Gabe took her hands in his. “I will not make you suffer. I care for you. I care about how you feel. I don’t want to harm you or share you. Asking you to trust me is impossible, and I should have known that from the beginning. So I’m going to ask you to stop fucking crying. Take a wait-and-see approach. Cry when it’s really too much and things are really terrible and not a moment before. Do you understand me?”
Julie wiped her eyes. “Yes, Master.”
“Good. Get ready and go down and have some breakfast. I’ll meet you back here in one hour. Don’t be late. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
There was an insane alternate reality in which the order not to cry coming from Gabe somehow made it possible not to.
Gabe watched her walk away. She seemed so fragile. He had never been more aware of how breakable another person could be. Why was he so goddamned selfish? As he got into the shower all he could think about was how fucking goddamned selfish he was. He should leave her the fuck alone. But even if he did, Brian wouldn’t.
Maybe he should let her wear the collar to protect her, but otherwise stay away from her. It would be the right thing to do. The noble thing. The gallant thing. It would confirm who he had believed he was when he rescued her that night at Dmitri’s.
These days he felt he was more like Brian than whatever imaginary hero he’d thought himself to be. He took a quick shower, shut the water off, and dripped halfway across the bathroom in search of a towel. He put on some jeans and a white T-shirt and a black sport watch. He glanced down at it. Still forty-five minutes until he had to figure out a way to train her without destroying her. Or himself. Because if he broke this woman… if he damaged her in any way all because of the stupid shit he wanted… he would never forgive himself.
This wasn’t just some girl to be fucked and trained. He loved this one. But if that were true, wouldn’t he leave her alone? And how would that go? He was convinced this course of action would result in her happiness as well as his. Why should they both be miserable? If she gave him a week… hell, a few days, she’d learn to trust him. She’d fall under his spell for good.
Gabe shook his head as he left the room and headed down the hall and down the stairs to the main level. They could be happy together. He just had to find the right way to handle it.
He spotted her sitting in a far corner, her back to the main part of the room. Mina and Annette were sitting with her. It seemed like she was telling them and they were trying to reassure her. Mina looked up and spotted him and he shook his head to keep her from drawing attention. She went back to the conversation with Julie and ignored him.
Gabe went through the line and got some bacon and eggs and black coffee. Nothing heavy or crazy, just something to keep his stomach from churning. He took the plate and cup outside to sit beside the pool. This time of the morning, the pool was empty. It was quiet and peaceful out here.
He ate his breakfast and then pulled out the slip of paper he’d written Julie’s collar measurement on. What would she like? This had to feel like an engagement ring, the kind of jewelry a woman would be thrilled to receive. It couldn’t feel like a symbol of enslavement. Despite his certainty that she was more like him than she thought, a collar still wouldn’t yet mean the same things to her that it would mean to someone like Mina and Annette who had embraced who they were.
He left his breakfast dishes on the table by the pool and went back upstairs. Julie sat on the edge of the bed waiting for him.
“Are you ready?”
“Y-yes, Master.”
At least she kept getting the title right. She might not be sure about it, but she at least wasn’t backtracking into the polite vanilla lie.
He sat down in the chair across the room, which he’d been in earlier. He’d let her have a little distance for a while. He needed to ask some questions first to assess things. Despite all the conversations they’d had during their dating period, he had kept it non-sexual and innocent because he hadn’t wanted to make her uncomfortable or anxious.
“Have you ever had an orgasm?”
Julie seemed taken aback by the question, which was reasonable. Sometimes it was harder to talk about sex than it was to do it, but he needed some basic information. This wasn’t meant to humiliate her.
“I-I think,” she said, finally.
Gabe chuckled. “It’s not the sort of thing you’re uncertain about. At least not if the job gets done right. With someone else or by yourself?”
“By myself.”
She looked sort of haunted when she said it and they both knew what she was thinking—that of course there had been no pleasure from the men Dmitri had sold her to. Gabe didn’t want to cause her pain, but he wanted to know what he was working with. At least pleasure hadn’t been tainted by the men she’d been passed around to. That was something at least.
“Toys or manual?”
She turned a deep shade of crimson and looked up at him startled. “Um, what?”
“You heard me. You’re mine now, sweetheart. You’ve got no secrets anymore. Compared to the things you will do with me, this conversation is nothing.”
“M-manual.”
“You’ve never tried vibrators? No dildos or other penetrating toys?”
“N-no.”
“And Dmitri’s people… they didn’t...”
“No.”
Such a strange sense of innocence still clung to her, despite what she’d been through. And she thought she’d had an orgasm but wasn’t sure. It must have been very weak pleasure if she’d managed it. An orgasm too weak to know for sure if it was an orgasm didn’t qualify in his book. When she finally came at his hands she would motherfucking know it.
“How often did you masturbate?”
She bit the edge of her lip and looked away. “M-master, I can’t do this...”
Gabe got up and crossed the room to her. She shrank from him as if afraid he was going to hit her. He hated that. He sat next to her and brushed the hair out of her face with one hand while the other lingered on her cheek.
“I’m not trying to embarrass you. I need to know some things so I know how to proceed. I know this is awkward and uncomfortable. But I need us to talk openly and honestly. Okay?”
She nodded and looked down at her hands.
“So, how often?”
“I don’t know. Not often. Only a few times really. I did it a few times when I was a teenager. It wasn’t very satisfying, and I didn’t know what I was trying to do so I stopped. And then...”
There was a long pause, as if she thought he would let her trail off and never pick up the thought again.
“Julie?”
She looked up. “I really… can’t.”
Gabe took a deep breath. He had to be patient with her. He’d always known even if this happened that it would be hard in the beginning. He couldn’t magically erase the things that had happened to her. “Which would be easier? A peaceful conversation now, or a trip to the dungeon and then a conversation?”
The terror that came over her face made him regret saying that. But surely sharing a few embarrassing masturbatory details would seem like child’s play next to a trip to the dungeon. He was trying to make it easier. But the look on her face, and the way every muscle in her body went rigid and seemed to freeze, made him realize that no matter how he’d imagined all this playing out in his mind, this was not the same thing as the other women he’d trained. They hadn’t come to him so broken and afraid.