Page 139 of Unholy Obsession

“Kneel.”

It’s not a request. Not an invitation.

It’s a command.

My body locks up. A muscle in my jaw ticks. I’ve only kneeled before one person in my entire life.

But Quinn just waits, patient, her lips curling slightly. Daring me.

This is what I’m here for, isn’t it?

So I do it. Even though it feels like a betrayal.Becauseit feels like a betrayal. Slowly. Deliberately. I kneel.

The floor is cold beneath my knees. I feel the weight of the moment pressing on my spine. My hands settle on my thighs, fists clenched, every muscle in my body going tight as steel cables.

Quinn circles me, the click of her heels barely audible over the thrum of bass.

“Look at you,” she muses, her voice smooth as silk and twice as sharp. “So eager to run from your pain, you’d rather crawl to me than face it.”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t run.”

She laughs. It’s not kind. Not cruel. Just knowing.

“Then say it.” She stops in front of me, tilting her head. “Say why you’re really here.”

I exhale, slow and measured. “I told you?—”

A sharp snap of her fingers cuts through the noise. “No. The truth, Bane.”

My chest rises and falls. The music presses against me, a suffocating rhythm. “I need?—”

Another snap. “Not good enough.”

My throat tightens. Iwon’tgive her what she wants. Iwon’tsay it.

But Quinn? She’s a professional. And she’s ruthless.

She crouches down, leveling her gaze with mine, amusement curling at the edges of her lips. “You’re pathetic like this,” she muses, her nails dragging down the side of my face, slow and deliberate. “Look at you, kneeling like a good little submissive, thinking I’ll give you what you want.”

I breathe through my nose, refusing to react.

“Your wife left you.”

Her words are a wrecking ball to my ribs.

I don’t move.

She hums, tapping a manicured nail against my jaw. “Say it.”

I swallow, pulse in my throat. “No.”

Her smirk deepens. “You think pain will fix it? That if I mark you up, break your skin, make you bleed, it’ll drown out the ache in your chest?”

Silence.

She drags that single finger down the center of my chest again, slow, like she’s peeling me open. “You don’t want pain, Bane,” she whispers, eyes locked on mine. “You want absolution. You want someone to tell you this isn’t your fault. That she was always going to leave, no matter what you did.”

I force my breath to stay steady.

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