Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
He steps closer.
"I write stories about women like me," I continue, "women who get captured, and claimed, and owned by men like him. Women who find freedom in surrender. Women who discover that the cage they've built around themselves is the very thing keeping them from flying."
His hand falls away from his cock. He's standing right in front of me now, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin.
"And this story?" His voice is soft. Intimate. "The one you're living right now. What happens in this story?"
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
"In this story," I say slowly, "the Masked Man finds a broken girl who's been hiding behind her words for too long. He sees through her defenses. He understands her darkness because he has darkness of his own. And instead of running from it—instead of being disgusted by the things she craves—he gives her exactly what she needs."
"Which is?"
"Everything." My voice breaks on the word. "He gives her everything. The pain she's too ashamed to ask for. The pleasure she's too afraid to accept. The safety of knowing someone else is in control, someone who won't leave, someone who sees her completely and stays anyway."
Silence stretches between us.
I'm exposed in ways that have nothing to do with my naked body spread on this cross. I've just recited my deepest fantasies to a man I barely know, performed like a trained pet while he stroked his cock and watched me struggle to find words worthy of what he makes me feel.
And I don't regret any of it.
Because somewhere in the middle of that description, I felt something shift. Something lock into place. The beginning of a story I've never written before—one where I'm not just the author, but the protagonist.
I'm going to write this.
I'm going to capture every moment of this experience in prose so vivid it burns. The terror and the arousal. The shame and the need. The way he looks at me like I'm something precious and the way he treats me like something owned.
The Masked Man will be the title. And unlike every other story I've written, this one won't be fiction.
His expression softens.
It's subtle—just a slight easing of the tension around his eyes, a gentling of his mouth—but it changes everything about the way he's looking at me. The predator is still there, lurking beneath the surface. But right now, in this moment, there's something else.
Something that almost looks like tenderness.
He reaches out and cups my face in both hands. "Good girl," he murmurs. "Such a good, perfect girl."
Then he kisses me.
Even gentler than the kiss from the platform. It's so soft, and so slow, and so thorough, his lips move against mine like he has all the time in the world. His tongue traces the seam of my mouth and I open for him instantly, desperate to let him in, desperate to give him whatever he wants.
He tastes like mint and something darker underneath. Something that makes me think of smoke, and whiskey, and late nights spent doing things I shouldn't.
His hands move from my face to my hair, fingers threading through the strands and tilting my head back to deepen the kiss. I moan against his mouth and he swallows the sound, giving me back a low growl of approval that vibrates through my chest.
This feels real.
It feels like more than just a scene, more than just a game he's playing with me. It feels like he means it—the tenderness, the care, the way he's kissing me like I'm something to be savored rather than consumed.
It feels like he wants me.
Not just my body spread open on this cross. Not just my submission and my desperate need. Me. The mess of contradictions, and shame, and hopeless romantic fantasies that I've been trying to hide my entire adult life.
When he finally pulls back, I'm breathless. Dizzy. My lips feel swollen and used in the best possible way.
He strokes his thumb across my cheekbone.
"Wait here," he says, and even though I literally cannot go anywhere, the command sends a shiver down my spine.
He turns and walks toward a cabinet I hadn't noticed before—built into the trunk of a massive tree about ten feet from the cross. It's dark wood, ornate, completely incongruous with the jungle setting around it.
He opens the doors.
Inside, I can see rows of implements hanging on hooks and arranged on shelves. Metal glints in the filtered sunlight. Leather coils. Things I recognize from pictures, and research, and the video of our last experience together.
Nipple clamps.
Floggers.
Crops.
Vibrators of various shapes and sizes.
Things I don't recognize at all—strange shapes and configurations that make my imagination run wild trying to figure out what they're for.
He takes his time selecting.
I watch his back—the muscles shifting beneath tattooed skin, the confident way he moves, the deliberate consideration he gives each item before choosing or discarding it. He's building anticipation. Making me wait. Making me wonder what he's going to do to me next.