Page 18 of Suite 7

His smile is slow. “No. You’ll kneel because you choose to. Because you want what I can give you.” A pause. “Submission isn’t something I take from you, Vera. It’s something you give. Your power, offered freely to someone worthy of holding it.”

Oh fuck. He’s good at this.

“So choose.” Patient. Inexorable. “Kneel because you want to. Or leave because you don’t. But make a choice.”

He guides me back two steps with a hand at my shoulder, away from the bed, onto the rug at the center of the room. “Here.”

My knees hit the floor.

His hand settles on my shoulder, firm, grounding, warm.

“Good girl.”

Heat pools low and immediate.

“Color?”

Right. This is a scene. Negotiated.

“Green.”

“Perfect.” His hands adjust my position with precision. “Knees wider. Hands resting on your thighs.”

I obey.

“Stay.”

Every muscle wants to move to defy him. I hold still. My mind doesn’t. Already cataloguing — the distance between us, what comes next, how I’ll handle it when it does.

“You’re already trying to think your way through this.” A pause. “Analyzing. Planning. Maintaining control even while kneeling.”

He’s right. I hate that he’s right.

“I’m just —“

“I didn’t ask you to speak.”

My mouth closes.

Who does he think he is?

He moves in front of me, tips my chin up with one finger. “Close your eyes.”

I hesitate, because closing my eyes means giving up the last ground I have.

“That wasn’t a request, Vera.”

My eyes flutter shut.

Darkness. Only his presence and my own heartbeat, too loud in the quiet.

“That’s better.” His finger traces my jaw, light, almost teasing. “You came here to rest. To let someone else carry the weight. But you can’t do that while you’re busy trying to run the room.”

My eyes fly open. “I’m not trying to —“

He holds my gaze. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away.

I press my lips together.