The tremble started in her lip, and she felt the tears and the panic ready to explode out of her. How had she ever thought she could do this again?
He motioned, and she went to him. He took both of her hands in his and looked up. His expression reflected her own pain—like he understood. “It’s okay. I just want to look at you. It will be okay. Give me this.”
She wanted to.
“I saw you in the cage. And in the bed. This is just… a little more.”
She couldn’t believe he was being so patient… Brian. It gave her the strength to take her clothes off for him.
“Turn away,” he said when she was exposed and bare before him.
He stood behind her and stroked her throat as he pulled her against him. Then he began kissing her neck. His mouth was so warm and soft against her skin that a whimper slipped through her lips. Despite how he’d been with her, she never could have imagined that his mouth on her could feel like this—a shocking tenderness that eviscerated her.
His other hand moved between her legs to stroke her most sensitive flesh. She found herself grinding against his fingers, forgetting whose arms she was in. It was impossible that Brian could touch someone so carefully. He must be the only person who could make methodical touch seem sensual. She worried he’d cross the boundaries laid out in her contract, but a part of her didn’t care as long as he didn’t hurt her. She had no illusions he’d honor the contract forever but held hope he wouldn’t lose control and start beating her or passing her around to the other men at the house.
She whimpered again as his fingers flicked over her swollen bud. He chuckled as she bucked harder against him. It was a desperate searching for life, for love, for meaning, for any bright spark in the darkness of being his. He kept up his onslaught until she came apart in his arms.
“Get in bed.”
She could barely make herself move in that direction half from the orgasm and half from fear of how he might now ruin it.
He removed his own clothing and joined her. “Let’s talk about the contract I signed.”
Here it was. How would he justify breaking it? How was he planning to wheedle around it. Perhaps now that it was clear Lindsay had no power to stop him, he’d outright flaunt it.
“The no-pain part, I understand. A lot of people don’t like pain—probably what one might consider the normal people. But explain the penetration restriction. Were you sexually abused?”
He tried to sound nonchalant, but his jaw was clenched, and his hands fisted in the sheets.
“N-no, Master. I mean… yes, Jason and others… there was abuse, but even before all that, I never really liked… I mean… I told Lindsay in our sessions that I could handle it if I had to… but…”
“Okay. Let’s define it then. More specifically.”
Why was he doing this? Was it just so he could use it to hurt her later when he got pissed off? It felt like she was giving him the tools to hurt her with. As if he needed more of those.
“Blow jobs?”
“T-that’s okay.” She hadn’t been thinking specifically in those terms when she’d told the doctor her limits. Or maybe she had. After all, hadn’t she thought she might end up with someone gross? Brian was definitely not that.
“Okay. Anal sex or anal play?”
“N-no.” She held her breath as if he’d become giddy, knowing something he could use to terrorize her.
“Okay. Fingers and toys? Inside you, I mean.”
“I-I think okay.” That was technically penetration. She hadn’t been thinking about all the options when she’d struck the deal with Lindsay. And she hadn’t believed anybody would give a shit about her limits. No one else had. It had been a way to safeguard and protect herself mentally. If she set impossible standards, when they were broken, she’d get the disappointment over with early and be able to steel herself for whatever came next.
“So no anal anything and no standard intercourse?”
She nodded.
“I can work around that.”
But why would he? Why would he care what she wanted at all? He’d paid a large sum of money for her, more than she could even visualize. She was his property, his prisoner. He was a sadist. What difference could it possibly make what she wanted?
He cupped her chin and raised her face to his. “Mina. I don’t want to hurt you. I need to keep you safe.”
Need. Not want.
“But why?”
“You know why.”
She wanted so badly to ask about his scars and to ask why he cared so much about hers when he marked others. But she didn’t. The only thing that mattered was keeping him in a frame of mind to want to continue protecting her.
Brian cradled her in his arms then guided her hand between his legs to return the favor he’d granted to her only moments before. She wrapped her hand around his cock and stroked over the smooth flesh. He was large, and it struck her what a waste it was that she couldn’t get off from regular sex.
He ran his fingertips through her hair as she stroked him.
“Harder. I won’t break.”
She gripped harder, feeling like a virgin just presented with her first piece of male anatomy. He rewarded her with a sharp hiss when he came minutes later.
“Lick it up.”
His voice reverberated through her, causing her stomach to tighten as she licked his skin clean.
“Good girl.”
Good girl. Not dumb whore or worthless slut. Good girl. He pulled her against him. Sleep came like a wave, covering them both and pulling them down into the depths of dreams.
24
Brian woke before Mina. She slept soundly, snuggled into him, her small hand resting on his chest. One of her legs was slung over his. Even if at no other time, in sleep, she trusted him.
Buying her had been the heat of the moment—instinct. The week leading up to taking possession of her, he’d shoved all petty details to the back of his mind. He’d been afraid to hope things would go according to plan. Until the transfer cleared the bank and the collar was made and locked around her throat and the formal ceremony was over, he couldn’t let himself trust it.
It was only now that he was able to breathe, to think, to realize what he’d acquired. He’d never intended to buy his own slave. Why would he want to? Why would he need to? He could do whatever he wanted with the women already here at the house. He didn’t want the attachment. He didn’t have the self-control not to damage anyone who was with him too long.
Protecting Mina was his highest priority, but what would happen if the dark thing inside him demanded her blood? Brian barely restrained it with others. How would he control it with someone he’d developed this obsession toward?
He heard Lindsay’s voice in his mind, chiding him, giving him psychological platitudes, analyzing him, explaining, no… concocting a just so story about why Brian was the way he was. It sounded good on paper when the doctor spun one of his yarns. But in the end it was only a narrative to hold the pieces in place. How could anyone ever truly know why Brian had turned the way he had?
Plenty of people were abused by monsters but didn’t grow into one themselves. If Brian had turned out this way without his history, what story would Lindsay have created to explain it? Would it be an organic brain deformity? Some chemical imbalance? Or would they dig and dig until they found something troubling enough in his past to blame?