Chapter 8

The air in the lighthouse grew thick, heavy with the salt spray and the lingering scent of our sweat, a perfume of raw, unfiltered desire that clung to my skin like a second layer. I had spent the last three days wrapped in the cocoon of his dominance, a place where time dissolved into a blur of touch, taste, and the deep, rumbling authority of his voice calling me *baby girl*. But now, the sun was beginning its slow, bleeding descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in bruises of purple and gold, and reality was pressing in against the glass walls of our sanctuary. We had to leave. We had to return to the world that demanded I be just baby girl, just the woman in her late twenties who paid taxes and answered emails, not the submissive vessel he had claimed as his own. I stood by the window, watching the waves crash against the jagged rocks below, the white foam exploding like shattered stars. My heart was still hammering against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the anticipation of being separated from him, even for just