Page 18 of Dark Therapy

His fingers danced along my thigh, tracing invisible patterns as I felt the heat radiate from him. I shivered involuntarily, every nerve ending alive, a sickening thrill that twisted in my stomach. I felt his thumb ghosted over the thin fabric of my underwear, so goddamn slow it wasmaddening. The heat of his touch burned through the barrier, sending a jolt straight to my core. I clenched my thighs instinctively, but he didn’t stop. If anything, the resistance only fueled his sick amusement.

“Do youfeelthat?” he asked, his voice dripping with mockery. “That charge in the air? It’s like a fucking live wire between us.Palpable, isn’t it?” His thumb pressed harder, a maddeningteasethat sent shockwaves through me.

His cold fingers curled around the edge of my panties. The anticipation was killing me as he slowly tugged them down, baring me to the cold air.

I gasped as his finger dragged along my clit, the touch so deliberate, socruel, that my body betrayed me with a shudder. He noticed. Of course, he noticed.

“You’re trembling,” he whispered, his tone sickly sweet, laced with venom. “Your body’s already made its decision, hasn’t it?”

I shook my head, my voice cracking under the weight of his words. “No. You’re wrong—”

“Oh, I’m wrong?” His laugh sliced through the air, sharp and mocking. He forced my legs apart, his strength unyielding, his dominance absolute. “Then tell me why you’re fuckingsoaked, Millie. Why are you here, shaking like you’ve never been touched like this before.”

The air around me seemed to collapse, thick and suffocating, as his lips replaced his fingers. The warmth of his mouth against my clit sent a shockwave through my entire body, my back arching against my will. He wasslow, deliberate, savoring every second of my unraveling as though he was burning the moment into his mind.

I bit down hard on my lip, desperate to suppress the sounds clawing their way out of me, but it was useless. A soft moan slipped free, barely audible, but his chuckle vibrated against my skin. Heheardit.

“There it is,” he murmured, his voice a velvet growl. “You can’t hide from me, Millie. Your body’s already telling meeverythingI need to know. You’re mine—every inch of you.”

Itrembledbeneath him, every nerve ending on fire as his hands gripped my thighs, pulling me closer, trapping me in his orbit. “Eventually,” he said, pausing to kiss the soft skin of my inner thigh, “you’ll stop fighting it. You’ll understand that the darkness isn’t just in me, it’s in you too. And it’s hungry as fuck.”

The sudden absence of his touch was jarring, the cold air biting at my exposed skin as he pulled away. His movements were slow, calculated, like a predator leaving its mark and savoring the aftermath. His footsteps echoed in the silence, each one heavier than the last, and then he was gone, leaving me alone in the pitch-black void he’d created.

I strained to see, my eyes futilely searching through the darkness, desperate for something familiar, something that could anchor me. But all I found was the cold emptiness left in his wake. The walls seemed to close in, pressing down on me, each second amplifying the tightness in my chest. My breath came shallow and uneven, the remnants of his touch still prickling myskin, reminding me he had been real, that this nightmare wasn’t just a figment of my mind.

The room began to blur. I felt a wave of dizziness, heavier and more consuming than before, as if the darkness was seeping into my very bones. I tried to shift, to shake myself free from the fog closing in on me, but my limbs felt heavy, unresponsive. My mind reeled, each thought slower than the last, slipping away like sand through my fingers.

I fought to keep my eyes open, my vision slipping in and out of focus. The cold metal of the chair pressed against my skin, grounding me in the only tangible reality left, but even that anchor was slipping away. The edges of my consciousness frayed, and I felt myself sinking, deeper and deeper, into the inescapable dark.

The last thing I remembered was the faint hum of his voice in my mind, twisted and haunting, and then… nothing.

UNWELCOME FAMILIARITY

Amelia

I jolted awake, gasping for air as if I’d been held underwater. My chest rose and fell in rapid bursts, and my hands instinctively flew to my arms, to my legs, as if to reassure myself I was whole,untouched. The familiar dim light of my bedroom filtered through the curtains, casting soft shadows, but it did little to soothe the pounding in my chest.

I took a slow, steadying breath and glanced down. I was still in the same long T-shirt I’d fallen asleep in, its fabric soft against my skin. Unlike in the nightmare, though, it was dry, untouched by the cold dampness that had clung to me in that twisted darkness. My hair, too, was dry and smooth, not tangled or matted.

But the vividness of it all—the wet floor beneath me, Damien’s voice, the sensation of his hands—felt tooreal, as if his presence still lingered in the room. I swallowed hard, the echo of his words reverberating through my mind, the fear and strange thrill he’d ignited inside me still clinging to my senses like smoke. I tried to shake it off, to remind myself it was only a dream. But it felt like a hollow reassurance, a feeble attempt to calm the unease brewing within me.

Rubbing my temples, I forced myself to sit up and push my hair back, fingers trembling slightly. I looked around my room, grounding myself in the reality of my surroundings—the stack of books on the bedside table, the light sweater draped over the chair in the corner. Everything was as it should be, exactly where I’d left it.

But why did I feel like he’d been here, like his presence had seeped into the air around me?

With a sigh, I slipped out of bed, my bare feet pressing against the cool floor as I made my way to the bathroom.

I shook my head, trying to dispel the lingering tension, and stepped into the shower. Warm water cascaded over me,soothing the remnants of my nerves. I squeezed a handful of soap into my hands, lathering it across my arms and shoulders, letting the scent envelop me in a sense of normalcy.

As I worked my way down, my fingers brushed over my legs, and Ifroze. There, just above my knee, were faint marks—bruises, purpling slightly at the edges, tender to the touch. My breath caught as my mind reeled. This couldn’t be possible. I’d fallen in the nightmare, I remembered hitting the floor…but that had only been a dream. Hadn’t it?

Panic surged through me, and I nearly slipped as I scrambled out of the shower, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around me. I rushed over to the mirror on the bathroom wall, water dripping onto the tile as I frantically searched my reflection. My fingers traced over the marks on my legs, then over to my arms, where faint, almost imperceptible red lines traced the spots where I’d felt bindings in my dream.

My pulse hammered as I stared at my reflection, my mind racing in desperate denial. These weren’t real. Theycouldn’tbe. But the bruises ached beneath my touch, stubborn proof that defied logic. My gaze drifted to my face, to the haunted look in my eyes, the disbelief mingling with a spark of fear.

“How…?” I whispered, feeling the ground beneath me shift. This wasn’t just a nightmare anymore.

I took a shaky breath, willing myself to calm down, trying to muster some sense into the chaos. This had to be psychological. The mind was more powerful than people realized; I, of all people, should know that. In cases of severe trauma or stress, the body sometimes manifests physical symptoms. It wasn’t unusual—it was a phenomenon I’d studied extensively. The mind could ‘convert’ intense emotional experiences into tangible sensations, and sometimes even marks on the skin.