Page 120 of Fractured Devotion
She doesn’t untie me yet, her dominance lingering in the way she holds my gaze, her hand still firm on my jaw. The air is thick with the scent of sweat, sex, and her—wild and intoxicating—and I’m caught in it, in her, willing to stay here forever if she commands it.
She keeps running her hand down my chest and over the carved ‘C’. Her eyes scan the line, the smear of blood. She traces it with her thumb, and for a second, I think she might apologize.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she whispers, “It’s mine. So I won’t forget.”
My voice is deep and hoarse when I say, “You won’t.”
She leans down and kisses me, soft and unexpected. There’s no tongue. Just lips pressed to lips, a ghost of tenderness in the wreckage of what we just did.
Then she reaches behind me and unties the scarf. My arms drop limp at my sides. They ache from being bound, and I flex my fingers continuously to return circulation.
She studies me for a long time, searching for something. Maybe fear. Maybe regret. But she doesn’t find it. I make sure she doesn’t.
“You like giving it up,” she says flatly.
“Only to you.”
The words slip out before I can weigh them, and they land with a strange gravity.
She doesn’t smile, doesn’t flinch. “You didn’t fight me.”
“You didn’t give me a reason to.”
She cocks her head. “Do you always need reasons?”
“No.” I pause and let the answer settle. “Only with people who mean something.”
That gets her. It’s just a flicker—barely there—but I see it. In the shift of her lips and the calm that hides just behind her eyes.
Then she moves to the kitchenette, pours a glass of water, drinks half, and leaves the glass on the counter. When she returns, she doesn’t sit. She doesn’t curl up beside me like she’s supposed to.
Instead, she kneels in front of me.
My brows lift. “Celeste—”
“Shut up,” she says. “I’m not finished.”
Her fingers glide along my thighs, and I flinch slightly. She’s watching my reactions now, not for weakness, but for verification. For calibration. I recognize the shift. She’s in scientist mode again, except this time, I’m the test subject she intends to learn by heart.
“You gave me control,” she murmurs. “I want to know what it cost you.”
My mouth goes dry.
She reaches for me again, not sexually, just to touch. My chest, my shoulders, the raw spot where her initial is still bleeding faintly.
“I need to know if this broke you.”
I close my eyes. “No.”
“Not even a little?”
“Yes,” I admit.
Her lips twitch. “Good.”
And then she stands.
