something wick'd this way comes...

You apply yourself to your lessons, not just because Donaka has paid a lot of money for this man to basically commute to Hong Kong four days of the week from Beijing, but because you know there's nothing more maddening than a student who doesn't pay attention when you're teaching something you're passionate about.

You like Tiger too. 

He is kind, and patient, and he shyly admits to you that one day he hopes to go to America to be in movies. So after your sessions over tea, you make a point to help him improve his English. You feel like it’s the only thing you can really offer him. 

Slowly, it all starts to click, and you find yourself carrying the forms even into your everyday movements, the way you move around the room, the way you reach for things on a shelf…

The philosophy is harder.

You’ve barely seen Donaka since you started your lessons with Tiger, and you have no idea where he’s been. He leaves early in the morning and doesn’t come home until late, if at all. You cannot shake the thought that maybe Donaka sought to manipulate you somehow with instilling this go with the flow mindset. 

Did he think it would make you more complacent? Did he think it would make you forget that you haven’t been allowed off the grounds since he took you out in the Bugatti? It’s begun to feel like a lifetime ago, and no matter how much you meditate in your new little space in the library with your books and your orchids…the captivity mixed with loneliness grinds in you. 

It occurs to you that perhaps you’re his dirty little secret and he doesn’t want to be seen in public with you. You’re not his wife by any means. Are you even his girlfriend? Eventually the horrifying thought occurs to you that maybe you’re not even the only woman in his life. 

On a rare occasion when he’s actually home in the evening you invite yourself into his viewing room, sitting beside him on the black leather couch. “Hi.” 

He sort of growls in answer, his eyes still glued to the screen, but he lifts an arm for you to snuggle into him. You take that as some sort of sign. 

But the silence between you stretches on, and in the end you’re the first to break. 

“Can we yum cha again soon? I’ve really missed you.” 

“Sweetheart, you realize I work during the week?” he says to you in what you think is the most patronizing tone he can muster. 

So much for delegation.

“What about this weekend then? Can we go somewhere?” You admit you’ve thought more than once about that motorcycle in the garage with all the supercars. “Oooo, what about the Big Buddha? Or the Dragon’s Back? Or Wong Tai Sin Temple? Or…” You find yourself excitedly rattling off things from your bucket list, only for it to shrivel upon your tongue from the withering look he pays you. 

“Do I look like a tour guide to you?”    

This is when you realize you gravely misjudged his mood this evening. 

Or maybe, this whole situation as a whole? You’d thought things were getting better, and you realize you’d begun to feel safe around him, thanks to his little presents and his gestures that seemed meant to cater to your happiness. But the truth, you stupid girl, is you’re still just a prisoner, and you may as well be like one of the antique vases or Elder statues he likes so much to collect–pretty to look at, but with much less value. 

Did you actually think you mean something to him? 

You hate how much this hurts, even if you should have been preparing yourself for it all along. You feel the sting of tears forming in your eyes and the aching roots of your teeth. 

Fine. You guess you’ve finally got your answer.   

You shift on the couch to get up, needing to be anywhere but in the same room as him to nurse your heartbreak. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” He reaches for you, and you do something very stupid. In your defense, it was also just reflex, something very basic Tiger taught you, which is actually on Donaka, right? And you're sure it never would have worked, had he been even slightly expecting it. You deflect the force of his reaching hand with a turn of your wrist, moving just out of reach of his long arms with one smooth step. 

Yet you freeze when you realize what you’ve done, and to whom. 

The sharp flash of challenge in his eyes could cut you to ribbons, and you brace yourself. Your every instinct urges you to run, but this time you know this is serious, and if you do…there’s no telling what he might do. 

“Look who’s been paying attention to her lessons,” he snarls, standing to tower over you. “My money well spent.” 

He’s been watching you train with Tiger, of course, on his laptop at work when he needed to be doing other things. You’re a good student, and the two of you get along, and deep down Donaka knows he’s a little jealous for the easy way you smile for your teacher. 

And he certainly never fathomed you might dare use your new knowledge of tai chi on him. 

Even if you tremble, you close your eyes and stand your ground, waiting. You feel his long fingers close around your throat, not squeezing, but just resting there with all the promise of what those huge hands could do to you. 

Once upon a time you might have begged him to let you go. 

Now you realize it’s worse than that. You want him to pay attention to you any way you can get now, and if not on something resembling your own terms, you'll settle for the battlefield. When did you turn so suicidal?

His next question is deceptively soft, his thumb sliding over your fluttering pulse. “Have I been neglecting you, bunny?” 

A question loaded with fifteen in the clip and one in the chamber. But what the hell? If he tries to kill you at least it will be something to do. 

“Yes.” 

You do not expect his delighted laughter; as ever, this man keeps you off balance, and you don’t think any amount of lessons in tai chi or anything else will ever truly prepare you. 

“Alright. I’ll try to make it up to you.” There’s mockery in his tone, but you dare to open your eyes anyway. You’re surprised to see he’s watching you like you’ve done something interesting; something he didn’t expect either. Maybe it gives you just enough courage to open your mouth again. 

“Am I so demanding?” 

He snorts in answer to this, bending down to slant his mouth over yours. His fingers slide from your throat to the base of your hair, pulling just this side of too hard as he bends you over with his ardor, his teeth nipping at your lower lip. 

You have no idea, of course, but he’s been in a mood because he’s been auditioning fighters for his next big offshore expo, and no one has truly caught his interest. No one has felt right, and he’s afraid that something that once brought him such fierce joy has become boring to him. 

It alarmed him, looking back, how quickly he'd confessed his favorite thing to do as of late is you. You’re changing him, and he sees it now. He thought it would be best to return to his nobler pursuit: the search for the perfect warrior. It has yet to truly recapture his passion the way it once did.

He wants something new, something exciting. 

Maybe it was right in front of him all along. 

🐉🐉🐉       

A few days later, Donaka let you know in no uncertain terms what he expected that evening. When I come home I want you waiting naked on our bed. Understood?

He would choose that night to come home an hour late, and you are chilled to the bone by the time he walks through the door with an alarmingly smug smirk curling his lips, heartbreakingly handsome in one of his tailored dark suits. Charcoal sharkskin over jet black silk, and a silvery tie…it’s too flashy just for the office. Where did he go today?  

You’re not sure if you invent it, that you think his eyes seem to soften as he sweeps his gaze over you. 

“Aw. She can follow direction when it suits her.” 

“I’m freezing,” you grouse, still annoyed. A trill of excitement makes its way down your spine as you watch him loosen his tie as he approaches, standing at the foot of the bed before you. 

“Is this going on your eyes, or in your mouth, bunny?” 

You glare, but say no more. “That’s my good girl,” he purrs. “I’ve brought you a surprise.” 

You bite your lip, looking him up and down, thinking that maybe this tall dark dream of a man in this wicked mood is surprise enough. It’s been over a week since he last touched you, you’re pretty sure you’re ovulating, and you’re about ready to climb the walls. 

He chuckles darkly as he affixes his tie as a blindfold over your eyes, the silk sliding over your skin. His fingers are deceptively gentle as he affixes the knot behind your head, careful not to hurt you.  

“What? No smart remarks?” His fingertips trace the lines of your body possessively, the curve of your neck to the sweep of your collarbone, down to circle your taut nipple. You squirm and press your thighs, but keep your hands planted on the bedspread, the way you suspect he wants you to. 

Finally you answer with the truth: “I missed you.” His touch hitches upon you, even if only for a moment, before he strokes down your arm with the backs of his fingers. 

“I missed you too. Lie back.” 

You do as you’re told, and it’s interesting how you can sense his movement above you, even while deprived of sight. He rifles in his jacket pocket, and you hear something click clack clack. When something startlingly cool and smooth brushes over the skin of your belly you about levitate out of your skin. 

“What–” 

“Shhh.” 

The things pool and slide over your skin, heavy and cool, though quickly warming to your body. There are a lot of them, seemingly on a string. Multiple strings? Your back arches as they graze over your nipples, your loins clenching and pulsing with this exquisite torture. 

“Oh my god, Donaka…” you sigh. “Are those…pearls?” 

“Would you like that, y/n?” 

You whine in answer as he affixes a clasp behind your neck. 

“Hmm?” he teases, and you hear the smile in his words. 

“Maybe?” You try to sit up, but he prevents you with a finger on your breastbone. 

“Be still. This is a sight I want to remember.”

You’re too keyed up to catch the ominous undertones of that statement, practically vibrating in your state of arousal. If it’s real…you cannot fathom what that many strands must have cost. 

Who knew that your recent lessons in breath control would aid you in this situation? You lay there like a pearl-draped pin-up with your pulse thundering in your ears, and only once you’re certain he’s going to leave you there like that all night does he touch you, your skin quivering under his fingertips as he skims down the lengths of your thighs, then back up again, seemingly determined to drive you mad.

“Donaka…” you sigh. “Can I take this off?” 

Your hands lift towards your blindfold until you receive an unequivocal, “No.” 

Your growl of frustration wins you a villainous chuckle. “So impatient.” Suddenly his thumb dips between your legs, testing the readiness of your weeping hole. “And so wet.” You move your hips, desperate for friction on your needy clit, but he holds you at bay with his large hand over your mound. “Ah ah,” he scolds. 

“Donaka…” He’s reduced you to pitiful whining, and you’re sure he’s just eating it up. 

“So, my darling isn’t impressed with rare handbags, but she does like expensive jewels…” 

“That’s not fair.” 

“No?” He strums at your slit again with his thumb, and you tilt your hips desperately, needing his touch. “I’d say the proof is in the–” 

“If you say pussy I will scream.” 

This wins you hearty laughter that warms your soul, even if he sounds like a Bond villain. “C’mon, bunny. Let me have my fun.”

“I think you’re having all the fun,” you grouse, winning you a pinch on the inside of your thigh that makes you squeal.    

“So you don’t like them then?” he taunts you, referring to the bounty of the sea strung round your neck. 

You hate to say it but…you love them. They’re heavy and luxurious and you’ve never owned anything so fine. 

“Can I see?” you ask with a shyness that betrays your approval. 

“It’s not enough that I think you look beautiful?” he taunts you. 

“Are you…taking me somewhere I can wear them?” you dare ask. 

“There it is, my clever girl.” 

You're sure your relief is written plain as day for him to see, your body relaxing on top of the counterpane. “Where?”

“You’ll see.”

“When?”

“You’ll see.” He nips at your thigh, and even though it hurts you giggle with delight, the promise of some modicum of freedom in the future.

“Oh, now someone's happy.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was worth an hour of my time at Harry Winston today.”

You know what that means, if only because your step mother used to lament that your father couldn’t afford to shop there for her.

“Oh my god. Donaka…you didn't have to do that.”

“This again. Just admit that you like them.” 

“They’re not the point.” 

“Yes they are,” he insists hotly. “Or at least, part of it.”  Suddenly he is manhandling you off the bed. You yip with surprise, though he doesn’t let you fall, holding you steady with a strong arm about your bare waist. His long body is firm and unyielding behind yours, his obvious hard-on pressing into your back; the smooth fabric of the suit against your bare skin is an interesting contrast. 

His voice rumbles low in your ear with warning as he tells you, “No more pretending you don’t enjoy luxury. You and I both know you’re no saint.” He tears off the blindfold, catching some of your hair with it, making you wince. The pain is forgotten, however, when you see he’s positioned you in front of the full length mirror. 

You almost don't recognize yourself like this, draped in lustrous black Tahitian pearls like a  goddess of the sea, the ominous shadow of your dark consort towering behind you. You stare for a long time in silence, not just at yourself, but the whole picture. Enough time goes by that eventually he gives a sardonic chuckle; you feel the mockery of it in your bones. “I knew there was a streak of vanity in you,” he says low in your ear, kissing your cheek.

Is he right? Are you just as pathetic and crass as your gold-digging mother or your social-climbing step mother?

You don't think so, because you are as fascinated by him as the pearls or yourself or this opulent house you live in with him. It’s everything that bewitches you–but he is the grand epicenter of it all. 

“Say thank you, bunny,” he prompts you, nipping at your jawline. “I’m feeling unappreciated.” 

After he left you alone for so long with no explanation, your annoyance flares in you like a flash in a pan. “Then maybe you should come home more often,” you fire back, winning a snarl of a smile. 

“As if you haven’t had plenty to keep you occupied, with your books and Mei and your new friend Tiger.” It’s so subtle that at first you think you imagined it; but no. That was jealousy in his tone. “And furthermore…” Your treacherous cunt throbs for the possessive hand upon your waist, trailing higher to caress a peaked nipple. “I think I want to hear you admit how much you enjoy living here in my beautiful house, my staff catering to your every whim.”

The truth is you still help the staff keep up with this massive house. You even cooked dinner with Mrs. Wong the other night. Or rather, she yelled at you, while teaching you how to make Donaka’s favourite wonton soup. You going to take care that man? You better learn. I not be around forever. 

He hadn’t even come home to eat it, the ingrate. 

“I enjoy it a lot more when you’re actually here.” 

“Oh? I thought you wanted to leave so badly?”

“With you!”

He only growls in answer to this, sucking sharply at your neck, both hands trailing up to cup your breasts. He pinches your nipples in punishment, making you squirm. He will not let you slip away though, his arm squeezing you like a band of iron. You can never best him like this, with force against force. You have to re-direct, and maybe your new lessons are useful after all. 

“Fine,” you surrender, reaching back to encircle his neck in your arms, leaning back against his solid form. 

“Fine?” 

“You want me to admit it? I am greedy. I do like the house and the cars and the things. But only when you're in the picture, Donaka. When you leave I hate it all.” He meets your eyes in the mirror then with the black eyes of a shark cruising the reef for a kill, and you don’t know where you get the courage to demand further, “Where were you?” 

“That’s my business.” 

“Do you have another mistress?” 

He snorts at you like you’ve said something incredibly stupid, and you practically sag with relief in his arms, believing his tell before he even says a word. 

“No.” 

“Then where did you go?”

He pays you a long, considering look in the mirror, weighing you with that unnerving stare that you know misses so little. “If you're good tomorrow night, and don't embarrass me, maybe I’ll show you.”

You practically quiver with excitement at hearing this, and you know you're damned. You think you would follow this man anywhere, just to unlock one more small part of his mystery. 

“Did I embarrass you at lunch?”

“No, but you look at everything with such wide-eyed fucking wonder. It’s adorable between us, but my crowd will eat you alive.” 

Really, all they’ll do is talk behind your back. 

You know this game from listening to your half-sisters gnash their teeth over their perceived victories and slights at school, who was the best dressed, who said what about whom, and you suppose it only amplifies later in life with the uber rich who have nothing better to do than spend money and gossip about each other. 

The elation you were feeling starts to evaporate as you mull over this, and he sees it written across your face. “Re-thinking leaving the house, bunny?” 

Maybe. 

Resting Bitch Face definitely isn’t your forte, and hobnobbing isn’t your idea of a good time either. 

“Are these people your friends?” 

Again, he huffs like you’ve said something cute, squeezing you in his arms. “They’re either clients, prospective clients, or rivals, sweetheart. That’s the truth of my world.”

“What about enemies?” 

“Mmm, those are the most fun.” He starts kissing your neck again, and as you go weak in the knees you wonder where the hell he’s taking you.  

“Donaka?” you sigh, melting under his mouth and his insistent hands. 

“What, bunny?” 

“Are we friends?” 

He seems amused by this, a new wicked sparkle entering his jet black eyes. “Depends, y/n. What is a friend?” 

Well, that is the million dollar question, isn’t it? So simple, yet complex. And you have to admit that thinking about it isn’t exactly coming easily, while his hand is on your breast and his other seeks your molten center. You can’t stop yourself from arching back against him, practically hanging from his neck while you pant, “Someone…you like to spend time with? Someone you like to talk to?” 

“Hmm…” He seems to think about this while orchestrating your undoing, circling your clit with his middle finger, and you’re heartened that he doesn’t immediately fob you off with the answer he thinks you want. “Then I suppose you’re my best friend, y/n. Who I very much like to fuck.” 

He slants his mouth over yours then, allowing no more opportunity for talking as he devours you whole, but your silly little heart soars.  

You’re nearly at the apex of your pleasure when suddenly his fingers between your legs go still– the jarring disappointment tears a whine from your lips that only seems to delight him. You sense that he is looking at you in the mirror again, and it takes effort to force your eyes open to meet his gaze. His pupils are blown wide and black as polished onyx; your darling really does like to watch.

“Do you promise to be a good girl for me tomorrow?” he asks low in your ear.

Perhaps there is some petulance in your tone when you answer, “Believe it or not, I can behave in public.”

“Hmm. Remains to be seen, bunny. You know I have a certain image to uphold?”

“I don't think…I can pull off aloof and scary the way you do.”

He gives no correction to this, only a dark chuckle. “I don't need you to be scary, bunny. Just poised. Can you do that for me?”

You look upon the waterfall of jewels cascading from your neck, and you don't know why you were so slow to grasp what’s really going on, but it finally dawns on you. He wants you to be a silent mannequin, an object from which to display the coveted display of his wealth. You really are following in your step- mother’s footsteps. “You mean you want me to be pretty, and quiet.”

He hears the acute disappointment in your tone, your earlier elation deflating like a balloon. Why does that affect him like it never has with any other mistress? You are maddening, and he has half a mind to sink his teeth in your shoulder to punish you for it. His eyes bore into yours, twin black holes that threaten to swallow you whole.

“You don't have to be quiet. But if you embarrass me with one of your cheeky quips to the wrong person you can be damn sure you'll regret it later. Understood?”

“Yes.” 

“Yes, what?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Mmm.” He strums at your clit again in reward, and once more your body is tensed in anticipation, your eyes sliding closed. “Ah ah, look at me, bunny. I want you to watch. I want you to look at yourself.”

 “I can't…” you protest, arching back against him as he finds that perfect spot once more, your knees trembling beneath you. 

 “Then you're not going to cum tonight.”

 You believe him too, and it feels like some Herculean feat to force open your pleasure-heavy lids. Trapped in a lustful daze, you are annoyed by his seemingly impossible demands. And yet the electricity in meeting his gaze while he pleasures you is something unexpectedly heady; the hunger in his eyes could swallow the world, and it’s all for you. There's something powerfully intoxicating in that; he reads the exact moment this shifts in you, a slow tear of a smile pulling at his lips.

 “That’s right, bunny. You're beautiful, and these expensive trappings become you. I’m enjoying it. You should too.” 

“You don’t have…to buy me expensive things…to please me…you know.”

 Even while he has you literally on the edge between paradise and sanity, you can’t help but argue with him. Maybe he does have cause to be alarmed to bring you into public.

 “This is my world. If you want to be a part of it with me, then get used to it. No more protests. You already admitted you like them. Are you afraid it makes you a bad person?” You hear the amusement in his voice, and you hate yourself a little more. Yet underneath it all, there's an edge of something else. Nothing is ever as it seems with this man. 

“Yes,” you pant, so strung out yet knowing that if you want your ends, you have to play his game. 

You can tell he’s enjoying himself, even as he’s exasperated with you. His eyes shine, dark and lustrous as the pearls around your neck. But no precious stone could ever hold such depth of knowledge and forbidden temptation therein. You never felt so much solidarity with Eve facing down the serpent as in that moment. 

“Maybe you're not a good person, y/n. Have you considered that?”

“Why does everything have to be such a mind fuck with you?” 

His grin is nothing less than a baring of teeth, and he walks you forward to bend you over the bed, making sure you can still see yourself in the mirror. 

“What's wrong, y/n, is this juicy little pussy jealous?” 

You have to admit, even if you won't say it aloud, that you're relieved when you hear the descent of his fly, and soon feel the soft kiss of his broad tip at your entrance. You betray your eagerness as you cant your hips towards him, craving the stretch of his cock filling you. You don't even care that he laughs at you, delighting in your need. Your moan as he buries himself inside you is beyond incriminating.

“Greedy girl.” He swats your backside with his big hand, you suspect just for the sound of it, the pearls clacking around your neck as they pool on the silk sheets beneath you.

You watch him in the mirror, unable to tear your eyes from his magnificent form, and you think he's on to something with his penchant for voyeurism. 

“Avarice for my cock. Lust. Vanity. It's not looking good for you,” he teases darkly, barely brushing your clit with his fingertips.

“That doesn't make me a bad person,” you snarl beneath him, frustrated and bewildered by all this. A gift can never just be a gift from this man. An outing cannot just be for fun. There are always layers upon layers, and you are dizzy from it all. 

“Oh, add wrath to the list too. It’s nothing personal. No one is truly good. Not really. Some people are just a little less terrible than others, and if you ask me, anyone who insists they are good are just fat, fucking, hypocrites.” 

“What an uplifting view of humanity.” Are you really having this debate right now? 

“I'm a realist. I watch all the naughty things people do when they think no one’s looking for a living,” he insists, holding your hips as he drives himself inside you to the hilt. You shudder as he leans over your body, his lips to your ear again. “And I'm trying to set you free to enjoy this adventure with me without over analyzing every little moment of it. Do you have to fight me at every turn?”

It’s impressive, how quick he is to pivot in his methods of manipulating you. You told him once that you didn't really care for ostentatious wealth, despite your obvious fascination with him. Expensive things are not quite enough to tempt you, but to have his company? You must accept them all. This will become clear later, as you're looking back with bewilderment on the night’s events, but your brain is not functioning well enough to totally piece it together now. There’s just a fuzzy outline, a suggestion of what he’s doing to you, and you don’t know what to say back to him that won’t sound stupid or childish. 

You hate it that tears of frustration fill your eyes, and you hide your face by glaring down at the bed.

“I don't want to fight you,” you whimper with your face in the sheets, finally worn down by this man’s exhaustive games. All you really want is him, but he talks circles around you until you’re unsure of everything. 

All I want is you.

It’s stupid, but true, If you say it aloud you fear he’ll take everything. Because he is not a good man. You know that in your bones; and maybe you always have, but you want him anyway. What does that make you?

He goes still above you, caressing the curve of your spine, and you shudder like a nervous filly beneath the warmth of his hand. He's gentle with you now, almost as though to soothe you through the shock of your disillusionment. “It’s alright, y/n,” he purrs. “I've seen you all along.”

You're afraid he's telling the truth about that. Maybe he’s always known the weave and weft of you, and how it all ties together in the binding of your heart and soul. You are no great mystery, and he was certainly right when he said you’re no saint. 

What does it say about you, that a man like him wants you so much? You don't know, and you're definitely not going to suss it out now. You are tired, and half crazy with lust and unsure if the rest of what you feel is actually love, or just a stubborn craving for his approval. 

You feel him undressing behind you, divesting his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt leisurely while still warming his cock inside you. You wait with a new sense of patience, feeling strangely disconnected from yourself, almost meditative as you kowtow with your head bowed.

With a hand tangled in your hair he pulls you upright on your knees, his arm about your waist supporting you. The press of his bare torso engulfing you from behind is a splendid thing; you can't help but sigh for the solid wall of warmth behind you, and for the umpteenth time you know you are utterly lost to this man. 

He stares you down in the mirror, those black holes for eyes boring into your very soul. He lets you get away with closing your lids this time, allowing you to retreat into yourself as his possessive touch slides up your torso, beneath the pearls to press over your thundering heart, then higher to your throat, your pulse beating like a trapped butterfly against his fingertips. “Don’t cry, bunny,” he consoles you, his tone deceptively gentle as he kisses a tear away, savoring the taste of your mourning for the death of something you’d clung so dearly to. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’ve got you?” 

Despite how many times this man has already taken what he wants from you, somehow this is the moment it really, truly sinks in. You will remember the turning point of this night until the day you die, as though something inside you stretched and finally snapped like a rotten rubber band. He reads this shift in you as surely as writing on a sign, the tilt of your head on his shoulder and the submission of your body in his arms, as though your very bones have finally wilted in surrender to him. 

He doesn't make you say anything more, revelling in his victory as his lips claim yours, and his arms wrap around your body possessively, holding you hard as he pistons his cock inside you. With an all too knowing curl of long fingers between your legs he sets you free, and you cum on his dick with a moan that is tellingly close to a sob. He swallows it all with his mouth over yours, shuddering as he spends inside you with a triumphant growl.

When you collapse at the foot of the bed, too wrung out body and soul for anything more, you feel the whisper of dextrous fingers at your neck relieving you of your precious neckwear. He goes off to the closet, presumably stashing them for safe keeping. Then you are surprised when he spoons his long body behind yours, indulging in a post-coital cat nap with his freshly-conquered prize caged in his arms. 

When you wake later the room is dark, and Donaka is gone. You can’t decide if you are disappointed or relieved, and you are still confused about it by the time you shower and crawl back under the sheets. 

TBC...

- You've tried explaining that you're changing careers soon politely to one of your regulars, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Sure, he tips really well, in the VIP room. And maybe you've looked at his big hands and strong body with more than strictly platonic admiration. (He obviously does something besides sit behind a desk all day). But when he tells you that you were meant for more, and that he would take such good care of you, while you’re dancing up on his solid and bespoke-suited form, you tell him sweetly you like taking care of yourself. 

He smirks at you with those flashing dark eyes while you writhe in his lap, and he's so handsome but there is something about this man that scares you. Some deep dark instinct, left over from a time when we lived in caves and the things that went bump in the night could devour us whole…that's what you feel, when Donaka Mark looks at you. 

You’ve devised a million ways to flirtatiously tell a man no, but you have no idea that you drive one more nail into your coffin, every time you refuse him. This is a strip club, after all, not a brothel. You’re peddling desire here, not gratification. He seems to take it like a gentleman, but deep down? That man is plotting. 

-So needless to say, you're a little bit fucking taken aback, when you're strong armed into the boss’s office your next shift, and accused of stealing 10 thousand dollars. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I've got you on video, y/n.”

“Bullshit!”

“I’ll prove it.”

Hank shows you the video on his computer screen, and goddamn if it doesn't look like you helping yourself to stacks of cash out of the safe. It’s gotta be a fake…but it’s a damn good one. For crucial moments you are speechless.

“Just give it back y/n. No harm, no foul.”

You’re all sweetness and flirtation while you work, but there is something small and savage in you that seethes beneath your surface, and it rears its head now. 

“I don't have 10 fucking grand. I didn't fucking steal it!”

“Sure, bitch.”

His flunky emphasizes the epithet by cocking the hammer of a .357. A sensible firearm that can none the less make a big hole in a person. You do not like the look of it at all. You've always known, sure, that despite how high-end this club is, your boss was into some shady shit. Name a strip-joint owner who wasn’t? But…would he actually kill you? 

You're starting to believe that he might. 

You try to run, but you trip over your fucking heels. Donnie, the piece of shit bouncer who’s always barging into the dressing room and gets too fucking handsy with you girls, catches you and roughs you up. 

“Not the face!” screams your boss. “I gotta get my money back!”

-You're handcuffed in the office with a throbbing fucking headache when he walks in. Donaka Mark. Looking like a million bucks in one of his silk suits, all broad shoulders and big dick energy. Something softens in you, when he looks at the damage you've taken with a frown. “What did you do to her?”

“Had to remind her of her place,” answers Donnie.

Donaka meets your eyes for a bare second before punching Donnie out cold. He falls like a tree to the floor, and shaking his hand, Donaka demands, “Get those things off her. You're damaging my property.”

With a nod from your boss one of the other bouncers scrambles to comply.

-Looking back, you can’t believe how you just let him do it. You let him bundle you outside with his suit jacket around your shoulders, his arm a steadying brace around your waist. You let him guide you into the passenger’s seat of his pretty blue Bugatti. Sure, maybe you were in a daze from the pain, and you were pretty fucking scared. But it didn’t even occur to you to question it, until he had you safely ensconced in his penthouse apartment downtown, looking over the whole city from the top of the world.

-“I didn’t do it.”

“The surveillance footage says otherwise.”

“You think I'm a thief?”

“I think people do desperate things when they think they’re owed.”

He sits there in his living room in his nice suit like this is a normal business meeting, looking at you with a strangely neutral expression, save his eyes. His eyes are the shiny jet black orbs of a shark circling the reef, just waiting for his chance. 

You're afraid you already know the answer, but you ask anyway. “What's going on here, Mr. Mark?”

“I purchased your debt, y/n. With some interest.”

“So…now I owe you ten grand I didn't steal.”

Finally, those full lips curl in a cruel smile. 

“Now you're getting it.”

“This is nuts. This is not how the world works. If he thinks I stole from him then he can have me arrested, and I get my day in court!”

Donaka’s smirk only widens. 

“You have money for a lawyer then?”

You deflate in your chair. 

“No.”

“That, my dear, is how the real world works.”

You sit there under the searing heat of his hungry gaze, and you're afraid he's absolutely right. 

-He doesn't pounce on you immediately. Looking back…now you know it's because he loves to toy with his prey. The anticipation in the hunt is just as important as the kill. The details of a good manipulation orchestrated in perfect order are this man’s idea of foreplay. 

He gives you some time to settle in. Not in the penthouse, that's his lair, but the apartment below it. Still…you never dreamed you could have such a view. He lets you adjust to your new surroundings. Lets you heal and pamper yourself with the huge tub and the expensive toiletries and the gourmet snacks in the pantry. Lets you go through the closet of the luxurious clothing he’s selected, running your hands lovingly over the fine fabrics, and the box of jewels on the vanity you think must be fake until you look closely at the hallmarks. 

He takes you to dinner, and talks to you like a human being, and not like you’re just a combination of curves and angles of flesh that he finds appealing.  

The first time he kisses you, with his big hand wrapped around the delicate column of your throat, your world shifts. 

Yes, he’s a bad man, somehow both your savior and your jailer. But in a way…this relationship is one of the more honest ones you’ve had with a member of the opposite sex. There’s no subterfuge, or so you think. The expectations and compensations are laid out with the precision of a business arrangement. For exactly one year, you’ll belong to him, and all debts will be forgiven. 

And most damningly of all, here in the real world, outside the club’s carnival lights and atmosphere of glitter-salved flesh for sale…you find you are wildly attracted to him.

-When you ask him what he does for a living and he tells you, Security, you take that to mean arranging capable men and women to bodyguard for the rich and famous. The Secret Service for hire. It doesn’t occur to you yet that he might have actually built his empire on surveillance, or that he heavily invested in the nefarious technology that can be used to create deep fake videos with anyone’s likeness…

All you know is that he's going to let you finish your degree. He's going to pay off the remainder of your student loans. He'll even pay for grad school, if you’re so inclined. The noose tightens with every temptation he offers you. He’ll open up the world for you–so long as you give him everything that he wants. 

He’s not an unreasonable man, he tells you in that silky tone that must charm clients and board rooms alike. All he asks is that you play his perfect little pet. If he texts you at three in the morning to come upstairs and suck his cock, you do it. If he wants you to kneel naked by his bedside for an hour while he gnashes his teeth over a report he doesn’t like so he can stare at your ass…you do it. And if he tells you that you can't cum for days on end while he teases you with his fingers and his tongue and a diabolical cellularly connected toy while he’s away at the office…you don’t.

-You got a little too comfortable once, lounging beside his private pool in his lap. You hadn’t seen him for over a week, he’d been gone on business, and you found yourself feeling surprisingly needy for a relationship that’s supposed to be all business. He barely had to guide you with his hand on the back of your head down his body, you’d so missed the taste of him. Buried balls deep in the back of your throat, he has the nerve to answer a phone call on that bluetooth earpiece you’ve kind of developed a complex over. And maybe it was the martini you had after dinner that fueled your temper, and definitely not the fact that you’ve started to catch feelings for this man. Maybe…you were just temporarily insane, when you sat up in his lap and plucked the earpiece off of him, throwing it behind you into the pool. 

There is a savage glee in the tear of a smile he pays you, two seconds before he has you flipped over his legs and his big hand makes contact with your backside. You jump from the sting of it, struggling to get away, but he pins you easily. You can’t say you forget how strong he is–but somehow, sometimes, it still surprises you. “That was a very important call from China, sweetheart,” he seethes. “You just hung up on the Minister of Finance of the PRC.”

He spanks you again, the sting hot and sharp on your backside, and for a few suicidal moments you sorely consider sinking your teeth into the muscle-strapped flesh of his thigh. “I haven't seen you in a week!” you whine. 

His fingertips ghost over the place he just struck, strangely soothing, gooseflesh erupting across your skin. “You missed me?”

You hate how pathetic You know you sound, when you whimper, “Yes.”

“Hmm.” He continues to pet you, and you dare to hope it's his version of an apology. You know better than to hope he'd utter the actual words aloud. However, when he tells you, “You seem to have forgotten your manners while I was gone,” in that certain tone of voice, you know you're still in for it. It's further confirmed when he stands with you in his arms, stalking back into the bedroom with you. 

You guess it’s something, that he doesn't drop you onto the floor. Just the bed, and with a gimlet stare that dares you to fuck around and find out, he orders you to stay there, or else. Only the flash of a smirk as he slams the door behind him indicates that maybe he's enjoying this. 

Well, you're not, and you curl up at the foot of his gargantuan bed feeling sorry for yourself. It's possible that there are tears stinging the corners of your eyes, but you don't let them fall. It feels like hours pass, before he returns to you. You haven't moved from the position he left you in. You do not say a word, as he approaches, nor as he stands with his arms folded, looking down at you. 

“That was a naughty thing you did.”

“Are you going to hit me again?” you grouse into the bedspread, though hardly loud enough to be considered brave.

You hate it, how his dark chuckle warms something inside you. 

“That wasn’t hitting,” he assures you, though the tender flesh of your backside disagrees. “But I think…you've earned yourself a special little treat, with that stunt of yours.” He caresses you from the curve of your spine to the seam of your derriere, winning an involuntary shudder that you 1000 percent wish you could take back. 

That's how you find yourself, little by little, tied up in knots with red silk rope until you can barely move a fucking muscle. “You like this, baby girl?” your paramour purrs, running his hands over the rows of knots.

“Not really,” you sigh, your head down, your ass in the air with your legs spread. You're not entirely sure you're telling the truth–and by the dark way he chuckles at you, you know that he's not either. As though to further make a fool of you, he tests your hole with two fingers, finding your treacherous liar of a cunt soaked.

“Hmm.” He follows with his mouth, and the sound you make declares you a liar indeed. The ropes somehow both constrain you and support you, as you endure the exquisite torture of his tongue on your clit. He stops just as things start to get interesting, the way you already knew he would. It doesn't stop you from crying out with protest, even if the tinniest whine.

“Changing your mind, naughty girl?” he taunts you, standing to bracket your hips with his hands. 

“No.” 

He actually laughs at this, seemingly delighted. “There's the defiant little firebrand that caught my eye at the club. I wondered where you went.”

This gives you a moment of pause, but you don’t get much time to think about it.

He kisses your entrance with his blunt tip, teasing your saliva slicked folds before just hovering there, taunting you with the promise of that thick cock you've come to crave. You might have angled your ass even higher in offering, if you could fucking move. “You want this, sweet girl?”

The sound you make is closer to a growl than actual language.

“What was that?”

“Yes,” you answer begrudgingly into the mattress. 

“Then what do you say?”

“You've got to be kidding me.”

“Go on, pet. I can wait all night like this.”

The scary thing is…you believe him. And you know if he leaves you tied up like this all night you will lose your fucking mind.

“I’m sorry,” you say into the bedspread, your voice muffled. 

“I can’t hear you.” 

You feel him tense as though to walk away, and maybe you do panic. “I’m sorry!” 

“That’s better.” His fingertips trace the knots down your spine. “Are you going to interrupt me while I’m working again?” 

Oh, the litany of replies that run through your head. Then maybe don’t take a call while I have your cock in my mouth, asshole, only one of them. You’re smart enough not to say any of them aloud. 

“No.”

“Good girl.” You’re not proud of the moan of relief that escapes you, as he eases himself inside you, stretching your body deliciously from the inside all the way to the hilt. Your thighs quiver, your eager cunt clenching upon his thick shaft in equal parts protest and eagerness. He’s so large it’s as though you can feel him in your lungs, your capacity for breath annihilated by the space he claims inside your body. Slowly he starts to move, and you become a drooling mess of trussed flesh and pure want beneath him, grateful there are no neighbors to disturb with your wanton cries. 

“This is supposed to be a punishment,” he taunts you, his voice thick in the back of his throat, and you take some solace in the fact that he’s as affected as you are.  

“Consider me…chastised,” you pant breathlessly in response, winning gravely laughter and a light swat upon your behind. 

“Cheeky girl.” 

You’re very aware of the fact that he could hurt you like this, spread wide open for his pleasure and secured in place without a defense left to your name. Yet he relishes slowly fucking your tight hole instead, teasing your clit with the slap of his balls and the light touch of his fingers, moaning with you as his swollen tip pops free of your greedy cunt and plunges inside you all over again. 

“Do you think you deserve to cum, my little brat?” he taunts you, and suddenly you’re so certain you’re doomed. 

“No,” you sob into the cover, on the edge of despair and driven half mad by the exquisite feeling of him inside you. He’s going to string you along for days, the way he likes to when he’s in a particularly evil mood. Oh, you just know it. 

“That’s right.” He swats you again, making you clench and squirm. It tears a moan from deep in his chest you don’t think he meant to let slip. Yet you double down upon him with the strength of your walls, resigned to your doom and determined to at least make it up to him. (He has fucked your mind just as thoroughly as he fucks your body.) 

You strain against your bonds with surprise when he reaches between your legs, and there are real tears of gratitude in your eyes when he circles your clit with his finger, slowing his stroke inside you to hit the place he knows will send you to pieces. “But maybe I’m feeling generous because you cry so prettily for me,” he taunts you. “Cum with me now, or not at all.” 

You know it’s no empty threat on his end, and you strain and reach with every muscle you possess to obey him as he moves inside you. You sob and moan as the sweet release takes you, that liquid gold pleasure that curls through your loins and radiates down your spine made twice as wonderful by his shuddering thrusts and his hips locking against yours, filling you with the luscious warm rush of his seed. You quiver and twitch as you come down, his huge body draping over yours. 

His teeth grazing your shoulder wins him a defeated cry; you are resigned in that moment that every cell in your body belongs to him, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. 

-Something shifts between you, after that night. Maybe before the perfectionist in you strove to please him exactly to his direction, but you learn that acting out once in a while gives you both something you crave. You learn a lot about Donaka Mark over the course of the year. Not about his business, or his past, but about what makes that man tick. He’s tough as nails and hard as granite, but somehow also he’s generous to no end. There’s always an element of manipulation to it, but sometimes, you’re just stupid enough to believe the softness for you in his gaze is real, when he slides a velvet jewelry box across the table to you at dinner, or when he wrecks you for the umpteenth time while watching you in the mirror. 

-Maybe you never really catch on to how big of a voyeur this man is. You never realize that he’s watching you anytime he wants via the feed of several micro-cameras he has placed around your apartment. You certainly never suss out the source of that damning video that sent you running into his arms. Maybe you would have been more suspicious about it, if you had not settled into such a state of contentment with him. You’re smart enough after the Earpiece Incident not to call it love, but you’re sad, when you think that sometime soon this wondrous thing will come to an end. 

And yet a part of you is relieved–you feel pieces of yourself slipping into his possession with every passing night, and you know that if you allow it to go on then someday, you will have nothing left. It’s good that there’s a cap on it, you reason. It makes your time with him more intense, and more precious, as the year draws to a close.