Page 65 of Hollowed

And I let it.

He didn’t tie me because I needed to be silenced.

He tied me because I had asked to stay.

He wrapped the ribbon twice, then twice again, binding my hands together at the center of my chest like an offering made in breath. His fingers worked with a strange reverence, not looking at what he was doing, but at my mouth. Like he was waiting for it to part, to beg, to break.

It didn’t.

I held the silence.

He adjusted the final knot. Tight. Secure. But not cruel.

Then he sat back on his heels, looked at me from where I lay on the robe, and said nothing.

And that nothing said everything.

I could feel the shift in him.

The heat wasn’t gone. The hunger hadn’t dulled. But something else had taken its place at the front of his mind.

Restraint.

Not for me.

For him.

He pulled my robe down, exposing me slowly. My breasts, my belly, the soft curve of my thighs. He didn’t undress me like he was claiming something.

He did it like he was remembering.

Like he needed to see what he’d already written.

When his fingers ghosted over the tops of my thighs, I moaned.

Not because it was too much.

Because it was not enough.

“Tell me why you’re quiet,” he said.

I opened my eyes.

“Because I don’t need to ask for what I know you’ll give me.”

He closed his eyes. Just for a second. Like the weight of that undid something in him.

When he moved over me, it was with precision. Not careful. Deliberate. Like he’d planned every inch. Like he’d waited for this.

His cock was hard. Heavy. He brushed it between my legs, not entering, just letting it rest against the place he’d already hollowed.

“Say it,” he murmured.

“I’m yours.”

“Say why you’re bound.”

“Because I stayed.”

---