Control
I take a step back on instinct. He keeps walking toward me, a predator who knows the prey won’t run far.
My back hits the shelf. The dildo is still in my hand when he stops in front of me and gently pries it from my fingers, placing it back in its spot.
He leans in.
“Do you know why I brought you here?” His voice is low.
I shake my head.
“Use your words, Sloane.”
“No.”
“I like this room,” he murmurs.
My throat works. “It’s a very… unusual room.”
“Are you scared?”
I hesitate. My heart is practically jumping out of my chest. The red light makes everything feel sinister and charged. I don’t know what kind of things he’s done here. I don’t know what he plans to do to me. But I can’t deny the heat rising in my belly. The curiosity tingling along my spine.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m scared. But I meant it when I said I want to know everything about you—even the scary parts.”
He grabs me by the neck and pulls me close until our mouths are a breath apart.
“Are you sure about that? Soft things get broken here.”
“Then break me,” I whisper. “Or did you bring me here to scare me away from you?”
“Oh, Bunny,” he murmurs darkly. “The only way you’re leaving this room is if I key in a password to let you out. I brought you here to cage you in with me. You’re not going anywhere until you’re so wasted that I have to carry you out in my arms.”
“Knox—”
His hand tightens around my neck, tilting my chin further up. “You want to know me? This is where you start.”
His other hand slides up my shirt and finds my breast. His finger circles my nipple, teasing, then he pinches it hard enough to make me cry out.
“I like to control things,” he says. “Your body. Your mind. Your orgasms. Your pain.”
He pinches again, and I gasp. His hold on my neck keeps me upright.
“I like these sounds you make when I touch you. I’m going to make you come on every surface of this room. One day at a time.”
His mouth is at my ear again.
“In here, anything I say goes. You don’t come unless I say. You don’t speak unless I ask you a question or you’re screaming in ecstasy. You don’t look away from me unless it’s physically impossible. Like when I have you bent over the spanking bench.”
My breaths are coming in short gasps now.
“You won’t need a safeword with me. But if you need me to stop that badly…” His hand strokes down the valley between my breasts. “You say your name.”
“M-My name?”
He pinches my nipple again, and I cry out.
“What did I say about talking?”
“No… talking,” I gasp.
He releases me and steps back.
“Good. No clothes here, either,” he says, already pulling off his shirt. He drops it to the floor.
Then his hands move to his waistband.
He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t break eye contact. The pants fall slowly, pooling at his feet.
And then he kicks them aside, standing there gloriously naked and hard.
The tattoos on his chest and biceps look more dangerous under the red light.
He looks like a god of war about to drag me into a sacrificial ritual. Something out of myth. Beautiful. Terrifying. Beyond reason.
There’s no trace of the smirking Knox. There’s only this. Power. Hunger.
Control.
He tilts his head, watching me silently.
My throat goes dry.
Because I’m not sure if I should feel safe or endangered.
And I’ve never been more turned on in my life.
“Take off your shirt,” he says.
I don’t wait. I toss the shirt over my head and fling it aside.
“Kneel,” he adds.
I drop to my knees and look up at him.
He circles me slowly, and I hear him reaching for something behind me. Leather rustling. Metal sliding.
And then he bends toward me, reaching for my glasses and taking them off.
A soft blindfold replaces the glasses, and suddenly, everything around me is dark.
As he tightens the blindfold behind my head, I realize I probably won’t do well as a blind person.
Darkness swallows everything. Not just the room, but time. Sound. The safety that comes with being able to see what’s coming.
Without it, my breath shortens. My body tenses. The terror I felt earlier, that strange blend of curiosity and fear when I first walked into this room, multiplies—folds itself over and over until it’s pulsing in every nerve ending.
Knox says nothing.
The silence stretches, and I begin to think maybe he’s left me here. Maybe this is the game. Make me feel forgotten. Alone. Helpless.
My lip trembles. I’m just about to break the speaking rule—to whisper his name, to beg for any sound of life—when he finally speaks.
“Get up, Bunny.”
My knees wobble as I rise. The air is cooler now, or maybe it’s just the lack of sight that makes everything feel different.
“Take five steps forward.”
I do as he says, counting in my head, arms slightly out to balance. By the fifth step, I stop, uncertain, heart thudding.
He could be anywhere. Watching me. Behind me. In front of me.
Inside my head.
“We’re going to play a little game,” he says. “When I say start, you spin in one spot. Keep spinning until I say stop. Do you understand me?”
That shift. That tone. He didn’t raise his voice, but I feel the command in every bone of my body.
I straighten, breath catching.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“In here, I own you. You refer to me as Master. Am I clear?
“Yes… Master.”
“Good,” he says. “Now spin for me, sweet girl.”
My stomach flips. But I obey.
I pivot in place, slowly at first, arms tight at my sides. I can feel the air shift around me. My hair lifts with the motion. One turn. Two. Three.
By the time he says, “Stop,” my equilibrium is shaky. My head tilts slightly, and I plant my feet wide to steady myself.
“Now,” he says, “walk forward. Keep walking until you bump into something. Whatever you hit will be today's instrument of torture or pleasure.”