Page 86 of Dominion’s Collar

I grip her thighs and pull her toward me. Position her hips at the angle I want.

She doesn't resist, doesn't adjust, doesn't try to help. She lets me arrange her body. She hasn't surrendered her judgment. She's made a decision and she's holding to it.

I push inside her. One slow stroke that buries me completely, and the feel of her is devastating. The heat, the tightness, the slick grip of her body close around me like a fist. I hold still because if I move right now, this ends before it starts.

She holds still. The collar glints at her throat.

I move. Slow at first, withdrawing until I nearly leave her, then driving deep. Each stroke controlled, angled to hit the spot my fingers found. I control the pace. She receives. I can feel every contraction, every flutter, the way her body tightens around me when I bottom out.

Her hands stay on the table. She watches me without looking away. What I see isn't the innocent trust from before. It's a woman who knows exactly who I am and is here anyway.

I increase the pace. Drive deeper. She cries out, her body clenching around me with every thrust. I reach between us and press my thumb against her clit, the pressure coordinated with my strokes. Her back arches off the table hard enough that I pin her hip with my free hand to hold her in position.

The orgasm builds in both of us. I feel it in the tightening of her body around mine, in my own control starting to fracture at the edges.

"Come for me," I say.

She breaks. The orgasm takes her completely, arching against the hand pinning her hip, her inner muscles clenching around me in fierce rhythmic contractions that pull me deeper.

Her hands stay on the table. She kept them there. Even at the end. Even knowing everything. She obeyed.

I follow her over the edge.

The room is quiet.

I withdraw carefully. I clean us both. The blanket goes around her shoulders, and she lets me pull her close when I sit beside her.

She doesn't curl into me. She accepts the warmth without giving anything back. I hand her the water bottle. She drinks without opening her eyes.

I've spent years reading what people carry underneath what they show. The woman beside me is showing me exactly what she's willing to give, and the inventory is precise.

She takes the blanket. She takes the water. She lets me sit close enough that our arms touch.

She doesn't lean. Doesn't turn toward me. Doesn't rest her hand on my thigh the way she did after the fire scene, the unconscious gesture of a woman who'd forgotten she was supposed to be performing.

The small things she gave me in those minutes after the fire play are all absent now. Not because the surrender wasn't genuine tonight. Because she's choosing exactly what to give and what to withhold.

The precision of the selection is the punishment.

I wait until awareness returns to her face, not the subspace version but hers. She shifts against my side, and the shift is intentional. The woman looking at me is fully present.

"The key," she says.

I pull it from my pocket. Place it in her palm.

She sits up. The blanket falls from her shoulders.

She's bare except for the collar, and what's in her eyes when she fits the key into the lock isn't the devastation of discovery. She already processed that. This is a decision.

The click of the mechanism releasing is the loudest sound in the room.

She lifts the collar from her throat. Holds it for one second. Then places it in my hand with the quiet precision of a woman returning something whose terms she no longer accepts.

She doesn't throw it. She doesn't leave it on the table. She gives it back to me, and the giving is worse than any violence she could inflict.

She dresses without speaking. The corset goes back on with practiced efficiency. The thong follows.

She stands in front of me fully clothed and looks at me with clear, dry eyes.