“We don’t get physical mail delivery here,” Bay said.
Sila’s hot mouth ghosted over the curve of his right ear. “Guess no one will ever find you then, huh?”
“You won’t do that either.”
“No?” The hand at his waistband paused. “What gave you that impression?”
“This.” Bay pulled his head forward slightly, knowing Sila’s finger was still looped through the back. It caused the leather to press uncomfortably against his neck for a second before he eased off. “You collared me.”
“They did it a few times in the porn you seemed most fond of,” Sila explained.
“You were curious to try it out,” Bay nodded in understanding. “So, this is all new to you?”
“What is?”
“BDSM. Stuff like—”
“You’re misunderstanding something here, Kitten,” Sila stopped him. “That’s dangerous. I left you alone for a few days and it seems you’ve concocted a fairytale in my absence. That won’t do. Play like that comes with guidelines, safety precautions, and rules. I told you this wouldn’t be pretend.”
Playlike thatwasn’t pretend, it was an understanding. A mutual trust. But Bay didn’t point any of that out.
“I don’t think this is pretend.”
“If that were true, you would be terrified right now.”
“I am,” Bay admitted.
Sila paused and he felt his gaze on him, but didn’t risk turning to try and catch a glimpse of the younger man’s face. With Sila’s back to the window, he probably wouldn’t get to see it anyway. “You don’t seem afraid.”
“It’s because I’m dead inside,” he said. “Icanfeel it, but it’s muted at the moment. Since you’ve done so in the past, I know you’ll bring it out of me eventually. I don’t think you’re here to kill me, but I recognize the promise of pain when I see it.”
“You haven’t seen me yet.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Figure of speech.”
There wasn’t any reason Bay could think of for Sila to visit him like this in the early AM without warning. If it was about his grandmother and the Shepards, surely that could have waited. Plus, it’d been over three days since they’d last met, their conversation on the phone shared with Rin this afternoon the first contact they’d had in all that time.
“To me, the collar means we’re in a relationship of sorts. It means ownership. I swore I’d do whatever you told me to? That’s total power exchange. You’re in control,” Bay tentatively explained, not sure how much he should reveal or how much Sila might actually care.
“Ownership,” he seemed to be testing the feel of the word on his tongue, his fingers starting back up with their slow back and forth over Bay’s waistband. “That seems so easy. Was that really all it took to win you over?”
“You didn’twinme,” Bay reminded.
“That’s right.” He shifted and then ground his hard-on against Bay’s ass, flattening his palm over his stomach to keep in him place as he did. “I took you. But, Professor, shouldn’t you be more opposed? More indignant? Is it because you spent all that time fantasizing of having me this way? Did all that daydreaming mess with your ability to think critically? I raped you in the forest, on the ground, with the dirt and the leaves sticking to your sweaty skin. Have you sugarcoated that fact in this pretty head of yours, the same way you’ve romanticized my reasoning for locking this twist of leather around your neck?”
“No.” Bay knew exactly what had been done to him. Their time in the alley could be considered consensual by some, but there was no mistaking what’d been done in the forest had been a crime of the worst sort. He’d been sexually assaulted and brutalized against his will. He’d been humiliated, overpowered, and hurt physically.
But mentally…
“Do you want to know the last time I felt anything as vividly as I did that night?” Bay asked. “It was when that lawyer told me there was nothing I could do to save my home from being stolen by the Shepards. I was so angry that day that I took my bike out and ended up crashing it. I broke an arm, but otherwise was unharmed.”
“Is that when you went to the bridge?” Sila asked, and Bay shook his head in the negative.
“That came later, once I’d gone numb. It’s like I sunk to the bottom of a deep, dark pool and not only could I not find my way back up, but I lacked interest in even trying. My grandmother was gone and life felt like it had no meaning, no joy.”
Sila snorted. “Making you bleed on my cock did not bring you joy.”
“No,” he agreed, “it didn’t. It hurt like hell. I even felt like I might be dying for a brief moment there. Society likes to look down on people who enjoy pain, but our bodies are built in such a way it’s more common than anyone wants to admit. Our central nervous system’s natural response to pain is to release endorphins to help counteract it. You brought me to the lowest low, which in turn brought me to the highest high…And when I fell…Euphoria.”
