Untamed Desire - Part 2: The Wake

[JM****]

Untamed Desire - Part II: The Wake
She knows the moment he opens his eyes. Not because she’s watching him , not exactly , but because something tightens. Like a line pulled too far, finally snapping back into place.
He thinks he woke up alone. That’s the first mistake. She’s there in the quiet, not as a body but as a certainty. The kind that doesn’t need form to be felt. She lies half in memory, half in intent, stretched across the thin line where dreams bleed into waking life.
He doesn’t see her yet. Good. She prefers it this way. Men like him always think control is about ***. About hands. About pressure. They never notice the real leverage, timing, silence, restraint. Letting someone feel you before they can touch you.
He shifts in the bed. Breath uneven. That familiar tension crawling back under his skin. She smiles. Because he thinks the dream ended when he came. It didn’t. It ended when she decided to let him wake up.
All day, she watches him move through the world like a man slightly out of phase, a half-second behind his own thoughts. He pauses longer than necessary. His focus slips. His body reacts before his mind catches up.
He tells himself it’s residual. She calls it conditioning. That night, when the room finally goes dark again, she steps closer, not from across the room, but from inside the space he left open without realizing it. The quiet between heartbeats. The moment right before sleep steals his edges.
This time, she doesn’t announce herself. She lets him feel her weight on the mattress. Not pressing. Just there. His breath stutters. Good. “You came back,” he says into the dark, voice low, unsure if he’s speaking or thinking. She answers anyway. “Did I ever leave?”
He turns his head. She’s sitting beside him now, legs crossed, posture relaxed. Not inviting. Not distant. Composed. Eyes sharp enough to cut. “You don’t get to do this,” he says. “You don’t get to wreck my head and pretend it’s nothing.”
She leans forward just enough for him to smell her, familiar, dangerous, impossible to place. “I’m not pretending,” she says softly. “You are.” That lands.
She sees it in the way his jaw tightens, in the way his hand clenches the sheets like they’re an anchor. He wants to reach for her. He wants proof. She denies him both.
“You think this is about want,” she continues. “About hunger. About how hard you woke up.” Her fingers trail over his wrist, not gripping, not claiming, simply noting. “This,” she says, “is about permission.” He swallows. “Whose?” She smiles again. Slow. Deliberate. “Mine.”
The room feels heavier now. The air thick, charged, like the second before a storm breaks. He doesn’t know if he’s awake anymore. He doesn’t ask. Smart man.
She rises, circles the bed, always just out of reach. He tracks her with his eyes, muscles coiled, instincts screaming for something solid. “You didn’t imagine me,” she says. “But you didn’t create me either.” She stops at the foot of the bed. “You invited me.”
He sits up now, pulse loud in his ears. “Then why won’t you stay?” She tilts her head. Studies him. Not his body, his control. The cracks forming in it. “Because,” she says quietly, “if I stay too long, you’ll think you own this.” She steps back into the shadows. “And you don’t.”
The room snaps sharp again. The weight lifts. The air clears. He’s alone. Heart pounding. Sheets twisted. Mind on fire. Except , on the nightstand , there’s something that wasn’t there before. A bandana. Folded neatly.
He stares at it for a long time. Doesn’t touch it. Doesn’t need to. Because whether she’s a dream, a memory, or something he opened and can’t close… She’s already taught him the lesson. The most dangerous desire isn’t the one that takes control.
It’s the one that makes you ask for it.