“Oh.”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Come on. You know you want me.”
She laughed in spite of herself because this was the guy she’d been so smitten with back at Dani’s bar. This was the man she’d wanted to know in every way possible. Julie took his hand, and he led her back up to their room.
40
She still couldn’t believe this was happening, that she had given in to Gabe’s crazy demands. Her mind went back to Brian’s dungeon and how very close she had been to losing her protection in the house. Once she’d finally agreed to the arrangement with Gabe the previous night, she had been sure that he would start… what? Raping her?
A tear slipped down her cheek. No, he wasn’t like that. That wasn’t what this was. He said he would go slow—and she did want him. God help her but she did.
When they reached the room, Gabe’s rumbling voice was low in her ear, “Please relax. I know you’re scared. I won’t hurt you. This won’t be like what happened to you before at Dmitri’s.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and allowed him to guide her into the bedroom. He shut and locked the door behind them, which caused her anxiety to skyrocket again.
“So we won’t be disturbed. You want us to have privacy, right?”
“Y-yes, Master,” she whispered. It was true, she didn’t want Phyllis or Anton or worse, Brian to walk in on them. She was sure she was about to be naked.
“G-Gabe?” She was afraid he would be mad at her for saying his name, but she needed to feel like he was still him.
He pulled her into his arms and gently stroked her back. “Yes, sweetheart?”
Good, he wasn’t mad about the slip. It gave her the courage to continue. “I-I do want you. I don’t know if I want this thing we’re going to do. I think it’s possible I might. I thought a lot about what happened in the dungeon, and you’re right, it was a weird reaction. Please… be patient with me. I’m so scared that it will feel like...”
Like forced prostitution.
He pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Shhh. I know. And I can’t promise you won’t have feelings like that. The question is, are you willing to work through them to find peace and happiness on the other side?”
“I-I think so.”
“Do you think I can make you happy? If you can get past your fears?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” Julie was surprised by how sure she was of this. She’d spent so much time scared of what things might feel like and if she would have flashbacks and how bad the trauma would be. She’d been trying to figure out how she would cope with Gabe’s touch.
She hadn’t stopped to consider that the issue wasn’t Gabe. It would be like this with anyone, in the most normal relationship. At Dmitri’s she’d spent most of her time trying to block what was happening to her and the fear that she could be killed at any moment if she displeased a client enough. They’d already been practically starving her.
Somehow, being at Gabe’s house had only heightened her anxiety because she had time to think about it. Her life wasn’t in immediate danger. She didn’t have to constantly try to cope with and survive the next thing, and that had only made it feel like her emotional world would fall apart at any moment. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Gabe to touch her. It was that she was afraid Dmitri’s house would taint that touch.
But if it did, he wasn’t going to throw her away or hurt her or kill her. He would help her work through it.
Gabe had been holding her quietly, brushing his fingers through her hair. Finally he broke the silence. “Are you ready?”
She was never going to be ready, but it was clear that the longer she waited to try, the more she would build things up in her mind. And she loved the way his body and arms seemed to close around her. It didn’t feel suffocating or dangerous. It felt safe. Like sleep last night had.
“Gabe? Can you do something for me?” How many times would he let her get away with that? She wasn’t trying to disrespect his rules. She needed to feel normal for a few more minutes.
“Almost anything,” he said.
She smiled against his shoulder. “Can you push me over the cliff?”
He chuckled. “Now, that sounds mean. Not like something I would do at all.”
“You know what I mean. I-I agreed and gave myself to you last night. The truth is, we both know you can do whatever you want. I’m pretty much at your mercy here.”
He laughed again. “Yes, you are. Glad you could join me in reality.”
“W-what I mean is… I can’t do this if you ask if I’m okay every second or if this is okay or that is okay. I’m willing to surrender to you, b-but I need you to… t-to train me like you would anybody else. Anyone you didn’t care about and who didn’t have my history. The more you treat me like glass, the more I feel like I’m going to break.”
His grip on her tightened. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“I’m not going to be able to do this any other way.”
Gabe sighed. “I was going to do things differently with you, but maybe my standard protocol is best. Oh, and since we’re doing this my way, if you call me Gabe again, there will be punishment.”
Julie took a deep breath and looked up at him. “E-ever? I can never call you by your name again... ever?” She wasn’t sure if she could be with someone who wanted that kind of cold distance between them, assuming she still had any kind of choice in the matter.
“Not when I’m training you or when we’re in this type of mental space, and never in public. If we are alone together, like in bed before you drift off, you can say my name, but otherwise, no. I want you to fully internalize our relationship.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, Master.”
“Good girl.”
That flutter again that made her want to crawl inside him and rest forever. She felt a little better that she wouldn’t have to consent to each step of her destruction. Part of what had made the situation at Dmitri’s survivable was the fact that she knew she didn’t have choices. She had to do what was expected of her or they would take her outside and kill her. There had never been a question.
She knew Gabe wasn’t going to kill her and seriously doubted he would ever intentionally harm her, but she couldn’t consent to each step of what he wanted from her. She needed to know that the power was with Gabe alone, then maybe she could begin to learn to trust him.
“You should know my rules for training,” Gabe said. “You obey me the first time, every time. You do not get to negotiate or question me. Your only job is to give in to me. If you don’t obey me, or you try to argue with me, we will go to the dungeon for punishment. And then you will obey me. Understand?”
“Y-yes, Master.” There had been a tiny knot in her low back, a place which she held all her tension. Once he said these words and once she acknowledged them, she felt that little knot begin to loosen.
The short, shallow breaths she’d been taking started to elongate. Her heart rate began to smooth out into a peaceful pitter-patter, lightly thumping in her chest. Even without them doing anything yet, this absolute power he took with her, calmed her instead of scaring her, because she did trust him.