The deep

Don't toy with me

Ambrose's pulse thudded like war drums beneath his skin as he drove into the night, the sharp curve of the steering wheel digging into his palms with every twist. The road blurred in his peripheral vision, but his thoughts were crystalline, honed into a single, visceral thread—release. Not from lust. Not from love. But from the tightening noose that was Lilith.

Lilith—siren, tormentress, holy fucking plague.

Every breath she took was a weapon. Every smirk she wore was another link in the chain she wrapped around his control. She danced through his house barefoot, dripping with mischief, and her voice—low, melodic, venomous—reverberated in the hollows of his sanity.

He wasn't made for softness. Whatever sweet fantasy he'd once painted about loving her had been shattered into a thousand jagged edges. She didn't want peace. She wanted combustion.

And tonight, so did he.

Celene's house glowed like a low-burning candle in the darkness, its presence tucked away from prying eyes. Not a lover. Not even a friend. She was a sanctuary—a twisted chapel he returned to when the prayers rotting in his chest needed release. A safe, violent confession booth.

She opened the door in silence, understanding blooming between them like smoke.

No need for words. He wasn't here for kindness.

The workroom welcomed him with shadows and steel. Dark wood and glinting metal created a temple of appetite, its walls humming with the memory of a thousand exorcisms. Here, he wasn't Dr. Ambrose Adler. He was unmasked.

Monster, unchained.

He didn't wait. He didn't ask.

Celene offered herself to the storm. And he was happy to oblige.

Her limbs were his canvas—he blindfolded her with a swift flick of his wrist, the silk whispering secrets only they could hear. Each restraint was tightened with ritualistic precision, her body bent to his will and suspended in artful tension. Tools gleamed under the dim red light—leather, metal, rope, oils. Each with a memory. Each with a purpose.

Tonight wasn't about sex. Not in the way others understood it.

This was theater.

And he was the playwright.

A conductor of moans and screams, of shuddering sighs and obedience learned through pain and pleasure.

His satisfaction came in control—pure, total, delicious. He didn't need to fuck her to feel that intoxicating rush of power. It came when she arched for him without being touched. When she whimpered as he whispered instructions in her ear, dragging out her pleasure until she was trembling, ruined, begging without words.

"You're not allowed to break," he murmured, voice like smoke on silk. "Not yet."

And she didn't. Not until he let her.

The role-play began softly, as it always did—her defiance, her false courage—and he tore it apart, piece by piece, until even her rebellion was offered on a silver platter to his dark hunger. As instructed, she catered to his whims, and played the role he cast her in.

But it wasn't her face he saw. Not tonight.

It was Lilith.

On her knees, smirking.

Mocking him with her sinful mouth, wearing a dress made of fire and secrets, daring him to devour her.

Every command he gave Celene, he imagined giving to Lilith. Every sound Celene made, he reimagined coming from Lilith's lips—drawn from her by the blade of his authority, not coaxed by desire, but claimed by it.