Collateral obsession, p.42
Collateral Obsession, page 42
Heat surges through my body, rising too fast, too thick, until more sweat beads along my hairline and rolls down the sides of my face. A sharp, cutting shame slices through me, familiar in a way that twists my stomach. It feels like something I’ve carried my whole life—hovering just out of reach, yet flashing right in front of me now, while I stand too blind to grasp why.
The tie around my neck tightens like a pair of hands clamped around my throat. I reach for it, clawing at the fabric as the itch spreads across my damp skin. My fingers fumble, frantic, tugging and tearing at the knot before a soft touch grazes my hands.
I freeze.
My eyes stay shut, but I feel her leaning in, feel her fingers brushing mine aside to work the tie loose with patient, practiced motions. Her perfume drifts over me, and paired with her touch, it slices through my panic, easing something inside my chest.
She untangles the knots I managed to make, one careful pull after another, until the tie slips free and falls to the floor with a soft rustle. I drag in a ragged breath just as her hands glide to my blazer. She eases it off my shoulders, letting the fabric slide over my skin. A cool rush of air washes over me, brushing the heat trapped beneath my clothes, and I shift in the chair, realizing how the blazer had been clinging to my sweat-damp back.
“Don’t open your eyes,” she murmurs, gentle but commanding.
I squeeze them shut harder, feeling the wet burn pooling behind my eyelids.
My brow creases as I drag a hand across my face, irritated at myself for the tremor building in my chest. Shame swells, and my throat tightens with the humiliating realization that I’m on the verge of crying.
Fucking crying. And I don’t even know why. I can’t name the feeling, can’t cage it, can’t wrestle it down the way I’m used to.
A broken sound catches in my throat the moment something touches my skin—soft, sliding across my forehead, then down my cheeks and jaw, tracing the path of sweat. The tension collapses from my face, and my muscles melt, loosening with every slow stroke as Estella drags what I now realize is a cloth over me. She moves it lower, brushing along my neck, gentle and unhurried.
It takes several thudding beats of my heart before I understand.
She’s taking care of me.
The realization strikes harder than it should. A shudder runs through me, heat flooding my face. My cheeks burn with a mixture of embarrassment, unfamiliarity, and need, all tangled into something I’ve never allowed myself to feel.
I never realized how much I wanted this.
How much I truly needed it.
When she finishes, she steps away, and the absence of her touch slices into me like cold air. A pathetic, guttural sound almost escapes my chest—a plea for her to return. But before it can fully form, she’s already back, her hands settling on my shoulders with steady weight. They trace down to my chest, warm against my overheated skin.
Without thinking, I lift my hands, catch hers, and bring them to my face. My lips press against her skin once, then again, and again, planting desperate, unguarded kisses across her fingers. I don’t even register what I’m doing until her breath stutters and she gently pulls her hands back.
“You’ve always taken care of me,” she whispers, her words brushing the shell of my ear.
Slowly, her fingers drift down to the buttons of my shirt. She pauses—waiting, testing, giving me the chance to step back.
I stay still.
So she continues, undoing the buttons one by one, carefully, while watching my reaction, letting each cold breath of air touch the flushed skin she reveals.
“Now,” she murmurs, her voice low and steady, “I want to take care of you.”
I’m frozen beneath her touch, every muscle locked, my mouth sealed as I surrender to her completely. My heart hammers inside my chest, its rhythm the only proof that I’m still alive. Even my breath feels distant, weightless, as though everything around me has dissolved into blurs and splashes of color rather than any coherent understanding of what’s happening.
Estella works on my clothes, the soft rustle of fabric brushing against my ears as she undresses me piece by piece until there’s nothing left between us.
She leans in, cradling my face with both palms, her touch impossibly gentle. “Open your eyes,” she murmurs. I obey, and the moment my lashes lift, my gaze collides with hers—her dark eyes shimmering with something so close to tenderness it almost hurts.
Love. Acceptance. A quiet, devastating certainty.
She kisses me, and I melt beneath the heat of her mouth. She doesn’t force, doesn’t claim, but her restraint carries its own kind of passion—subtle, steady, and consuming. When she pulls back, the absence is so immediate that I instinctively follow, leaning toward her, chasing her warmth. But she withdraws, leaving a cold sting of rejection in her wake.
I watch her fingers glide through my hair, ruffling the strands as if memorizing them. Her gaze sweeps over me—a silent study she refuses to rush. Then she steps back until the backs of her legs touch the edge of the mattress. She sinks, and the bed dips beneath her, the faint bounce rippling outward.
I can’t stop staring at her—at her beautiful face, at her body draped in the fabric of the dress I chose, its layers following every irresistible curve.
Her hand lifts toward her head, and she loosens the wig, sliding it off to reveal blonde strands gathered into a loose, imperfect bun. Her fingers reach the scrunchie next, tugging it free and tossing both aside. Her hair tumbles down in soft waves, and she drags her hands through it, shaking it loose until every strand seems to shimmer with movement.
Her fingers drift downward, gliding over the curve of her cleavage, tracing slow, deliberate paths as if choreographing a private dance across her skin.
The way she barely touches herself sends a pulse straight through me. I drag my tongue across my lips without thinking, heat tightening in my chest before I bite down on my lower lip hard enough to anchor myself, forcing my body to stay rooted where I am instead of giving in to the urge to move.
I’m fully erect as I watch her, my patience cracking at the seams. But she spent every minute grounding me, steadying me, peeling me out of my own skin until I could breathe again. I can’t just crush that with impatience or let desire bulldoze through what she’s giving me.
Estella’s fingers continue their slow pilgrimage over her body, drifting in looping paths, moving back and forth, up and down, sketching a map I’m forbidden to touch. My hands curl into fists, knuckles whitening, and I feel a vein throb at the side of my neck from the strain of holding myself in place.
We’re surrounded by tools—ropes, cuffs, restraints, everything she could use to pin me down, gag me, blindfold me, strip me of control with a single command. She could reduce me to silence and obedience if she wanted. But she doesn’t reach for any of it. She’s choosing something deeper.
We’re building the entire moment on trust.
She holds every ounce of power in her hands right now—power I don’t remember consciously giving her, yet somehow, I did. And the truth sinks in, warm and startling.
This feels better than anything in this room ever could.
Her hands slip behind her back, arms flexing slightly as she pulls the zipper of her dress down. The sound is soft but deafening, and I shift in the chair, breath caught in my chest as she frees her breasts, then lowers the dress just enough to peel it down her hips and legs, revealing herself inch by devastating inch.
When she’s finished, she lets the dress fall wherever my clothes landed, leaving her standing before me in nothing but a small, skin-colored thong. The sight of her knocks the air clean out of my lungs. My fingers thrum with the urge to touch, yet I hold myself still.
It’s a slow, deliberate torture she’s crafting for me, a sweet kind of cruelty that makes me grateful for the chair beneath me. Without it, I’d be on the floor.
She watches me as my gaze drags up and down her body, shamelessly devouring every inch. Her nipples tighten into hard peaks under my stare, and my tongue slips out to wet my lips as my jaw tenses with the need to bite into them.
Estella grants me a few suspended seconds of pure agony before turning away, crawling further onto the bed. Her ass lifts, arches, offering itself like she knows exactly how close I am to snapping. I bite down on my already abused lip as she shifts to the side, then slides gracefully off the bed and drops to all fours.
Under my ravenous stare, she crawls toward the wall, her breasts swaying with every movement, each shift of her body sending a tremor searing through mine. When she reaches the wall, she rises just enough to clamp her teeth around a silk scarf and tug it free.
With the scarf held delicately between her teeth, she turns and begins crawling back toward me—slow, seductive, lethal. My breath stutters, and my vision blurs at the edges.
Jesus fucking Christ.
She reaches me, close enough that her warmth grazes my knees. The scarf slips from her mouth and falls onto my skin, soft and cool, sending a shock of goosebumps racing up my thighs. A praise catches in my throat, strangled, and all I can do is nod.
She rises onto her knees and places her hands on mine, guiding them until my fingers close around the scarf. I twist the silk between them, feeling the heat radiating from her skin, before she brings her wrists together and extends them toward me in a silent offering. Slowly, I wrap the scarf around them, binding her wrists snugly, firm to hold but gentle enough not to hurt.
She parts her lips, breath warm against my thigh, then moves between my legs.
“You can’t touch me,” she whispers wickedly before opening her mouth and taking the head of my cock in one smooth, devastating swallow.
My eyes roll back. A raw, animal sound tears from my throat as her mouth closes around me—hot, velvet-slick, obscene in how perfect it feels. My fingers clamp around the arms of the chair, nails carving shallow crescents as she lowers her head further, taking more, pushing past my last shred of composure.
She’s playing with power. Taking the control I offered her—yet binding her own hands to soften the imbalance, to make the game fair, safe, ours.
The anxiety from moments before still flickers at the edges of me, but it no longer rules me. The unease tries to claw its way back in, but she drowns it out with every glide of her tongue, every soft hum vibrating around me.
My heart pounds not from dread but from her—from the way her mouth worships me. My hands itch not to claw at my skin but to reach for her, to anchor myself in her warmth, her presence.
She pierced the shame clean through—burst it wide open the second she wiped me down, touched me gently, made space for me.
Now, there is only us.
Only the ways we pull each other back from the edge.
Every muscle in my body tightens as she begins to suck harder, her head moving in a slow, torturous rhythm. Her tongue traces the thick vein along my length before swirling around the head, pulling a sharp breath from me. She moans at the salty taste of pre-cum, and the vibration shreds my control.
“Fuck, baby,” I rasp, voice breaking as the pleasure builds, violent and electric.
She looks up at me, her eyes dark, hands bound, and something primal detonates in my chest. My gaze flickers between the scarf around her wrists and the devotion in her eyes, and the pleasure spikes hard.
She’s so… mine.
Mine to love.
Mine to protect.
Mine to fall apart for.
Just mine.
She draws back until only the very tip of me remains between her lips, then tilts her head and presses me into the soft cushion of her inner cheek. The moan she releases vibrates along every inch of my length, low and decadent, her eyes fluttering as she pushes me deeper against that tender, wet flesh.
My hands spasm, trying to anchor me as she gives me exactly what’s driving me insane. Every moan, every slick sweep of her tongue, every glazed roll of her eyes drags me farther from the spiraling edge of my own thoughts, tearing my anxiety apart one ragged breath at a time.
Heat blooms in my chest, coils in my throat, and pools at the base of my spine. My heart hammers, and my breath shortens. The orgasm creeps closer, slashes of euphoria licking up my nerves. I throw my head back, a raw cry ripping from me before she pulls away.
The loss of her mouth strikes me like a blade, and shock detonates through me, widening my eyes, hollowing out my lungs.
I force my head down, struggling to breathe, and find her staring up at me. She raises her bound hands toward me, wrists trembling, eyes pleading silently. The rejection gnaws at the edges of my mind, a hollow ache spreading into numbness, twisting with a flash of desperation.
Without a word, I lean forward and untie the scarf. It slips from my fingers and barely brushes the floor before she climbs into my lap, pressing her entire body against mine until the air between us ceases to exist.
“No touching,” she whispers, chest heaving as she shifts, settling into position above my straining cock.
The moment her slick heat grazes my tip, my eyes slam shut, and a helpless, broken whimper escapes me.
I didn’t know I could make that sound. I didn’t know anyone could make me unravel like this. The things this woman pulls from me should be studied like a fucking phenomenon.
Slowly, she lowers herself onto me. Her tight walls curl around my length, inch by torturous inch. A simultaneous moan tears out of both of us as she takes me deeper, the orgasm she stole rising again inside me, brick by fragile brick.
My hands claw at the chair’s arms until the wood cracks, splintering beneath my grip. I grit my teeth, forcing myself to stay still while she adjusts, sinking further, her breath stuttering at the angle.
Tears form in her eyes, shimmering trails against the shadows as she begins to circle her hips, grinding herself onto me. The slow rotation drags me along her inner heat, every movement squeezing me tighter, coaxing another groan from deep in my chest.
“Fuck,” she breathes, her face tightening with effort, sweat beading along her hairline.
Before I even understand what I’m doing, my hands lift—wiping the sweat from her forehead, from her temples, my fingers soft where everything else inside me is feral.
She didn’t want us touching, but I can’t sit here and take everything she gives without giving something back.
Estella leans into my touch, pressing her forehead briefly to mine as she pushes down until she sits fully on me—her body stretching, trembling, accommodating every last part of me before she finally, greedily, swallows me whole.
Shifting her rhythm, she begins to rock her hips back and forth, each movement sharper, more deliberate, until she’s fucking me in earnest. A gasp tears from her throat when the chair’s arms finally snap under my grip, wood cracking loud enough to echo through the room. The sound spurs her on—her pace quickens, her desperation matching mine beat for beat.
The room fills with the frantic cadence of our bodies, skin slapping hard, breath turning ragged, moans tumbling out of us without restraint. We’re both seconds from breaking, but neither of us crosses the line. We hold the promise, hold the distance, hold the restraint that somehow turns everything hotter.
We take everything from each other.
And we give everything back.
Pleasure crashes over me in relentless waves—bigger, brighter, fiercer than anything before. A faint ringing hums in my ears, a hot buzz sparking beneath my skin, and it strikes me with startling clarity.
I must have been fucking dead for years, because only now I feel like I’m finally breathing for the first time.
That truth imprints itself inside me as Estella lunges forward and crushes her mouth to mine. Her teeth sink into my lower lip, tugging until she tastes the dried blood, then she moves to the upper one, biting, sucking, claiming. I groan into her, whispering against her lips as she tears me open, layer after layer, until something snaps inside me, the force of it blinding.
I detonate.
A shattered moan rips from deep inside me as I spill into her, my body breaking apart under the force of release. She collapses with me, convulsing in sync, her pussy clenching so tightly around me as if she’s terrified I’ll slip away.
I thrust up into her a few more times, helping her ride the crest of her orgasm until her arms wrap around my neck, clinging to me like an anchor. Our foreheads collide gently, breaths syncing, chests heaving as we struggle to find the ground again.
Heavy, warm silence settles over the room, broken only by the soft, uneven gasps we try to steady.
My hands drift across her back, tracing slow circles over her trembling skin. Gradually, a realization creeps in before exploding in my mind like a bolt of lightning slamming into a bare tree, sending chills racing up my arms.
Because in the aftermath… There is no cold.
No freezing void creeping in.
No claws of ice, no dark whispers, no echoing emptiness.
Only warmth. A blooming, tingling comfort I’ve never known—born right here, in the wreckage of our breathing, forged in the spark of everything we just created.
A new star, lit from the flames of us.
I’m still frozen, limbs soft and useless, as if spun from cotton candy. She slips off me, and the absence of her sends a hollow ache through my chest. A thought claws its way up from the back of my mind—the instinct to rise, to clean her, to kiss her, to dress her, to do anything that keeps me anchored.
But I can’t.
Not when a violent storm is ripping through me, each wave crashing so hard I have to consciously remind myself to breathe. My vision smears at the edges, and my mouth falls open slightly when she settles on the bed in front of me. Through the haze, I catch the softness in her eyes—no questions, no urgency. She simply sits.
A lighthouse in a blackened sea while my own vessel gets tossed and dragged beneath the swell.
