Chapter 1 – Velvet in the Rain

Section I: The Walk

“She never wore velvet. That was just what people called the way she moved—smooth, dark, and dangerous if it wrapped around you too tight.”

The rain didn’t come down hard—it fell like silk unraveling in slow motion. Thin, endless, soft. The kind of rain that slicked skin, coated breath, and made the entire city glisten like it had been freshly licked by something decadent and secret.

Mathilda moved through it like she belonged to the weather. Like the rain was just another shade of her, pouring down to remind the city she was awake again.

Her heels struck the cobblestone with purpose. Measured. Even. She didn’t hurry—never hurried. The late hour didn’t threaten her. The cold didn’t touch her. And the wet latex wrapping her body—high-necked, sleeveless, with a slit that kissed mid-thigh—moved with her like it had been painted on.

It squeaked sometimes when she turned just right. Not loud. Just enough.

Just enough to make people look.

Then look away.

The silver collar gleamed under the amber streetlamps—an elegant, almost delicate thing. Most people wouldn’t give it a second glance. Those who did usually assumed it was some kind of high fashion.

None of them knew the truth.

Not about the collar.

Not about her.

The night pulsed low around her—soft jazz bleeding from the cracked window of a speakeasy, the faint hush of traffic six streets down, the soft rustle of wind in the trees that lined the boulevard like sleeping sentries. The air smelled like petrichor, exhaust, and the last burst of someone’s expensive perfume that hadn’t yet been washed away.

And beneath all of that, she smelled her.

Lelani.

She didn’t even need to check the signal. She felt it.

She could smell her. Wild jasmine and bergamot. Rain-drenched skin. Heat.

Mathilda’s eyes flicked upward toward the rooftops above—glass and stone glittering like constellations turned inward. Somewhere behind those windows, Mr. X was watching. He always was.

Not out of love.

Not even control.

Just interest.

The way a scientist watches a flame lick at the edge of something flammable.

He’d sent her into this night with one directive:

“Bring her in.”

But he never told her how.

That was the part he liked to watch.

She passed the old iron gate of the park where she’d first noticed Lelani two weeks ago. Sitting on a bench, barefoot then too, tearing petals from a white rose one by one. That moment hadn’t been part of any plan. Not hers. Not his.

But it had changed everything.

Lelani didn’t just catch the eye.

She snared it.

Like silk snagging on the edge of something sharp.

Mathilda had watched her then, just long enough to realize something dangerous:

She wasn’t ready to let go.

The wet latex flexed as she walked. It was tight at the ribs, slick at the thighs. She loved how it clung—how it reminded her of control every time it resisted her breath.

But tonight, it wasn’t about how she looked.

It was about what she was becoming.

Velvet wasn’t fabric.

Velvet was effect.

And tonight, it would wrap Lelani completely.

She saw the shop ahead now—its sign rusted, the windows boarded. But the awning remained, still catching the lamplight like an old stage curtain waiting to rise.

And there, beneath it, was Lelani.

Barefoot.

Wrapped in emerald silk that had lost its war with the rain. The fabric clung to her body, pulled downward by gravity and desire, plastered against the curve of her hips and the dip of her waist. Her hair was wild from the storm—loose blonde curls soaked and glinting.

In one hand, she held her heels. In the other, a cigarette. Unlit, as always.

Mathilda stopped at the edge of the curb.

And waited.

Chapter 1.3: The Loft Above

High above the street—above the rain, above the breathless ache swelling in the city’s throat—a room waited without light, without sound, and without sentiment.

It wasn’t empty.
It was observing.

Walls of matte black swallowed reflections. The city’s glitter didn’t reach here. The only illumination came from a single wall panel—a column of screens softly blinking with red and silver telemetry. At the center: one pulsing signal.

M.
Active. Engaged.
Collar sync confirmed.

A thin stream of voice data filtered through the feed, her breathing rich with static warmth.

Mr. X didn’t need to speak.
The room was doing exactly what it had been designed to do.

At that very moment, two blocks below, Mathilda felt a smile tug at the edge of her mouth—not outwardly, not something visible to anyone watching. It was internal. A flicker of satisfaction, of knowing.

She hadn’t looked down at the collar once, but she knew it was synced.
Knew it was glowing faintly.
Knew it had captured Lelani’s voice the moment she let out that breath.

She could still feel that breath—warm and helpless—on the inside of her wrist.

She watched Lelani shift under the awning, tug slightly at the hem of her dress, press her thighs together in that slow, unconscious way women do when they think no one is watching.

But Mathilda had been watching all morning.

She didn’t need to guess what Lelani was wearing beneath the soaked silk.

She knew.

High-cut, daisy-lace, soft yellow thong. Free People. Lelani had taken it out of the drawer with that same little sigh she gave after sex. Ran her fingers over it like it meant something. Like it was for her.
It wasn’t.
It was for Mathilda. Always had been.

Mathilda remembered the way Lelani bent to step into it—slow, careless, unknowing. She hadn’t even closed the curtain. The window was fogged, but not enough to stop her from being seen. Studied. Tracked.

Lelani didn’t know what she gave away.
Not yet.

But she would.

Back in the penthouse, the data feed blinked again.

Signal Interference: Minimal
Audio Feed: Stable
Subject L proximity: confirmed

No movement in the room.

No one seated in the sleek leather armchair angled toward the screen.

But someone had been there.

The tumbler on the end table was still warm.
The collar interface had been calibrated just 12 minutes earlier.
And the decanter—heavy crystal, filled with something amber and quiet—was missing a single pour.

Mathilda turned from the street, rain running in sheets off her shoulders.

She didn’t speak.

Not to Lelani.

Not to the collar.

But the system registered the twitch at the corner of her mouth as she thought:

“You have no idea what I already own.”

She doesn’t know it yet. But the moment Mathilda touches her, there’s no going back.
Want to know what happens when they finally collide?
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