Her voice was warm, almost casual, as she said it, like commenting on the weather. “Hands behind your back,” she’d murmured, her fingers pausing mid-air where they’d been tracing the line of his jaw. He hesitated, a half-smile on his face, thinking it was a game—until he met her eyes. No laughter there, no playful glint. Just a steady, unflinching look that said do it.
He crossed his wrists behind him, feeling the cool press of the wall against his knuckles, and her smile softened, but only slightly. “Good,” she said, and reached up to brush a thumb over his lower lip, her touch deliberate. This wasn’t about tying him up or restricting him. It was about acknowledgment—acknowledging that she’d given an order, and he’d followed it.
Older women learn the weight of a quiet command. They don’t waste words on suggestions when a statement will do. He’d thought, at first, that her soft tone meant flexibility, but he was wrong. Kindness and firmness aren’t opposites. She could be warm and unyielding, gentle and absolute, all at once.
When she stepped back, her gaze trailing over him like she was memorizing the sight of his hands bound (not by rope, but by her word), he felt a thrill he hadn’t expected. This wasn’t submission. It was trust—in her, in the clarity of her wants, in the certainty that she wouldn’t lead him astray. “Stay,” she said, and he did. Some orders are easy to follow.