Page 57 of Kneel with the King
And I chose the latter.
I was fifteen when I learned control could be wielded however I needed it to be wielded, and that people were easily manipulated. I left our father’s house at sixteen after graduating high-school early and getting into Columbia. Then I moved to San Diego to start over at just nineteen.
Over the years, I took the hunger—the silence, the trembling shame, thefear—and forged it into my idea of control. Into dominance. Into clean lines and unshakable rules. Safe words and rituals. Consent. Pain with purpose.
That’s what people don’t understand. It’s not about cruelty.
It’s aboutclarity.
But Asher? He makes me forget the rules. He doesn’t just submit. He resists. He claws and snarls andtests—and still ends up on his knees.
And I like it.
Fuck, I like it a lot.
I can’t stop imagining what it would be like if he gave in completely. If he let me own every part of him. No pretense. No fight. Just full, desperate surrender.
He’d be beautiful like that.
No.Fuck. That’s not the plan.
I can’t forget why I’m here. I can’t forget who I wasbeforethe suits and the sharp, little smiles. Before I had a roster that anyone in our industry would kill to have.
Before I becameKing.
I can’t forget what it cost to become someone no one could control again.
I have to ask Walter for a meeting. And I know exactly what I’m going to say.
It’s nothing personal. I’ll tell Asher later, if he even asks.It’s just business, as I always say.
Because I’m not here for him.
I’m not.
I’mnot.
The King’s Move
Asher
My skinstill burns from where I scrubbed it in the shower. I’d clawed King’s scent off of me with my nails, using the harsh soap and a washcloth to scrub the memory of what happened away.
Down the drain.
Never to be thought of or talked about again.
King doesn’t return to our suite, so at six-thirty, I head out to the main part of the resort in black jeans and a dark gray button-up—forgoing the collar and letting it sit on my bedside table.
I feel over-caffeinated and exhausted all at once, jittery and fatigued to the point of almost conceding to a power nap. But I didn’t want to get caught in a vulnerable position…again.I didn’t want to be in the suite any longer than I had to be, in case King came back.
How is it that it was only this morning that we did the cold plunge?
Grabbing my coat, I pull it on before stepping outside. The suitesmellslike him—that rich, cinnamon scent.
I zip my coat a little too roughly.
Once I close the door behind me, a full-body shiver works through me as the snow falls a little harder now. Snowflakes get caught in the space between the collar of my jacket andthe bottom of my hairline, and even though it’s only a couple hundred yards to the main part of the resort, I wish I’d grabbed a scarf. It’s dark now, and the bamboo lights hardly make a dent against the falling snow.
