All Chapters of Flesh And Fire: A short story Collection : Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

Time slowed.Aria didn’t know how long she’d been kneeling. It could have been minutes. Hours. Her thighs were burning. Her back ached from holding still. Her mouth was dry and her skin was flushed all over, burning with want, with exposure, with shame so sweet it bordered on pleasure.But she didn’t move.Not when her knees began to sting.Not when her muscles twitched involuntarily.Not even when she thought she might cry.He just sat there. Watching her. Silent. Sipping his whisky like this was nothing more than a game of chess. She couldn’t read him. Couldn’t even begin to guess what he was thinking.All she knew was that she wanted to please him more than she wanted relief.Then finally—finally—he moved.He stood slowly, setting his glass aside, and walked toward her with measured steps. His shoes stopped just in front of her knees. She didn’t look up until she felt his hand under her chin, tilting her face to his.Her eyes were glassy. She could feel the tears building behind th

The next time Aria returned to The Velvet Room, she wasn’t sure why she was there.Cole hadn’t summoned her. Hadn’t left a note, a text, a whisper through staff. And yet… she came anyway.She wore red this time. Tight, elegant. Still no panties. Her body still ached from their last session, but more than that, it remembered him. The weight of his hands. His mouth. His voice.She didn’t know if she wanted more of it, or if she simply didn’t know where else to go.But when she entered the lounge, he wasn’t there.Instead, she was greeted by a soft-spoken woman in a gold corset. Not a handler—something else. She approached quietly, and offered Aria a warm, knowing smile.“Cole isn’t seeing anyone tonight.”Aria’s stomach sank before she could stop herself.“Oh.”“But there’s someone else. He… asked about you.”That surprised her.“Who?”The woman tilted her head toward a booth in the corner. “He’s quiet... A little different, but safe.”Aria hesitated. Then followed her gaze.He sat alon

Cole had been watching from the balcony.One floor above, behind smoked glass, he stood in his usual tailored black, a tumbler of bourbon forgotten in his hand. The club throbbed with dim red light and soft moans below, shadows of bodies flickering across velvet walls. But his eyes never left her.Aria.Hair a little messy. Lips swollen. Walk uneven—subtle, but not to him. She was trying to be discreet, trying to mask the aftermath of a good fucking. That would’ve amused him… if it wasn’t someone else who had given it to her.His jaw clenched, the muscle twitching under the weight of restraint. He didn’t move, didn’t blink. Just watched her. Her fingertips trailed along the gold rail by the staircase. Her dress was different from earlier. Not her choice. Elias had likely brought it in for her.Of course it was Elias. Soft-spoken, painfully polite Elias, with his tender little commands and slow caresses. The kind of Dominant who whispered things like "Good girl" and meant it in a nurtu

Aria's POVShe shouldn’t have looked.But something...some pull she didn’t want to name... had drawn her gaze like a thread, taut and trembling, right to where he stood.Cole.Her breath hitched. His eyes were already on her. Watching her like he had never stopped. Like he knew what she had been doing. Who she'd been with. The shame came first. Then the heat. It bloomed under her skin and settled low in her belly.He didn’t move. Just stared.God, she hated that he had this effect on her.Elias had just left her with one last lingering kiss, his soft words still ringing in her ear, but it was Cole she felt. The weight of his presence. The sharpness of his attention. It was like walking into a flame she couldn’t see but could feel, licking at her skin with every step she took.Her fingers curled tightly around the hem of her coat. She could still feel Elias’s hands on her. Could still taste the wine, the honey-sweet afterglow of his touch.And yet Cole’s gaze was the one burning throug

Her face pressed against the sheets, her body trembling from the aftershocks of his possession, and still...still...Cole wasn’t done.Not even close.She felt it in the way he gripped her hips, still holding her in place. In the rasp of his breathing. In the silence stretching between them, hot and heavy and almost unbearable.“I can feel your heartbeat,” he murmured, his fingers dragging lazily down her spine. “It’s frantic. Are you afraid?”Aria tried to answer, but her throat was dry. Her lips moved without sound.His hand slid up to the nape of her neck, fingers wrapping around it... not choking, just holding. Anchoring. “Speak.”“…Yes,” she whispered.A satisfied noise rumbled from his chest. “Good.”Her pulse jumped.“Fear sharpens everything. You hear clearer. Feel deeper. And when you break?” He leaned in, lips brushing her temple, his voice a soft menace. “You’ll remember exactly who made you fall apart.”She bit her bottom lip, trying not to moan.He gripped her hair and tug