Page 48 of Dance of Ruin

I stay where I am, watching.

Waiting.

It’s close to forty-five minutes later when she emerges, toweling off her body.

My eyes pierce the divide between us, zeroing in on her pussy.

Shaved bare.

Good girl.

11

NAOMI

I wake before the alarm.Again.

Not because I’m well-rested. I’m not. My eyes feel like they’ve been scrubbed with sandpaper, and my body is stiff and heavy. Like I slept underneath a weight.

But my brain is awake. Circling.

Yesterday keeps replaying on a loop in my head. His dark, commanding voice. His scent curling around me—leather and smoke, masculine and clean. The feel of the desk beneath my palms and my cheek.

His thick fingers pushing into my needy pussy.

That moment where I stopped thinking, and justmoaned.

Moaned for him,camefor him, and shattered all over his hand.

Last night, as steam from the shower filled the bathroom, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror, remembering every single filthy facet of the experience, and rubbed my clit until I came again.

I’d like to say it was about reclaiming control. Or about closure.

But that would be a lie.

The truth is, I amfucking insane.

I was thinking about the way he looked at me. The way he touched me, as if I belonged to him utterly. The way he said“good girl”like it was both a reward and a punishment.

Praise and damnation.

Heaven and hell.

Something’s wrong with me.

Broken. Bent. Corrupt.

I stare at the ceiling for a few minutes longer, willing my racing heart to slow down, asking these thoughts to scatter.

But they don’t. They just burrow deeper.

Eventually, I drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom.

My reflection looks tired in the mirror—lips raw from being bitten in my sleep, dark shadows under my eyes. I step into the shower and rinse off quickly, closing my eyes and letting the water stream over me. When my hands slide between my legs and I feel the bare, shaved skin there, I startle for a second, pausing like a skipped heartbeat. Then it all floods back.

He told me to. So I did.

A huge part of me wants to hate him, andmyself, for obeying his command and doing something to my body I don’t normally.

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