It’s not a cage, you’re only thinking cage because you were talking about birds. It’s a cell. It looks like a freestanding prison cell.
But no matter how hard she told herself to say “cell,” each time she looked toward the bed, she thought “cage”.
She glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to find Leon standing silently behind her. But he wasn’t there. He’d left her alone with the bed and the cage and the weight of anticipation.
She turned back, staring at the cage door. The lock itself was large—not ostentatious, but functional, serious.
She imagined stepping through that door, the sound of it clanging shut behind her, the heavy click of the lock turning. She imagined curling up on the bed as Leon sat in the chair watching her. Planning what he would do to and with her the next time he chose to open the cage door and let her fly free.
The thought sent a shiver racing down her spine.
Cessie closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself. The black iron cage was stark against elegant but simple decor and elements in the room.
Some part of her, the part that still resisted, whispered that she should turn away. Walk out. Pretend she hadn’t seen what was waiting for her.
But another part—deeper, quieter, more honest—whispered something else.
If Leon opened that door, she would go willingly, eagerly, into the cage.
CHAPTER 9
Leon refused to let anxiety or anticipation take the driver’s seat, no matter that waiting for Cessie’s reaction to the cage was torture.
He channeled his focus into preparing an early, light dinner.
She’d been in there for ten minutes.
He washed a cucumber and sliced it into clean, even discs.
She hadn’t run screaming.
He took out one hard and one soft cheese, cutting the hard cheese into small cubes.
She hadn’t marched out demanding an explanation.
That was a good sign. Still the waiting was hard, even for him.
He arranged the slices on the large wooden platter with the same care he gave to everything. Presentation mattered. Every detail mattered. The right words, the right tone, the right touches—all slow and deliberate, all pieces of the bigger plan.
Leon wiped his hands on a towel and leaned against the counter for a moment, glancing toward the living room. From here he couldn’t see the bedroom door.
He was giving her space. Letting her imagine herself behind those iron bars without any pressure. It was all about trust.Always trust. He turned back to the cutting board just as he heard her soft footfalls.
Cessie appeared in the kitchen, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, her expression carefully composed. But he saw the pink flush creeping along her throat.
"Can I help?" she asked, voice light but edged with something quieter. Something he recognized… anticipation.
Satisfaction roared through him.
He put a knife on the cutting board beside a glossy red bell pepper. “Cut it for me?”
He remembered to raise the inflection at the end of the sentence, turning it into a question though he was already starting to slip into that place of total control and command he only ever let himself slide into when he was being a Dom.
Giving orders and expecting complete control of a situation was total dickhead stuff, unless there was consensual power exchange and really good sex involved.
She stepped forward and he watched as she cut the vegetable with surgical precision. He could feel the curiosity pouring off her.
Good.
