Chapter 4: Fire & Chains

POV: Serena

Lightning slashed across the sky like a divine punishment, splitting the heavens open and spilling silver veins of light through the suite’s towering windows. The rain pounded against the glass, a relentless rhythm echoing through the walls like a warning drum. In that flash of white fire, everything sharpened—every shadow, every breath, and most of all, him.

Adrian De Luca stood there, soaked to the bone, rain trailing down his sculpted chest as his shirt clung to every hard line of muscle. He looked like he had walked straight out of the storm and into my room, bringing with him the weight of the night and the fury of everything he represented. And in that moment, as his eyes locked onto mine, I realized I was utterly, devastatingly naked.

The air between us snapped taut, heavy with everything unspoken. My heart slammed against my ribcage in a frantic rhythm that bordered on pain, while thunder cracked behind him like a beast clearing its throat. The windows trembled in their frames, but I didn’t run. I didn’t reach for the robe that had fallen. I didn’t scream, or cover myself, or pretend that I wasn’t on the brink of something that felt like annihilation.

Because the only thing more terrifying than what Adrian might do to me… was how much I wanted him to.

He didn’t leer. He didn’t smile. His gaze was unflinching, his expression unreadable, but there was something sacred in the way he looked at me, something holy in the heat behind his eyes—like possession wasn’t just a want, but a right.

“I won’t force you,” he said at last, his voice a low murmur that barely rose above the storm crashing against the windows. “But don’t confuse that with escape.”

I couldn’t breathe. Every inhalation was a blade, every exhale a surrender. My pulse roared in my ears, a drumbeat of conflict and inevitability.

“This thing between us…” he continued, stepping forward with the slow certainty of a man who already owned the outcome, “it’s happening. Whether or not your pride permits it.”

“I hate you,” I whispered, the words brittle, aching, far too honest.

Something flickered across his lips—not quite a smirk, not quite a sneer. Darker. Deeper. “Good,” he said. “It’ll make you come harder.”

He circled me, slow and deliberate, like a predator savoring the weight of the moment before the kill. And still, I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My skin burned under his gaze, nipples peaked from more than the cold, and my thighs tightened as if clenching shut could hide anything from him now.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, his voice as soft as silk dragged over a fresh wound. “But it’s not from fear, and we both know it isn’t from the cold. Your body’s already made its choice.”

“Shut up,” I said, my voice trembling, my fists clenched at my sides.

But I didn’t step away.

He moved behind me, a quiet shadow of dominance and danger, the heat of his presence coiling up my spine. “You want to scream, but your body’s louder than your mouth.”

His breath fanned over my ear, warm and maddening. The scent of him—wet leather, smoke, something masculine and illicit—wrapped around me like an invisible chain.

“I could bend you over that bed right now,” he whispered, slow and cruel. “Tie your wrists behind your back with my belt. Press your face into the sheets and fuck you until you forget your name.”

“Stop,” I breathed, the plea caught between shame and need.

He moved back into view, his expression unreadable, but his eyes... his eyes were fire.

“I told you I wouldn’t touch you unless you asked,” he said, his voice razor-sharp in its calm. “And I won’t.”

“I’ll never ask you for anything,” I spat.

“But you will.” He reached for the button of his pants, undoing it with agonizing slowness. “You will when your pride finally breaks.”

The fabric dropped. No underwear. Nothing between him and me but the breathless space of want and war.

He was massive. Thick. Veined. Erect and pulsing with restrained violence.

“I don’t want a trophy,” he said, stepping forward. “I want the part of you no one else has dared to touch. I want what you hide even from yourself.”

He reached down and picked up the black silk sash from the floor—the same one that had once bound my robe. Now it felt like a sentence.

“Turn around,” he ordered.

“No,” I whispered, but it lacked force. My body was betraying me with every tremble, every clench, every pulse of heat between my thighs.

He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t threaten. Just let his eyes darken like the sky behind him.

“Say it again.”

“No,” I repeated, stronger this time—but still not strong enough. My legs were already quivering, my breath shallow, and my body humming with tension that had nowhere to go.

Something deep inside me cracked. Not from fear, but from a want that scared me more than anything else ever had.

Then he said it. Quiet. Absolute.

“I see you.”

Three words. And I shattered.

No one ever had. Not like that.

I turned.

Slow. Reluctant. But I turned.

He stepped behind me with the silence of a man who didn’t need noise to command obedience. The sash slipped around my wrists, his fingers brushing my skin with reverence, not greed.

“Say stop,” he murmured in my ear, “and I will. But if you don’t…”

He kissed my shoulder, soft and sinful.

“…then you’re mine until I decide otherwise.”

I said nothing.

Silence became my consent.

He bent me over the bed, my breasts pressing against the cold sheets, my bound hands stretched behind me, powerless but willingly so. My breath misted the mattress.

And then I felt him.

One hand on my back, steady and possessive. The other slid between my legs.

I gasped.

I was shamelessly wet and soaked.

“Dripping,” he whispered, a dark prayer. “And I haven’t even started.”

He teased me with the edge of his fingers, circling my entrance without giving me the satisfaction of entry. My whole body strained, desperate for something I hadn’t asked for but couldn’t deny.

“You want it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Liar.”

He grabbed my chin, yanked my face toward him, his grip a brand of dominance and punishment.

“I want you to remember this,” he growled, eyes wild. “Every time you pretend you’re above me. Every time you hide behind your crown of logic.”

He lined himself up.

And then he slammed into me with a single, devastating thrust.

I screamed, not in pain or belief. But I'm indeed of everything I had tried to bury.

It detonated through me like a supernova. My orgasm hit too fast, too hard, my back arching as the silk cut into my wrists. But he didn’t stop. He kept pounding into me like he was rewriting the story of my body, undoing every page that came before him.

He rode me like a storm, hands on my hips, the sash pulled tight in his fist. My moans turned to sobs, to curses, to gasps of something too raw to name.

“You were made for this,” he groaned. “You were made to be wrecked.”

And he did.

He broke me open, again and again, until my legs gave out and I collapsed beneath him, shaking and ruined.

Still, he didn’t stop.

One hand slid to my clit, rubbing ruthless circles until another climax exploded through me, my body convulsing around him.

He kept going until he couldn’t.

Until he roared my name and came inside me, hot and endless.

Then silence.

He untied my wrists gently.

I crumpled onto the sheets, trembling, bruised, and slick with him. His seed dripped between my thighs. My lungs were empty. My rage wasn’t.

Fury flared hot and sharp.

At him, myself, and how badly I had needed everything he gave me.

They escorted me down a hall so silent it felt stolen. They called it my wing. My prison in disguise. Gilded. Curated. Built with lies.

Behind every locked door was an illusion of control.

But I saw it clearly.

Control had already been taken.

I stood in front of a mirror I didn’t recognize. Because I no longer recognized myself. I was dressed in silk and rage, in bruises and memory, in his scent.

The girl I had been was dead.

I punched the mirror, and it shattered.

Blood bloomed across my palm like a vow.

Let him watch.

Let him see the chaos he made.

And when I saw the camera—the tiny red dot blinking from the crown molding—I didn’t flinch.

I walked toward it, naked, marked and alive.

“You want a show, Devil?” I whispered.

Then I dragged my fingers down my lower stomach, slowly and soundly.

Between my thighs.

“Then burn with me.”