The next day came like glass breaking. I woke up in shards, every piece of me sharp and uncertain, still cut open from the night before. The thread still circled my neck, knotted in the back where his fingers had tied it, not tight enough to choke, but snug enough to remind me I belonged to something now. To someone.
I didn't untie it.
I wore it to work beneath my coat. I wore it like a secret. Like a bruise tucked under silk.
Every time the door chimed, I looked up too quickly. Every time it wasn't him, I felt something inside me sink further. I didn't know what I wanted him to do. Show up. Not show up. Take it further. Let me breathe. I just knew I wasn't the same girl who used to flinch at shadows.
The manager noticed. Asked if I was okay. I said yes. He asked again. I said yes louder.
Then James came in.
This time he wasn't alone.
The woman with him looked like power made flesh. She was older than me, maybe his age, with sharp heels and a tighter mouth. Her coat was darker than his, longer, and her gaze flicked over the coffee shop like it was a war map. When her eyes landed on me, something in her expression curled. Not surprise. Not interest. Just recognition.
James didn't look at her.
He looked at me.
And when he reached the counter, he didn't order.
He just whispered, barely audible, "Tonight."
Then he walked away, leaving the woman to follow, heel-clicks like gunshots behind him.
I didn't breathe for the next ten minutes.
I spent the rest of my shift in a haze.
I dropped a cup. Spilled milk. Burned my hand on the steamer wand. Everyone assumed I was tired. I let them.
But inside, everything itched.
My skin. My chest. The place between my legs.
I couldn't stop thinking about that woman. The way she walked, the way she looked at me, like she knew. Like she'd worn the thread first. Or maybe she still did.
When I got home, I didn't turn on the lights. I undressed in the dark, unbuttoned my uniform like someone else's hands were guiding mine. I walked barefoot across the cold tile, the thread still tight around my neck, then pulled his coat from the hanger and slipped it on.
The weight grounded me.
There was no knock, no buzz, no text.
The lock turned.
He entered without a word.
James found me standing in the middle of the room, back straight, arms loose at my sides, like I'd been trained to wait.
His eyes flicked over me, bare legs, bare chest, just the coat and the thread.
Approval flickered in his face.
He circled me once, slow. No touching. Just the sound of his steps and the shift of air.
"You didn't ask who she was," he said.
I swallowed. "Should I have?"
He stopped behind me.
His breath was close. Warm.
"Would it have changed anything?"
My voice barely held. "No."
A pause. Then fingers, brushing the thread at my throat.
"Good."
He stepped in close. I felt the shape of him against my back. Solid. Hot. Unrelenting.
"Because you belong to me. Not to the answers. Not to the questions. To me."
I nodded. Slowly. Deliberately.
James's hand slid down the front of the coat, slow enough to make me tremble.
"Say it," he whispered.
My mouth was dry. "I belong to you."
He kissed the back of my neck, right above the knot, and I melted.
He didn't fuck me.
Not that night.
He undressed me with only his eyes, tugged the coat open just enough to let it fall to the floor. His gaze lingered, not hungrily, but with something more dangerous. Possession.
Then he turned me, slowly, and walked me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed.
"Sit," he said.
I did.
James knelt between my legs.
No pretense, no question.
He placed his hands on my thighs like they were handles made for him. And then he looked up, into me, and said nothing.
Just held me there in silence until the weight of my own arousal became unbearable.
Then he leaned forward.
His mouth was merciless.
I broke within seconds. Fingers twisted in his hair, thighs trembling, spine arching as pleasure tore through me like thunder in glass.
But he didn't stop. Not when I gasped. Not when I begged. Not when I started to cry.
Only when I said his name.
Only when I said it like a prayer.
He stood.
Pulled me to my feet.
Held my face in both hands.
"You're learning," he said.
Then he left.
And I stood in the silence, slick and shaking, with his breath still between my legs.
He took me apart like a ritual.
Not hurried, not careless, intentional. His hands were steady. His voice, when he used it, came low and close, like a second heartbeat inside my ear.
First came the command: "Lie back. Arms above your head."
I obeyed.
He bound my wrists in soft leather cuffs that matched the collar. They clicked into place with quiet finality. My pulse quickened, not from fear, but from surrender. From the certainty of it.
Then came the blindfold. Velvet, cool, dark. The world vanished.
"Now you feel instead of think," James said. "You stop trying to guess. You just receive."
And I did.
His touch was everywhere and nowhere. Featherlight against my ribs. Firm against my hips. He teased the edge of pain but never crossed it. Heat pooled between my thighs, but he stayed away from it, kept me on the edge until my body felt like a question with no answer.
When his fingers did find me, I was soaked. Needy. Desperate.
And he didn't grant relief. Not right away. He circled, tasted, tested, like he wanted to map my pleasure by memory.
I was trembling, crying, pleading before he finally let me come. And when I did, he whispered, "Good girl," against the shell of my ear like it was a seal on something sacred.
Then silence.
The blindfold lifted. Light returned slowly. My vision blurred, then focused, on his face, inches from mine, serious and satisfied.
"You'll remember this," he said. "Every time you close your eyes."
And he was right.