He stood for a while on rubbery legs, bent over her, wondering how they were both still alive. He had no idea how long it took to register the sound of the waves hitting the sea stacks or his own wild heartbeat. He felt her shudder when he pulled out of her very gently. He felt like shuddering himself, his cock was that sensitive. Unheard of for him.
Savage waited another heartbeat before he managed to pull the drawstring pants up, and then he reached for her, getting an arm under her knees and around her back to lift her. He cradled her in his arms, but this time Seychelle didn’t curl into him as he carried her into the house. She didn’t link her arms around his neck or nestle her head on his shoulder the way she had every other time she needed comfort. He could lose her. He’d known this time would come. It was inevitable. She was bound to be confused, embarrassed, even humiliated that she could find sex so pleasurable mixed with pain.
She’d recognized early that she had a dark side but had never considered that she could go as far as Savage was taking her. She also knew it wasn’t nearly as far as they needed to go, and she was scared. She was afraid of herself, and she was afraid of him. She had reason to be. She had been slowly building up to this moment, terrified of what was inside her, trying to work it out but unable to reconcile who she thought she should be with who she was becoming.
Tears ran down her face, but she tried to be very quiet, to keep the fact that she was crying from him. He carried her straight through the house to their bed, and instead of putting her down, he sank onto the bed, holding her in his lap.
“Look at me, baby.”
She shook her head. “I can’t, Savage. Not yet.”
“We’re in this together, remember?” He kissed her neck and then the shell of her ear. “We can do this if we’re together. We can figure anything out. You never put judgment on me. I don’t put it on you. Look at me, Seychelle. Please.”
A little of the tension eased out of her body, and one of her hands, the one in her lap, curled over his biceps. Her fingers shook a little, but at least she reached out to him. Her head turned, and he was looking into her liquid eyes.
“You’re so fuckin’ brave, woman. I know this scares you, baby, and yet you still hang in there with me.” He brushed several gentle kisses on her lips. Asking nothing from her. Giving comfort. Needing her to relax into him. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I mean every single word I say to you. I love you with everything in me. Just as you are. Exactly as you are. I’m taking you down this path, baby, but you don’t have to go any further. We’re good right here. Or we can back the hell up to where you’re more comfortable. I’ll be fine with that.”
She frowned and shook her head. “Savage.” A little protest. Weak. Resisting him but not really.
He had no idea what he was going to do when the bad times came, but he wasn’t going to have his woman ashamed or hating herself. He knew what that was like. He loved her and wanted her happy. Being confused was one thing, ashamed was something altogether different.
“I’m a fuckin’ sexual sadist, baby. That’s what I am. I’m always going to be that, so I’m always going to look for the next level. A little pain turns you on, and that’s a good thing for us, but this is my thing, not yours. We both know that.”
He brushed his lips over hers several times more and then took the tears from her face, his belly in knots. He wanted her tears, but not from shame. Not from humiliation. Not unless she wanted that kind of thrill, which Seychelle wasn’t into, and quite frankly it didn’t do a damn thing for him, but he’d give her whatever the hell she wanted if it brought her pleasure.
“I think pain is my thing, Savage, and it scares me. It really does. I don’t understand it at all. How could I like it? It hurt like hell at first. It was pure agony. Excruciating. I wanted to stay still so I could do it for you. I really love taking the pain for you. Seeing you get excited. It makes me feel …” She broke off. “But then suddenly something else happened. I suddenly was so turned on it was sick.”
“Babe, I was manipulating you. Using my voice, my hands. That’s what I do. I’m training you to like what I do to you, to confuse your body so you associate pain and pleasure together. You reacted exactly the way you were supposed to react.”
She nestled into him. “I was already slick and feeling desperate for you.”
She made the confession in a low voice, but she didn’t look away from him. That was good. Her trust in him was back. He held her close to him, brushing soothing kisses along her cheek and shoulder.
“Because you were taking the cane for me. You could see how hard you made me, Seychelle. I made certain you knew you were pleasing me. You need to please me. That’s part of your personality. A good part of it. Don’t you think I know that? That I take advantage of that when I’m training you?”
“I wanted you to cane me. With each strike the craving got worse and I became even more frantic for you to fuck me. I thought I might die if you didn’t. But it doesn’t make sense when there was so much pain involved.”
He stroked caresses over her hair, feeling like a dick. How could he get her to understand what he did? He’d grown up doing this shit for years. Years. There might be a few better at it than him, but he doubted it. Was he going to be less than brilliant with the woman he loved? He was going to make damn sure she felt as much or more pleasure than he did, especially when she was taking a fucking cane or the lash for him.
“Seychelle, you’re supposed to feel that way for me. Think about what I was doing to your body between every few strikes. I made certain you not only saw and felt what you were doing to me, but I kept you slick, kept you wanting me. I made certain you needed my cock and your body didn’t know the difference between pain and pleasure. That’s what training you to like pain and pleasure together does. It confuses your mind and body.”
Her lashes swept down, and then she looked at him again. He could tell it was very difficult for her to meet his gaze. “I used to watch porn like that, and it was the only thing that would excite me.” Fresh tears flooded her eyes as she made the confession in a small voice.
He could tell she was at her limit with looking at him while she admitted what she considered were her sins. He brushed more kisses over her lips, because she had no idea what true sins were.
“I need to put lotion on those stripes, baby, or you won’t be sitting at dinner tonight. I’m going to put you down on your tummy, but we’re still going to talk about this. Remember, it’s just the two of us. Only the two of us, and we can say anything to each other. I tell you the most outrageous things. And I expect you to tell me your every fantasy. I want to know just what porn films you watched and what turned you on.”
He set her off his lap gently, taking care not to put her down on her bottom. He had plans later to let those marks flare back into life, but not now. Now she needed care and to be surrounded by love. He reached for the lotion he kept beneath the bed.
“Just because you watch a porn flick and it turns you on, doesn’t mean you want that particular fantasy to play out for real. You know that, right?” He was gentle as he rubbed the lotion into his marks on her round cheeks. The stripes had gone from bright red to a deep, beautiful dark red.