The air was heavy with the metallic clang of chains and harsh breathing alone. The captive lay on silk that teased him with smoothness, wrists bound above the head, ankles hobbled to bedpost. The shadows stretched long and low across the velvet walls, illuminated by one golden lamp, its rays pooling over bruised skin, sheening sweat, and the bright glint in dark eyes that regarded him from beside the bed.
The murderer hadn't touched him yet. That was the torment. He sat, calm, in his clean white shirt and open collar, cigarette smoldering foolishly between his fingers as though this was nothing more than an evening out. The smoke curled slowly above his head, but his eyes were unblinking, drinking in every twitch of the muscles of the captive.
"You're restless," he whispered finally, voice low, soft, with cruel laughter. He pushed the cigarette to the ashtray and put the glass of empty bourbon on the ledge of the desk. "Not of fear anymore. Fear was last night. Tonight… it's something else that's making you writhe under those manacles."
The captive turned his head, clenched jaws and refused to say a word. Silence was his only weapon. But the predator only smiled faintly, a smile that was not warm. He moved onto the bed, slow, deliberate, each step depressing the mattress and pulling the captive further into his domain.
Fingers strayed across his ribs lightly—barely any pressure, a shadow of touch—and even so, the captive flinched as though burned. "Tensed already," panted the predator against his ear. "You don't want this, you think, but your heart races the moment I come near."
The captive snarled, voice husky. "Touch me again and I'll bite your goddamn hand off."
A chuckle slid from the predator's throat, dark and mocking. He leaned closer, pressing his lips just below the captive's jaw without truly kissing. "I'll take that as invitation." His tongue traced lightly over the sensitive skin, and the captive jerked, the chains clinking violently against the headboard.
He receded, watching his captive writhe against metal and velvet. "Do you have any idea what I like best about this?" His palm slid lower, over the captive's belly, hesitating just shy of touch. "Not the struggle. Not even the sounds you swallow." He paused, eyes glittering. "It's what lies between them. That tensile moment when you pause. whether to beg me to cease. or beg me to go on."
The captive's chest heaved involuntarily, his breathing trapped in that same silence the predator had guaranteed. He cursed himself at the constriction in his throat, at the flush coiling deep in his gut.
The predator moved, slowly, deliberately, stroking fingertips over the captive's inner arm, the cuff of the shackle, down his wrist vein where the pulse pounded wildly. "Your body tells a secret without permission. Every spasm, every shallow gasp, every quiver in your voice when you spew curses on me. That is mine to read. And mine to rewrite.".
His hand slipped lower, tracing the captive's torso, teasing along the edges of bruises left by the night before. The touch was maddeningly light, enough to make his muscles tighten but never enough to satisfy. The prisoner groaned through gritted teeth, furious with the way heat pooled under every careful drag of fingers.
"You're cruel," he spat finally, voice cracking. "This isn't control—it's sadism."
The smirk of the predator became more pointed. He leaned forward, his lips against the shell of his captive's ear as he whispered, "Cruelty is control. But ask me—" His teeth touched the ear, just a fraction enough to draw a gasp. "If I moved my hand farther down, would you arch into it or away from it?"
The captive shivered, muscles knotting into spirals. He hated the inability to react. He hated the inability of his body to do so.
The predator laughed again, low and content, and dropped down, tracing a path of kisses over chest and belly—not soft kisses but invasive ones, claiming skin never given. The captive twisted against chains, gasps giving way to stifled curses. Each was ripped out of him, reluctant yet unavoidable.
Then, just as the heat was most intense, the predator stopped. He backed off entirely, leaving the captive puffing, flushed, trembling with rage.
The silence was unbearable.
"What—what are you doing?" the captive demanded, gasping.
The predator rested back on his heels, looking at him with sinister amusement. "Teaching you something valuable." He ran a hand over his captive's knee, purposefully avoiding the places where heat begged for touch. "I decide when you burn. I decide when you shatter. I decide whether you can tumble over the edge… or if you'll be shackled all night, hurting, desperate, and unfulfilled."
The prisoner snarled, pulling on the chains. "Bastard."
An evil grin curved the predator's mouth. "Shout it out. Let the walls hear it. Because each word, each insult—" he bent in harshly, his mouth forcing the prisoner's open in a cruel kiss that took away his breath, swallowing his oath, wrenching out a strangled moan. When he pulled back, his eyes sparkled. "—tastes sweeter when you can't hide how you tremble afterward."
The prisoner's lips puffed out, his body shaking, sweat pouring down into the silk sheets. He wanted to scream, to fight, to protest—but his body seethed with a naked, raw pain that held him more firmly than any iron chain.
The predator got up off of the bed, fastening his cuff buttons as though nothing had happened. "Sleep, if you can," he said, striding for the door. "Tomorrow I'll try to keep you walking on the edge and not over it. Hours, perhaps. Maybe all night.".
The door quietly shut, leaving the prisoner chained, shivering, pain unfulfilled, each nerve aglow with frustration. His body cried out for freedom, his mind seethed with rage, and his chest heaved with unsatisfied need.
Silence between chains oppressed him, heavy, unbearable, noisier than any scream.