I stroked his cheek, loving the feeling of his soft skin beneath my fingertips. “It will,” I said, more fervently than usual. “Believe me, Toby.”
He inhaled slowly then nodded. “Okay.”
“Like you believe it,” I said, cupping his cheek then.
He met my eyes, and I could see the defeat in his.
“Shh,” I whispered. “It’ll be all right. Believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said.
He didn’t, but that was okay. If he said it often enough, he’d start to really believe it.
And maybe, just maybe, so would I.
13
RYDER
Things had begun to change, somehow, and I didn’t know when. He’d begun to shift, and so had I, until I barely recognized who I’d become. I barely recognized him either. He wasn’t the same person who had first taken me captive, though I was pretty damn sure he’d throw me back into the basement if I started to misbehave.
There was a large part of me that wanted to test him just to see.
And maybe that part of me wanted him to so this tentative bond between us could be obliterated. I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to be there.
I didn’t want to enjoy playing with him.
It hadn’t been until he’d told me to call himmasterthat it had worn off. Reality had slammed back into me like a blow, reminding me that this wasn’t willing even though I’d promised him I’d try.
It had been sort of… fun.
That realization took something else out of me.
I couldn’t just sit there and take it, not then, notanymore. I didn’t want to get punished. I didn’t want to end up back in the basement. But at the same time, I’dhad funchasing a red dot across the floor. I’d enjoyed wiggling my ass like a cat and pretending I was something other than I was.
How could I live with myself when that was happening to me?
It was enough to make panic surge inside of me, leaving me trapped in its grasp.
“Come on,” he said, standing up at long last.
He was always telling me to come and go, to follow him or lock myself back away in the kennel. I rarely got the chance to just… sit there andbe.
I didn’t move.
He frowned at me. “Toby, come on.” He gestured to the hallway behind him. “It’s time to eat.”
I was hungry, but not hungry enough to follow him. I had to break his hold on me before I lost myself entirely. If that meant pissing him off enough to see what he’d do to me when he lost his temper, I had to do it.
I had to.
My heart raced, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat. I didn’t want to do this. So badly, I did not want to do this, and I almost caved in because of the sheer force of my fear. I didn’t want things to go back to how they’d been.
But what would happen if they didn’t?
“Toby,” he repeated, his voice wrought with steel, edged with that darkness that surrounded him when I didn’t do what he said.
I cringed, everything in my body screaming out for me to yield, to submit to him, to just give in before I upset him.
