But no. He’d have noticed anyway. It was only a matter of when.
I was freaking out and afraid, and it made no sense that my stubborn erection wouldn’t wilt.
“Please don’t,” I whispered. I knew better. I knew he wasn’t going to back down, not when he’d seen it.
Not when he’d seen me.
“Do you want help with that?” he asked, his voice too gentle, almost like an unwanted caress.
I shivered, almost able to feel that touch because of the intensity of his gaze upon me. I shook my head. I wanted to screamnobut I couldn’t make the word form. I couldn’t say anything, only choking on the word before it could escape my lips.
Would he take the lack of speech as permission? Would he think I was just too embarrassed to admit I wanted it?
Or would he respect me enough to?—
That was laughable, and a choked half-laugh escaped me then as I shook my head again.
He knelt beside me, leaning in to place a careful kiss on my shoulder.
I shuddered then, wanting to beg him to back off but knowing it wouldn’t make a fucking difference. Nothing I did would.
“Toby,” he urged, his hand sliding down my arm.
My heart skipped a beat, and I squirmed, trying to pull away from him. His fingers wrapped around my arm, and he kept me in place.
“Don’t pull away from me,” he said inthatvoice, the one that meant the darkness was rising inside of him.
I whimpered, wanting nothing more than to do just that.
“Please don’t,” I finally managed to say, not pulling against him but not moving closer even as he urged me to rest against him.
At the very least, my cock wasn’t as hard anymore, on a quick path to softening now that the fear was rising up within me once more. It might have been traitorous when I’d blown him, but now that I was afraid of what he might do, it was faltering fast.
At least there was that.
He didn’t seem to notice. His fingers didn’t move, still gripping me and keeping me in place, and he tugged me slightly toward him. I couldn’t do anything but shift, moving ever closer to him, and my heart pounded too fast, audible to my ears as the blood rushed through my body.
“Come here,” he said again. He leaned in, his lips brushing gently against mine. “You’re such a good kitten,” he murmured against my lips. “My good Toby.”
Could I even say I wasn’t Toby anymore? Could I even say Ryder was still here? Why was I even fighting this? I was only going to lose. At least if I pretended to be someone else, I could separate myself from what I was becoming.
But I couldn’t help but wonder how much I was pretending when I responded to his soft, sweet kiss, letting his hand drift farther down my arm. I wanted to beg him not to touch me.
I wanted to beg him not to stop.
What had he done to me?
I couldn’t help but wonder, too, what I’d done to him. He wasn’t the same man he’d been when I’d first gotten there, but I wasn’t sure what he was turning into was much better. He’d been a beast of a man then, terrifying and sadistic, andthese days… He was more likely to stroke my hair than he was to hurt me.
That didn’t mean he didn’t hurt me at all. I could see the look in his eyes when he did, when tears fell from my eyes and streaked down my face. I could see how much it turned him on, and he didn’t even bother to try to hide it.
Why would he? I was his slave, after all, and there was no reason for him to pretend to be something he wasn’t… but I wasn’t sure even he knew what he was, not anymore. He’d already changed too much for me to think he was all that stable. It was terrifying because it meant the rules could change at any given moment, leaving me lost and unsure all over again.
Then again, I hadn’t exactly stayed the same either. I’d lost so much of myself that I really had become Toby — because this sure as hell wasn’t who Ryder was.
There was a certain measure of peace to that thought. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t in control. Toby was another entity altogether, and?—
And it struck me then that this was exactly what he’d been going for. I hadn’t understood it before, but I did now. He was trying to erase Ryder, but he was giving me the chance to become something new. He was giving me an out, and cleverly so, and it was a trap I’d fallen headfirst into. I’d never seen it coming, and it hadn’t been until it worked that I’d realized what was going on.
