away from me?” he hisses, dragging his fingers up my spine. “That you can get soft with him? That I’ll allow it?”

“No,” I gasp. “I know better.”

“Do you?” His hand wraps around my throat from behind. He pulls my head back and thrusts deeper. I cry out.

“You’re mine, Aphrodite. Say it.”

“I’m yours.”

“Louder.”

“I’m yours!”

He slams into me again, and again, until I’m barely standing, until my breath is ragged and my thighs tremble.

Then he grabs my hair and yanks me back into his chest, still buried inside me.

“You’re going to keep feeding him the dream,” he whispers against my ear. “Let him think he’s saving you. Let him fall so hard he’ll crawl just to hear your voice.”

Tears sting my eyes.

“And then?” I choke.

“Then I take it all away.”

He comes inside me like a claim, groaning into my hair, holding me so tightly I feel like I might disappear. When he pulls out, I collapse onto the couch, robe open, legs shaking.

He buttons his pants slowly.

“You hesitate again,” he says softly, “and I break him.”

My heart thunders.

“I won’t.”

“See that you don’t.”

Then he’s gone.

No sound. No scent. Just the cold emptiness he always leaves behind.

---

I lie on the couch for hours.

I don’t move. I don’t cry.

I just exist.

Marked. Used. Hollow.

Until my phone buzzes.

Duncan: You okay, beautiful? I can still come back.

My thumb hovers over the screen.

I type.

Me: I’m fine. Just need to rest. I’ll see you soon.

I hit send.

Because this is the role I agreed to.

Because this is the price of my secret.

Because one day, maybe Duncan will wake up and see who I really am.

And he’ll hate me for it.

But by then—it’ll already be too late.