Page 220 of Sweet Ruin

“Okay.” I breathe out. “You can let go of it now.”

He lets go. Then he stands up off the bed, walks around to the end, and drags the armchair over from the corner until it faces me square. He sits down in it, settles his elbows on the arms, pants still on, and waits.

“What are you doing over there?” I ask.

“Watching.” He tips his chin. “Touch yourself.”

My whole face goes hot. “Kane.”

“You heard me.”

“There’s a— I mean, c’mon, you’re all the way over there with your clothes on and I’m⁠—”

“I intend to look at you until you can’t stand it, and then a little longer than that.” He doesn’t move. “Touch yourself, Lilah.”

This I didn’t plan for. The cuffs were easy because they took the choice away. This one hands the choice right back and forces me to confront it.

I put my hand between my legs.

“Look at me.”

I drag my eyes up.

“Good girl. Now, keep going.”

But I don’t know how to do that. I’m stuck in a place I never thought I’d be stuck in. Trapped between my own hand and a man in a chair and nowhere at all to go, and the terrible, incredible discovery that when you can’t hide, and the person keeps looking anyway, and doesn’t leave, the shame doesn’t grow.

It thins out.

Less of it.

Less of it.

Until…

I come with my eyes open, watching him watch me.

I don’t turn my face into the pillow. I don’t cover anything. I don’t crack a single joke.

Kane is out of the chair before I finish gasping. He gets the ankle cuffs off, both of them, fast but not rough, and then his belt is going and he’s over me and in me in one long push that knocks the air out of me.

“You didn’t hide,” he says into my throat.

“No.”

“Not once.”

“I can’t hide.” My nails rake his back. “Not from you.”

He doesn’t last long after that, which I take as a compliment, and I go over again with him because where else in the world could I possibly want to be?

We cuddle for a long time afterward. Kane kisses and touches every part of me, whispering an endless stream of praise. I drift in and out of consciousness. It’s like floating through the clouds. Weightless and carefree.

Eventually, he pulls out and goes to the bathroom, blowing out candles on his way. The shower kicks on.

I lie in the dark and take stock. Wrists fine. Ankles fine. Hips are going to complain tomorrow. Throat’s raw.

And underneath all of it, a lightness so unfamiliar that I keep poking at it to see if it’s real.