Page 65 of Hush Darling
His fingers disappeared, and then he was holding her down and glaring into her eyes, nose to nose, as he pinned her hands over her head.
“A cage is still a cage, darling, no matter how big or lavish or invisible the walls. Silence won’t make your darkest desires any less true. Neither does conformity. You’re only lying to yourself, and you’re doing so because you’re afraid the world won’t like what’s hidden inside.”
He was right. She was scared. He was awakening parts of her she could never admit to hiding. She lived in the real world, where polite conversations and modesty still mattered. Who would she become if she unchained herself from society’s reins? What would her value be if she were no longer the woman her mother and father raised her to become?
He was asking for authenticity, but that level of truth terrified her. She feared rejection, her parents’ disapproval, and her reputation burning like a bridge until all she’d worked toward was nothing but soot and ash on the wind.
The thought left her mute. It wasn’t by choice or stubbornness. Her silence was truly a result of fear. Fear that once she admitted such things, the words could never be unsaid. The thought paralyzed her.
He dragged his lips to hers and kissed her slowly. “I can taste it on your tongue. You have so much inside you want to say. Whisper it to me, and the cage will fall. Speak your desires, and I’ll make them yours.”
“I need…”
He hung on her silence, his eyes alert and his desire to free her clear, but her words were trapped, and she couldn’t get them out.
“Say it. Tell me, and we’ll demolish the cage together so you’re finally free.”
Her gaze snapped to his, her enemy shifting into a dangerous enabler who could destroy her but also liberate her from the crushing weight that came with aligning with polite society. She couldn’t be a part of her destruction, but she didn’t want it to stop.
“Say it.”
It was there, lodged in her throat like a poison she couldn’t get out. “I want…” she swallowed, but the truth stayed wedged in her throat. “I like it when you…”
“When I what?”
She didn’t know the words. Mortification choked her. She needed him to be the big, bad wolf, to take all the choices and responsibility away.
Her eyes closed. “I can’t say it.”
His hand closed around her throat. “Is it here?” His grip tightened, and she nodded, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. “Do you need me to force it out of you?”
Her lashes lifted, and she met his stare. What did he mean?
“I can, you know. I can make you do all the horrible things you’re too embarrassed to say. It’ll be easy because you want to. And the moment you stop hating yourself for wanting such sinful things, all that resistance will disappear.” He leaned down, his breath teasing the shell of her ear as he whispered, “Whose approval do you want most, darling? Theirs, or mine?”
Her heart raced wildly. It was a horrible betrayal.
He was her enemy who planned to vanquish her, not her hero. She needed to keep sight of who and what he was and not romanticize this into something it wasn’t.
But the paradox was pulling her in. In relinquishing power, she was liberated from the weight of decision, from the endless labyrinth of choice and consequence. Submission offered an escape hatch, a space where her mind could unlatch and her body could simply be.
How had he stripped her so bare so quickly? He’d narrowed her focus to the immediacy of sensation, the rhythm of command and response. It was uncomplicated art, simplistic and raw. And she craved feeling so untethered, wondering what it was that he did to anchor her so completely in the present moment.
A tear seeped from the corner of her eyes as she looked up at him—a dark and dangerous stranger with his hand cuffed around her throat. His was the only approval that mattered at that moment.
“Yours, sir. I want yours.”
His victorious smile was slow and wicked. “There it is, the truth you were so afraid to admit.” He rocked his hips forward, grinding his arousal into her thigh as his finger pumped shallow dips in and out of her. “There’s so much I’m going to teach you.”
His kiss was a devastating show of promise and desire that further pulled her under. She feared she might never see her family again. What if he changed her so much that she lost her sense of connection to the girl she was? What if she forgot where she came from and no part of her life fit her anymore?
It was more than surrender. This ship, this place, this man…they were reshaping her into something she couldn’t fully envision, but she knew she would never be the same once this was over.
“A symbol of broken resistance.” He sank his fingers deep, and she gasped when he fully penetrated her. It was quick and complete, the physical barrier of her innocence gone.
His long fingers dragged down her stomach, leaving a pale smear of pink. “Crocodile tears won’t help you now, little mouse.” He softly caressed her breasts. “Though you are beautiful when you cry.”
She was glad to be rid of one hurdle, though she never expected it happening this way. “Thank you, sir.”
