Verena's gloves snapped with the crisp finality of a judge's gavel. 

Snap. 

The sound made you flinch above her—suspended in an intricate web of her own design, ropes cutting delicious lines across your torso, your weight held perfectly between pleasure and punishment. 

As you dangled there, you have a brief moment of clarity—how the hell did I get here? 

It wasn't that long ago you'd been a normal(ish) guy with a normal(ish) life. Paid your taxes. Remembered your mom's birthday. Had a perfectly serviceable vanilla sex life. Then she happened. Verena with her razor-shire wit and impossible standards and the way her eyes darkened when you mouthed off just enough to piss her off but not enough to make her stop. 

"You had one task," she said, plucking a bamboo skewer from her toolkit. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. The ice in her tone could flash-freeze hell. "Feed the cat. Take out the trash. Basic adult functioning." 

This is your life now, thirty-four years old and dangling from a ceiling because you forgot to take out the fucking trash. 

The worst part? 

You wouldn't change a thing. 

Well. Maybe you'd change the part where you forgot the trash. 

The skewer tapped against her palm—one, two, three—a metronome for your sins. 

Most men couldn't handle her. She knew this. Had the relationship graveyard to prove it. Weak-willed boys who crumbled when she corrected their form at the gym. Spineless suits who called her "intimidating" because she dared to know more than them. Even her last sub had quit after two weeks, whining about her "unreasonable standards" like competence was some mythical ask. 

Then there was you. 

Her perfect, infuriating contradiction. 

The skewer traced the sole of your foot now—not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to remind.

"You're not even sorry," she observed. 

A grin cracked through your strained breathing. "Would you believe me if I was?" 

Verena's lips twitched. Damn you. Damn how you leaned into her scolding like it was a gift. Damn how your stubbornness matched hers, reflecting her own fire back at her until she understood— 

Control wasn't about breaking someone. 

It was about finding the one person who wouldn't let you. 

The skewer clattered back into the box. "You'll do better tomorrow." 

Not a question. 

A fact.