Chapter 17

TW: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

AVERY – 

I step inside and the breath I didn’t realize I was holding stutters in my throat.

Of course it looks like this.

The apartment is a study in sleek, dark control. Just like her. It’s all sharp angles and expensive simplicity — a minimalist landscape that whispers, I don’t need much, but everything I own could buy your entire life. The floor-to-ceiling windows swallow an entire wall, framing a breathtaking view of Aurelia at night. The city is magnetic from up here — a tapestry of black sky and silver lights, pulsing softly in the distance like a heartbeat I can’t quite match.

And it smells like her. That clean, cool scent with a dangerous edge. It’s in the air, in the very walls.

I cross the threshold slower than I mean to, my boots quiet on the polished concrete floor. My eyes sweep the space. No clutter. No sentimental chaos. Not a single trace of the messy, unpredictable world outside. It’s her — perfectly controlled, unnervingly quiet, meticulously curated.

And yet, despite the cool perfection, I feel a familiar heat low in my stomach. Just being in her space is enough to stir something deep inside me.

She walks toward a bar set into the side wall — a black marble countertop with crystal decanters lined up like obedient soldiers. She pours two fingers of something amber into each heavy glass. No ice. Just dark and strong, the way she seems to prefer everything.

I watch the fluid grace of her movements. Calm. Efficient. Devastatingly beautiful.

Is that what we need for the night? I wonder. Something dark and strong to match the tension coiling between us?

The questions bubble up inside me, desperate to be asked.

What are we doing here, Victoria?

What does this mean?

Why, after pushing me away, did you drag me back into your orbit?

But I don’t voice them. I bite them back.

Because she promised. She looked me in the eye in that alley and said she wouldn’t disappear again.

Because she brought me here. To her home. A place that feels more intimate and revealing than any bedroom. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?

Her back is still to me. One hand rests lightly on the edge of the counter, as if she’s thinking about what to say — or more likely, what not to.

I take another step deeper into the room, letting the silence stretch between us. It’s not uncomfortable; it’s just heavy, charged with everything we’re not saying.

***

VICTORIA –

No one has ever set foot in this apartment. No one has ever slept in my bed but me. That isn’t an accident; it’s a rule. A necessary boundary between my world and everyone else’s.

I can feel her presence behind me. She’s so quiet, her breathing light, as if she’s trying not to disturb the carefully balanced atmosphere I’ve created. She hasn’t said much since we got into the car. I didn’t ask her to. What would I have even said? This means something, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing?

I hear the subtle shift of her weight, the soft sound of her boot on the hardwood floor. She’s watching me. Studying the apartment—the stark lines, the vast windows, the uncluttered space. Studying me. I let her look. I let her see it all. Because she, unlike anyone else, deserves to see it. She deserves to know this part of me.

Finally, I turn, a glass in each hand.

She’s still standing near the doorway, her arms folded loosely as if trying to make herself smaller. But her eyes… her eyes give her away. They are wide, intense, and they seem brighter in the low light, taking everything in with a hungry curiosity.

I walk over to her. There’s no rush, no performance. I simply close the distance and hold out her glass.

She takes it, her fingers brushing against mine. The contact is brief, but it sends a current straight through me.

When I speak, my voice is softer than I intended. “Like what you see?”

She lets out a small, nervous laugh. “It fits you.”

“I don’t usually bring people here,” I add, the admission feeling both dangerous and necessary.

Her eyes snap up to mine, searching, probing for the meaning behind the words. “Why me?”

There it is. The question I knew was coming.

I take a slow sip of my drink, using the moment to gather my thoughts. Then I meet her gaze squarely.

“Because you make it hard to pretend I don’t want more.”

The effect is immediate. My words stun her. She doesn’t try to hide her reaction. Her lips part, then close without a sound. Her knuckles tighten around the glass, turning white from the pressure.

I finish my drink in one slow, deliberate pull and set the empty glass on a nearby surface. The liquid courage is a phantom warmth in my veins.

Then I step in closer, erasing the last bit of space between us.

“I want to show you what it means to stay,” I murmur, my voice low and for her ears only. “But I don’t know if I can do it gently.”

***

AVERY –

“I want to show you what it means to stay. But I don’t know if I can do it gently.”

Her words hit me low and deep, landing somewhere behind my ribs where my breath should be but suddenly isn’t. I stare at her, and I don’t think I’m breathing at all. My lungs have forgotten how to work.

Her eyes don’t move. They stay locked on mine, steady and unapologetic. But there’s something else there too — something quieter. A flicker of hesitation buried so far beneath the surface I might have missed it if I didn’t already know how to look for the cracks in her armor. Or… know just enough of her to want to see them.

I swallow hard, my throat tight. “I don’t want gentle,” I whisper.

I can’t believe I said it out loud. But I did. And I mean it. Because what she gives isn’t soft. It’s sharp. Precise. Consuming. And I want it all over again. I want to drown in it. In her.

The way her mouth parts just slightly — like she wasn’t expecting that, like I’ve genuinely surprised her — I know I’ll remember that look for the rest of my life.

She steps closer, and I don’t move.

Her fingers skim my waist, my hip, then come to rest against my jaw. Her touch is electric, and everything in me tightens, aches, waits.

“I need you to say it,” she murmurs, her voice so low it vibrates in my chest. “What you want.”

My skin flushes hot. My pulse thunders in my ears, a wild, frantic rhythm. But I don’t look away. I hold her gaze, letting her see the raw, unguarded truth in my eyes.

“I want you to show me what it means to get all of you.”

It comes out rough. Real. A confession stripped bare.

A beat of silence hangs between us, thick with meaning.

Then her lips are on mine, and I stop thinking altogether.

***

VICTORIA –

She says it. I want you to show me what it means to get all of you. And something inside me fractures. Quietly. Perfectly.

There’s no more space for silence. No more room for pretending I’m not burning for her, that I haven’t been since the moment I walked away.

I kiss her like I’ve waited forever for this. Like the days apart carved hollows in me and her mouth is the only thing that can fill them. My hands move to the front of her shirt, slow, deliberate. I work each button free, one by one, revealing the skin I’ve already tasted but crave again — new, now, here, under my roof.

She breathes harder, a soft, ragged sound that feeds the fire in my blood.

And when I slide the shirt off her shoulders, she lets me. There’s no resistance. Only a shivering anticipation that mirrors my own.

I guide her backward, toward the wall of windows. The city stretches out beyond us – a panorama of black glass and gold lights glittering like a thousand distant eyes that could never see her the way I do. Never understand her. Never deserve her.

I turn her to face the glass. Her reflection is wide-eyed, lips parted. I press my body against her back, my chest to her spine. She exhales sharply when she feels me – the whisper of my silk camisole, the heat of my skin, the restrained power in my posture. My voice, when it comes, is a low hum against her ear. Soft, sure, laced with a want I’ve stopped fighting.

“Touch yourself.”

I feel her tense. Just a little. It’s not fear. It’s surprise, the shock of the command, the intimacy of it. She doesn’t look back at me. She doesn’t have to. I know she heard me. I feel the decision warring within her.

A moment passes, thick and silent.

And then she obeys.

Her hand glides over her stomach, slow and shaky at first. Then lower. Her fingers dip between her thighs. I hear the sharp intake of her breath, the way her mouth falls open in a silent gasp.

“Good,” I murmur, my lips brushing the sensitive skin of her ear. “That’s it. Don’t stop.”

She moves her fingers in lazy, desperate circles. She’s already soaked for me, her body betraying the hunger her voice sometimes hides.

“But don’t come yet,” I breathe, my teeth grazing the shell of her ear. “I want my mouth on you when you let go.”

That earns me a sound. A moan, raw and small, torn from deep in her throat.

Her hips jerk slightly — pure need betraying forced obedience. She presses her fingers harder, chasing a release that’s just out of reach, but she holds back. For me.

God, she’s perfect.

I step back just long enough to unbutton my own shirt. I let it slip off my shoulders. The zipper of my skirt follows, the fabric puddling silently at my feet. Now it’s just my lingerie. My heels. The final layers between the world and the woman I am for her.

She glances over her shoulder – and her eyes go wide, dark with pure want.

I see her take me in. See the ache flash across her face, the sharp intake of breath.

But I’m not done yet.

I move in close again. Wrap my arms around her waist from behind. My hand slides over hers, my fingers gently nudging hers away. Then I take over.

My fingers find her swollen nob. Slippery. Hot. And trembling. She gasps, her body jolting against mine.

Her head tilts back onto my shoulder. Her mouth parts on another, louder moan.

I circle her clit slowly, rhythmically, matching the pace she just showed me she likes.

She’s shaking, her legs trembling, so close to the edge.

So I stop. My fingers still. “Not yet,” I say, my voice low but firm.

And she whimpers. Actually whimpers, a sound of pure, frustrated need.

Her knees buckle slightly. But I catch her, my arm solid around her waist.

And then I lead her out of the room, my hand in hers, to the bedroom, and push her gently onto the mattress, the dark sheets a stark contrast to her skin.

I stand there at the foot of the bed, and I let her look. I let her see me – Victoria, in nothing but black lace and high heels. No armor. No walls. Just this. Just the raw, unedited want I feel for her.

And I see it in her eyes – the dawning realization, the awe, the pure, unadulterated desire. The moment she understands she’s never wanted anything more in her life.

And the terrifying, beautiful truth is, neither have I.

***

AVERY –

She stands there in front of me – heels still on, lace clinging to every inch of her body like a secret she’s about to let me touch.

And I can’t breathe.

I thought I was ready. Thought I’d already felt everything she could pull out of me.

But I was wrong.

My thighs are still sticky, a physical reminder of her touch. Every nerve is still firing, remembering what she did to me against that glass earlier. But that was just a preview. A sample that only made the real hunger worse. I don’t want the memory. I don’t want the echo.

I want more. I want everything.

Victoria looks at me, and her gaze has a physical weight. It’s a mix of so many things. She looks at me like I’m something to be caught, and a primal, scared thrill goes through me. She looks at me like I’m something precious, and for a moment, I feel seen and valued. And finally, she looks at me like I belong to her. A possession. And the truth is, I want that. I’m tired of carrying the weight of my own will. I want to give it to her.

“Lie back,” she says. Her voice is low, smooth, and it cuts through the dim light of the room.

I do.

There’s no argument in my head. No hesitation. My body listens to her before my brain even processes the command. It’s the easiest and most frightening thing I’ve ever done.

The sheets are cool against my hot skin, a sharp contrast to the heat inside me. I watch her, my heart pounding wildly, as she climbs onto the bed. It’s slow and purposeful. She moves like she has all the time in the world. Her body hovers over mine, a living, breathing promise I don’t feel ready for, but one I need with a desperation that feels like life or death.

Her hand slides up my inner thigh. Slow. Deliberate. The path feels like it’s being seared into my skin. Is my body remembering her touch from before? Is it leaning into her now?

“What’s your safeword.” she asks softly, lips brushing mine.

“Mercy.” I tell her.

“Good,” She whispers, and moves her lips down my neck, a slow, deliberate path that makes me shiver. Down to my chest, and lower. Her tongue flicks over one nipple, then the other, a sharp, wet point of contact that sends a jolt straight to my core. My back arches off the bed on its own, a silent plea for more.

Her hands on my thighs are not a suggestion but a command, firm and sure, rolling us in a single, fluid motion until she is on her back and I’m straddling her hips. The air leave my lungs in a soft rush, the new position sending a fresh jolt of anticipation through my nerves.

She looks up at me, her eyes dark pools of hunger in the dim light, a slow, wicked smirk plays on her lips as her hands slide from my thighs to my hips, her grip possessive.

“Now,” she murmurs, her voice a low, husky purr. “Why don’t you take a seat on my face, huh?”

A shuddering breath escapes me. The sheer, brazen command of it, the shift from being utterly unravelled to being placed in control – of this, of her – is dizzying.

I move, bracing my hands on the headboard as I rise onto my knees. She guides me, her hands a steady pressure, lowering me until her mouth is level with my core, her breath a hot promise against my sensitive, aching flesh.

Her hands wrap around my legs, pushing them open, wider, until I am utterly exposed to her, spread open over her mouth.

“Victoria…” I breathed, my voice a plea and a prayer.

In answer, her mouth finds me.

Her tongue is everything at once. It flicks over my clit, soft at first, then harder, faster, setting a rhythm my body immediately latches onto. Her fingers slide inside me like they were made to be there. Deep. Precise. They find a place inside me I didn’t even know was empty until she filled it.

I cry out, a broken sound I don’t recognize, while I grip the headboard harder, my knuckles turning white. It’s a different kind of surrender. This isn’t about being controlled; it’s about being worshipped, devoured. I move my hips against her mouth, finding a rhythm, my body moving on instinct, chasing the coil of pleasure she’s so masterfully winds tight once more.

She groans against me, and the vibration goes right through my body, a shock that makes me shake. What does that mean?

When I manage to look over my shoulder, I understand. The sight is the most powerful turn-on I’ve ever experienced. Her own hand is between her legs, touching herself. Her fingers are moving in the same relentless, perfect rhythm her tongue is using on me. She’s getting off on this. On me. On my surrender. My pleasure is feeding hers, and hers is feeding mine, a perfect, closed loop of pure need.

I’m completely losing control. The thought is distant. My mind is static. My body is just a container for feeling.

“Oh my God –Victoria–”

Her name is a prayer and a curse, the only word I have left.

She doesn’t stop. Her mouth is relentless. Her fingers curl inside me, finding that exact, perfect spot, and it’s too much. The tension in my stomach is wound impossibly tight. I try to hold on, to stay at the peak a moment longer, but it’s useless. My body has already taken over. My mind is following.

Her moans against me get faster, sharper. She’s close, and knowing she’s falling with me is the final push I need.

When she lets go, I explode.

My whole body convulses under her mouth and her hand. The universe shrinks to this one, shattering point.

The climax isn’t one wave, but a series of them, each one deeper and more violent than any I’ve felt before. I feel like I’m being emptied out, turned inside out, torn apart and put back together by her. I can’t stop the moans, a continuous, helpless sound, until she finally, finally shifts my hips.

Her lips are wet. Her eyes are dark with a satisfied fire. Her chest is rising and falling, matching my own ragged breaths.

Slowly, I slide from her, my body easing down from its perch to lay flush against her side.

She moves up beside me, her body relaxed and powerful, and presses her mouth to mine, tasting myself on her lips.

And I kiss her back like I’m still starving.

Because I am.

***

VICTORIA –

The air is thick with the scent of us — of sweat and skin and something deeper, something that feels dangerously like trust. The taste of her is still on my lips, a sweet, lingering thing. Her breath is still uneven against my neck, her body still trembling with the aftershocks of what I just gave her.

And I want more.

God, I want more. I want her to want me — not just with her hands and her mouth, but with all of her. I want her to take me, to pull something from deep inside me that I’ve never given to anyone.

But I can’t.

It isn’t that I don’t trust her. It’s that I don’t know how to let go like that. Not completely. Not when surrender has always meant vulnerability, and vulnerability has always meant a weakness I couldn’t afford.

So when her hand slides down the line of my body — tentative, brave, her fingers hovering just above the waistband of my panties— I stop her.

My fingers close around her wrist, gentle but firm. Not a rejection, but a redirection.

Her eyes meet mine, wide and curious, still dark with wanting.

I don’t explain. Words would ruin this. They would make it about my fear, my limitations, and tonight cannot be about that.

Instead, I move. In one fluid motion, I flip her onto her stomach. The mattress sighs beneath her, catching her soft gasp of surprise.

Her body stills beneath me—not in fear, but in anticipation. A subtle shift in her posture, a readiness.

I pin her wrists above her head, my grip firm but not painful, and lean in close, my lips brushing the shell of her ear, my voice a low command.

“Keep them there.”

She lets out a shaky breath, but she doesn’t struggle. She nods, her body softening into the sheets.

Breathless.

Waiting.

I reach for the drawer beside the bed, the movement deliberate and unhurried. My fingers find what they’re looking for without having to look. I take out a strap.

It’s black. Smooth, high-quality leather. The design is precise, elegant, and functional. Like everything else in this room, it is an extension of my control.

She watches me from the bed, her eyes dark and wide, tracking my every move as I step into the harness. She doesn’t look away as I tighten the straps across my hips, securing it snugly against my body. The weight of it is familiar, a promise of what’s to come.

A soft gasp escapes her lips. It isn’t fear. It’s pure, unfiltered anticipation. A raw, desperate need that mirrors the ache building deep within me.

I climb back onto the bed, settling behind her. Her breath catches in her throat the moment my hands find her hips, my grip firm as I pull her back against me. Her body is already open for me, aching and slick with want.

I press the tip against her entrance, not entering yet, just teasing. I drag it slowly through her wet heat, feeling her shudder violently beneath my touch.

“Do you trust me?” I ask, my voice low and unshakable in the quiet room.

“Yes,” she breathes out, the word a ragged sigh of surrender.

I tighten my grip on her hips, lean back just enough to find the perfect angle, and thrust forward.

Her hands fist violently in the sheets, her knuckles turning white, but they stay exactly where I told her to keep them. Obedient. So incredibly beautiful in her surrender.

I start slowly, a deep, measured rhythm, watching her fall apart beneath me. I watch the way her back arches, the way her body braces and then yields, taking me in completely. A low, continuous moan is pressed from her lips into the mattress.

And I moan with her. The friction is exquisite. The pressure is perfect, right where I need it most. The sounds she makes, the sight of her hands gripping the sheets, the profound trust she places in me — it’s overwhelming. It’s almost too much to bear.

But I don’t stop.

I wrap one arm around her chest, pulling her back flush against me as I drive into her deeper, faster. Our bodies find a frantic, perfect rhythm, climbing together, rising higher and higher.

I can feel her nearing the edge. Her entire body is trembling, her whimpers becoming pleas.

“Don’t stop,” she begs, her voice raw and shattered.

I don’t. I push us both faster, harder, chasing the peak she’s about to shatter against.

***

AVERY –

I can’t hold it anymore.

The pressure has been building, a tight, coiling spring deep in my core, and I’m losing my grip on the last shreds of my control. It’s the way she’s moving inside me — every thrust is deep and deliberate, a rhythm so precise it feels like she’s mapped every secret nerve in my body and is playing them like an instrument, striking chords of pleasure so profound they border on pain. It’s the way she’s holding me — one arm a solid, unyielding band around my waist, the other hand braced firmly against the bed, anchoring us in this storm. I feel utterly possessed, and the terrifying part is how much I crave it.

And it’s definitely this — the way she suddenly shifts our bodies, her strength effortless as she pulls me upright and back into her lap. My back is pressed flush against her chest, her strong thighs beneath mine. The strap is still buried deep inside me, and the new angle is devastating, making me feel impossibly full, stretching me in a way that steals the air from my lungs.

Her arms wrap around me completely now, a cage of muscle and intent. One locks across my stomach, holding me secure against her, a claim staked. The other hand slides up my body—cupping my breast, her thumb brushing over my peaked nipple, squeezing just enough to make my entire body arch and spasm against her. Her breath is hot and ragged against the side of my neck, and I can feel the frantic, wild beat of her heart hammering against my back. We are a single, frantic entity.

“Victoria—” I gasp, and my voice is utterly shattered. It’s not even a name anymore. It’s a plea. A prayer. A final, desperate warning that the dam is about to break.

She leans in, her lips grazing the shell of my ear, and her voice is a low, commanding whisper that goes straight through me, bypassing all thought and striking directly at my soul.

“Let go.”

That’s it.

Those two words are my undoing. Her voice, her strength, the absolute, unshakable certainty in her tone—it shatters the last of my resistance. She’s holding me so tightly, like I am truly hers, like she will not let me fall even as I come completely apart.

And I fall.

Hard.

My head falls back against her shoulder, a raw, continuous moan ripped from my throat as the convulsions wrack my body, my inner muscles clenching around her relentlessly. My legs go numb and heavy. My fingers dig into the hard, corded muscle of her forearms, clinging to her as the only solid thing in a world dissolving into pure, overwhelming sensation.

And then I feel it — the shift in her.

Her body tenses behind me, a rigid line of shock. Her breath hitches, a sharp, startled catch that is loud in my ear. The perfect, controlled rhythm of her hips falters for a single, telling moment.

And she lets go, too.

A low, guttural groan escapes her, a sound she clearly tried to swallow and failed, as if the force of her own pleasure finally, truly overwhelmed the fortress of her control.

We crash over the edge together.

Tangled. Pressed skin-to-skin, sweat-slick and shuddering.

Breathing in ragged, syncopated gasps that fill the quiet room.

It wasn’t gentle.

But it was everything.