Claimed By Desire

Lie to me again.

Amara

I couldn’t stop smiling.

It was ridiculous, really. I was a grown woman, not some teenager gushing over her first crush.

And yet, as I walked through my apartment that evening, I kept catching glimpses of myself in mirrors and windows — and every single time, there it was: that soft, dreamy expression I couldn’t hide.

Lucien Thorne had taken me to lunch.

To apologize.

The same man who’d dismissed me that morning like a stubborn child had spent two hours with me at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants, giving me his undivided attention. Listening. Watching. Learning me.

I kicked off my heels, poured a glass of wine, and replayed everything. The pristine white tablecloth. The weight of his gaze across it. He’d leaned in slightly whenever I spoke, like he wanted to memorize the shape of my words.

And then there was the question. The one still burning under my skin.

“Have you ever been a submissive, Amara?”

Even now, heat crawled up my neck remembering how he’d asked it — casual, conversational, but his eyes… his eyes had said something entirely different.

And when I’d stammered out a refusal, he’d only smiled slightly before murmuring:

“There’s nothing shameful about submitting to a man, so long as that man understands what it takes to truly lead.”

I’d tried to laugh it off. I’d tried to pretend it hadn’t affected me.

I’d failed.

Because hours later, I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to stop replaying the low rumble of his voice and the weight behind those words. I’d even opened my laptop earlier, searched terms I swore I’d never type, and read things I had no business reading. And now, lying here, everyone's thoughts spiraled back to him.

Eventually, exhaustion dragged me under.

---

The room was dark when I opened my eyes.

Not my room.

This one was bathed in soft, ambient shadows, lit only by pools of golden candlelight that flickered across deep crimson walls. The air smelled faintly of leather and sandalwood, thick with heat and something darker… something intimate.

I realized, with a sudden twist in my stomach, where I was.

It wasn’t an office.

It wasn’t a bedroom.

It was a playroom.

My wrists were bound above my head with soft black cuffs, secured to the headboard of a massive four-poster bed draped in deep burgundy silk.

I wasn’t wearing my usual clothes — instead, delicate black lace lingerie hugged my body, sheer panels leaving little to the imagination.

And then I felt him.

Lucien.

Standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in black, sleeves rolled up, dark gaze fixed on me like I was prey caught perfectly in his trap. He didn’t rush. He didn’t speak. He just looked, letting the silence stretch until every nerve in my body hummed.

My breath came faster.

“Lucien,” I whispered, my voice breaking on his name.

He stepped closer.

His shadow loomed over me as he reached the side of the bed, one hand dragging slowly along the carved wooden post. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, deliberate, the kind of voice that commanded.

“Do you know why you’re here, Amara?”

I swallowed hard, tugging lightly against the cuffs. “N-no…”

“Yes, you do.” He leaned closer, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, his breath warm and sinful. “You came here to learn. To be taught. By me. Didn’t you?”

My pulse thundered. “I don’t—”

His fingers brushed my jaw, tilting my face toward him. “Lie to me again,” he murmured, soft and lethal, “and I’ll have to show you exactly how well I know your body already.”

Heat pooled low in my stomach, sharp and undeniable.

His hand drifted down my throat, slow and unhurried, fingertips tracing a path lower until he stopped just above the lace. His eyes never left mine.

“Say it, Amara,” he ordered softly. “Say you want this.”

“I…” My voice faltered as his thumb grazed the underside of my breast, the sensation, electric. “I want…”

He bent lower, lips brushing mine without kissing. “Say it properly.”

My pride fought him. My body betrayed me.

“I want you,” I whispered, breathless. “I want you to… take control.” The words tasted foreign, dangerous. They shouldn’t have excited me. They did.

The satisfaction that curved his lips was dark, almost wicked. I hated how much it turned me on — hated that my body reacted before my mind could protest

“Good girl.”

Those words sent a shiver down my spine so sharp it stole my breath.

He leaned back, deliberate and unhurried, crossing to a nearby wall where an array of tools hung — leather cuffs, silk ropes, crops, paddles, things I didn’t even have names for.

He selected a soft flogger, trailing its suede tips across his palm as he returned to the bed.

“Color?” he asked.

My brows furrowed. “Color?”

“Your Safe word,” he clarified. “Green means good. Yellow means slow. Red means stop.” He lowered the flogger, letting the strands tease the inside of my thigh. “What’s your color, Amara?”

“Green,” I said, breathless, though my pulse was anything but steady.

God, what was I doing? Why did the word feel like permission and surrender and sin all at once?

Lucien smiled, slow and satisfied, and my stomach knotted at the sight. God, why did that look feel like both a promise and a warning

His hands returned to my skin, exploring, claiming. His touch was firm but reverent, his fingers hooking beneath the lace, dragging it lower until cool air kissed my bare skin.

“Eyes on me,” he commanded when my lashes fluttered shut. “I want to see you feel it.”

The first strike of the flogger was soft — barely a whisper — but the sensation rippled through me, sharp-edged pleasure blooming into heat. He alternated between feather-light brushes and sudden, deliberate snaps, watching me carefully, testing, reading every twitch, every gasp, every arch of my back.

“Perfect,” he murmured, lowering the flogger to stroke his knuckles down the same path, soothing where he’d stung. “You take everything I give you so beautifully.”

I was lost — caught between sensation and need, between his relentless control and my desperate surrender.

Then he lowered himself between my thighs, the heat of his breath ghosting over me, and I nearly broke the restraints straining toward him.

“Lucien—”

“Not yet,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over me, so close I could feel his heat without relief. “You’ll come when I say. Not a second before.”

"Lucien,"

I gasped his name again, incoherent, fevered — and when his mouth finally claimed me, it was devastating. Slow. Deliberate. Worshipful. He played my body like an instrument, each moan he coaxed from me fueling the dark growl building in his chest.

“Mine,” he rasped against me, voice rough and consuming. “Say it.”

I moaned, tugging helplessly at the cuffs. “Yours,” I breathed, wrecked and trembling. “I’m yours.”

“That’s right,” he murmured, lips brushing my skin like a vow. “Every. f*****g. Inch,” he vowed, devouring me like a starving man tasting forbidden fruit.

I’d never felt anything like this. No one had ever touched me with such hunger, such ownership. It was reckless, consuming, almost too much — and I never wanted it to stop.”

The steady rhythm of his tongue was devastating, driving me higher with every slow, deliberate stroke. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Could only feel.

The sensations built unbearably, each flick of his tongue, each scrape of his teeth dragging me closer and closer until the climax hit like lightning — hot, overwhelming, tearing through me as I cried out his name, his hand gripping my thigh hard enough to anchor me through it.

The aftershocks left me shaking, body limp, mind shattered.

And through the haze, I heard his voice — low, deep, satisfied:

“Good girl.”

---

I jolted awake, gasping.

My sheets were tangled around my legs like restraints, sweat dampening my skin, heart pounding so violently it hurt. The phantom feel of silk cuffs and Lucien’s mouth on me clung to every nerve, refusing to fade.

Shame burned beneath the lingering ache of arousal.

I’d dreamed of surrendering to him. Of giving him control. Of liking it.

I buried my face in my pillow, groaning softly.

This was what he was doing to me. Breaking down everything I thought I knew about myself, twisting boundaries I’d built my entire life around.

And the worst part?

I couldn’t stop wanting more.