Did you like it?
424 Words
Her knees sank deeper into the warmth of the rug.
Dorian remained standing, one hand resting lightly on the back of the velvet chair. He didn’t sit. He didn’t move closer.
Clara kept her eyes low.
Not from fear.
From something stranger.
His silence filled the room more fully than words ever could. It pressed against her skin like steam. Her heart beat in her throat.
Then, finally, he spoke.
“I will teach you rules,” he said. “Not to restrain you. But to reveal you.”
Clara swallowed.
“Not all obedience is silence. Not all punishment is pain.”
He walked around her once, slowly. She felt the whisper of his steps more than she heard them. The way her breath adjusted to follow his rhythm. The way her skin prickled in anticipation of a touch that never came.
“You will never be punished for wanting,” he said.
Her head lifted slightly, startled.
“You will only be punished for hiding it.”
He came to a stop behind her.
“Tell me something true.”
Clara’s voice was barely a whisper. “What do you want me to say?”
“That,” he said, “is the wrong question.”
His fingers brushed the back of her neck—barely there, light as a sigh—then retreated just as quickly.
“Did you like it,” he asked, “when I watched you last night?”
Clara froze.
A long silence.
Say yes, and she was ruined.
Say no, and she was a liar.
Her lips parted.
“I—”
“You stood there,” he said calmly, “naked, silent, trembling. You waited for me. You obeyed my every word. And you enjoyed it.”
“I don’t know,” she said quickly.
“Lying already?”
Her breath hitched.
He moved in front of her again. Her eyes remained fixed on his boots.
“Look at me.”
She did.
The expression on his face was unreadable—but there was something there. The tiniest shift in his mouth. A tension.
“Say it,” he said.
Clara’s lips trembled. “I liked it.”
His voice didn’t change.
“Say it again. Like you mean it.”
She took a breath.
“I liked it,” she said, louder. “I liked that you looked at me.”
His eyes locked onto hers, and the heat that bloomed between them nearly took her breath away.
He stepped back.
“Good.”
- Writer
