Page 134 of Their Arrangement
To say thank you.
No name. No signature. Just truth.
I hit send. And when she answered? I’d stop pretending I could stop.
17
CLOE
I didn’t wake soft.There was no slow stretch. No comfort in the way the sheets tangled around my legs. No gentle drift into the day.
I woke wet.
Heavy.
Tense.
Like my body had spent the night pressed into something that didn’t touch me but still left a mark.
Wolfe’s voice echoed through me before I even opened my eyes.
Say it in person.
Two words.
One order.
And I had obeyed.
I whisperedthank youinto the darkness like it was a prayer and a punishment and a plea all at once. But it hadn’t quieted the hunger. It had fed it. Turned it molten. Sharp. Unrelenting.
I pushed the sheets off and walked naked to the mirror. The floor was cool beneath my feet, but the heat between mylegs was already back—slick and pulsing like I’d spent the night chasing something I still wasn’t brave enough to name.
I stared at my reflection.
Not to fix it.
To face it.
To choose which version of myself I was going to offer today.
The doll?
The assistant?
The toy?
Or something else entirely?
I opened the closet like I was choosing a weapon. But it wasn’t armor I wanted. It wasn’t defense. It was surrender. It was seduction dressed like silence. I reached for the corset. Black. Boned. Cruel in its beauty.
I held it like it might bite.
Like it might whisper what I already knew.
That Wolfe wouldn’t touch me. That Barron wouldn’t fuck me. That Royal would tease. That Loyal would watch. That I would be used anyway. Without being asked. And that I would love it.
I stepped into it slowly. Tightened it myself. Each pull a reminder. Each knot a confession.
