“Tell me.” His hand curled into a fist, and I felt myself tensing, couldn’t stop it from happening.
“There’s a mental component to BDSM. I mean, not for everyone, but for a lot of people it’s more about engaging the mind than engaging the body. Bodies are easy. You feed someone the right drug cocktail and you can have them coming all night, but the mental aspects?” Shrugging, I flinched when his fist clenched until his knuckles were white on his knee. I waited for him to say something for what felt like forever.
“Tell me what you like, River.” The huskiness in his tone surprised me a little, and I flicked a glance up into his face. Nothing there gave away what he was thinking. His jaw was hard, and his eyes were steady on me.
Catch me, keep me, order me around. Beat me. Make me serve you. Make me blow you. Make me. Make me.The litany of my wants and desires was never far below the surface of my day. I worked so hard all the time, forced my brain to be perfect at any hour on the spin around the clock, so that sometimes all I could hear in the back of my mind, underneath whatever I was focusing on, was the drumbeat of my needs.
The never-ending march of want and the feeling of being stretched too thin was better when I had a Sir, had someone to focus on. It all felt better when I knew, at 4:00 p.m. precisely, every Tuesday and Thursday, I had to call my Sir. If I knew, when I picked up the phone, he would tell me that I could touch myself for a minute or two, maybe get off… or even better, maybe he would make me wait for him later that night? Fuck, it got to me. It helped me contain all the craziness that breezed through my mind and set me on edge.
KnowingI had a plan for my pent-up energy let me focus on the here and now, instead of stewing on the future. I missed that certainty that someone out there, my Sir, was planning the dirty parts of my life.
Sir lifted his hand and brushed it over the top of my head. Prickles raced along my back and I shivered.
“What I like doesn’t fucking matter.” I fought with myself and made my body stay still when he brushed his fingers through my hair again, obviously testing the waters, getting familiar with me. This was nice, but it wasn’t real.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
He brushed a fingertip over the top of my ear and down to swirl along the shell and over my neck. “What matters is what people will expect to see. You have to have your own swagger, I can’t just—”
“Tell me what you like. I’m going to be out with you, not anyone else.”
My fucking body was trained, even though I knew better. My lips parted and I sat there like a fucking idiot with my mouth hanging open, ready to answer. Ready to suck on his fingers and beg to get between his legs, and every other stupid fucking thing I would like to do with someone who was taking care of me.
“No.”
He stopped his petting and let his hand rest on the top of my head again; I ached inside. “Then how will we do this, River?”
Sitting back, I dislodged his soothing fingers and tossed my hands into the air. “It won’t work. I said this wouldn’t work.” I crawled away from him and then growled at myself, getting to my feet. Paxton wasn’t my Sir. I stomped away from him and out the front door of his stupid quaint little homey house to sit on the front steps and glare out at his green lawn.
The fucking sun was too bright and hurt my head. I could afford a house like this, probably bigger and in a nicer neighborhood, but I didn’t have time to take care of one. I hated that I sort of liked it here when my apartment was nicer in every way possible. Huffing, I rested my elbows on my thighs and hunched over with my chin in my palms, staring at the cement path at the bottom of the steps. Ants were building a little hill along one crack, dragging a piece of something that looked like red candy toward the hole. I didn’t think their trophy would fit, but they slogged along. That seemed like my life, struggling under the burden of getting everything I’d ever wanted, and not getting anywhere with it.
Behind me, footsteps were my first clue that I wasn’t alone anymore.
“That boy, Sebastian, he was taken about two years ago. Lured away. He may be an adult now, but he’s really not. He may never be. Sometimes people get stuck at that mentality, when they’re nabbed that way. I doubt he understands what happened to him.” Sir’s sad tone pissed me off.
“Yeah, the world fucking sucks, but people make their choices. Stockholm syndrome’s bullshit for the weak-minded.”
Warm fingers in my hair again nearly had me melting, but they were gone all too quickly. “Is it? You want more people like him on your conscience?”
“I’m a lawyer, I don’t have one.”
Sir sat down beside me on the steps, close enough that his arm bumped mine when he settled himself. “What about Dima? You didn’t describe him as young, like Sebastian, but how long have they had him? He may, in theory, be old enough to choose his own way, but can he really after what may have been done to him? You said it seemed like he was being held against his will.”
“Fuck, fine.” Rage boiled and bubbled in me, or maybe that was just my stomach not really sure it wanted to keep the food in it. “You want it to look real, stop giving me choices.”
“What?” He cocked his head and the bright wash of sunshine sparkled in his blue eyes. He seemed so goddamned wholesome and matched this horrible house.
“Just tell me what I need to do. That’s why I love being a lawyer. It’s just a series of things I need to fucking do. There’s no choice in the law.” My bottom lip trembled and I firmed it up. “Don’t make me think. Don’t make me give you my opinion, or even make it seem like I could have one. That’s what I like. I like being….” I buried my face in my hands and my glasses nearly fell off. “I am Dima, do you get it? I mean, part of me is jealous of him, even though that is beyond fucking horrifying. I don’t want to be abused and….” I swallowed hard. “Okay, maybe I don’t want to be Dima, but that’s what eats away at me. The desire to belong to my Sir. No choices.” The light caress on the top of my head was back, but I refused to look. “That’s what I like.”
“You want to be told what to do all the time?”
My stomach went into freefall. Maybe there was no way to explain my kinks to someone who didn’t instinctively understand them.
“No, Sir, but this is how BDSM boils down: you’ve got pain junkies, control tyrants, and the people who like to be owned and submit. It’s like a bad John Hughes movie with leather—lots of cliques, typically too much drama when community people hang out together, and lots of jargon to memorize. At the core of it, just remember that all you need to do is control me.”
“And you like to give it up?” he leaned closer to ask. His warm breath brushed my ear and made me angry because my stomach trembled in such a wonderful way. This was feeling bad and wrong, precisely because it felt good. I wouldn’t get to keep this. I wouldn’t get anything except used and tossed aside when this was over, and even at that, since Jayce wanted it… since my temporary Sir wanted it, I would do it. I would agree. I already knew the choice was his, and I hated myself for it.
“Just dress in black leather pants. You’ll blend in. I’ll act the way I should. Done.” I stood and stared along the path toward the street. I wanted to run and not stop until… maybe ever. Life wasn’t supposed to be this difficult, but I’d done it to myself, as usual.
