He followed me into the bedroom, disappeared inside the closet, and came out holding a robe.
I shook my head, tears beginning to fall more freely now. “Smith,” I croaked. “I need you.”
I was in his arms instantly. He gazed down on me with a look of total adoration. I fought the urge to turn away. I didn’t deserve that look. Not after what I had done. Not after what I put him through.
“I need you,” I repeated, pressing my palms to his chest as if to prove to myself that he was really here with me. I no longer felt certain of anything.
“Beautiful,” he coaxed, “I’m right here. I’ll protect you.”
“I don’t want you to protect me,” I said, casting my eyes to the floor. I became increasingly interested in my toes. I wasn’t entirely sure where the embarrassment came from. Smith and I had never suffered from nerves where intimacy was concerned, but I wasn’t asking him for sex. Not this time.
“What are you saying?” he asked slowly.
“I need you to help me escape,” I said, quickly adding, “I mean, subspace. I can’t stand feeling like this. Take it away.”
Smith hesitated, his eyes raking across me as a worried frown tugged on his lips. “I’m not sure —”
“I am,” I cut him off. It was the first thing I had felt certain of for a very long time. My surety ran bone deep. Smith was the only one who could release me from this, and I needed him in a way I had never needed him before.
I’d always wanted him. I craved submitting to his dominance. It wasn’t something I understood exactly, but something that just made sense from the first time he touched me. This was different. I needed something else entirely. Yes, I needed to give him total control. I needed to feel safe. I needed to know that my own fate wasn’t in my hands but his, because I trusted him more than I trusted myself. Those were all things he could do without touching me.
Now? I needed him to punish me.
“I’ll give you whatever you need,” he promised. “But you have nothing to run from. Whatever’s going on, will figure it out together.”
I nodded, mostly to placate him, though. The truth was that we weren’t going to figure this out. We’d been trying to do just that. Something was wrong with me. I couldn’t shake the sense that I was unraveling from within. And I needed a way to live with this fact. He could help me escape the darkness clouding my mind, but only by stripping away the anger I felt with myself. There was only one way I could think of.
I dropped the towel.
“Now?” Smith stared at me.
I nodded furiously. I couldn’t live like this for one more second, I had to have release.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he started. “You’re not going to be happy—”
“After.” I closed the space between us and smashed my mouth to his. That was all it took. Smith responded as he always did, with a brutal masculinity that my body recognized. I whimpered into the kiss. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve him, but I was too selfish to deny myself. We broke apart, he stepped back and studied me. But it wasn’t the predatory look he usually gave me, the one he leveled at me when he was deciding what delicious way he planned to torture me.
He inspected me like he was looking for cracks. Would he find them? Was he scared he would break me?
“Fuck me,” I begged, unable to stand another moment of crushing reality. “Take me. Use me. Free me.”
Punish me.
Something held me back from speaking those words aloud. My husband had tested me before at the beginning of our relationship. But punishment? That wasn’t generally on the table. Smith was dominant in nature, and I knelt before him in submission, but that didn’t mean that he was my master. Far from it. He took my body as he saw fit, and I gave it to him willingly. I’d seen other relationships—darker relationships—and I knew that his penchant wasn’t for inflicting actual pain. At least, I had not known pain at his hands. I’d seen him, though, in some of the secret places we had visited. I’d also seen how the people there responded to his presence. I’d often suspected my husband kept parts of himself from me. He claimed that he’d been twisted and warped by Hammond, who’d acted as a surrogate father when he was young. But I’d also watched him kill a man without hesitation. He was capable of things more dark than most people ever dreamed of, and it was that wickedness I craved in him now.
A shadow crossed over his face and his eyes hardened into cold emeralds. He snapped his fingers. “On your knees.”
“Yes, sir,” I said in relief, dropping to them. I rocked back on my heels, hands folded in my lap as he circled to inspect me.
“Show me your breasts.”
I moved my hands behind my back, gripping each wrist so that my chest was thrust forward for his pleasure. Smith bent to place his index finger under my chin and tipped my face up. I held my breath in anticipation.
“So beautiful. I think I’d like to watch you suck my cock.”
My eyes flickered to his groin and the unmistakable outline of his erection straining against his jeans. I knew better than to reach for him. I looked back up to Smith and waited.
“I love it when you’re patient.” I heard his fingers unbuckle his belt and the whoosh of it as he tugged it free from his jeans. His eyes hooded, and he groaned as he took his cock out. My tongue darted over my lips and he smirked. “It’s getting harder to control yourself, isn’t it?”
He bit his lower lip and I heard the rough stroke of his hand on his shaft. I squirmed in the spot as wet heat seeped from me. Finally, he took a step closer and held himself to my lips. “Suck me, beautiful.”
I plunged my mouth over him, careful to keep my eyes trained upward as I took his shaft deep into my throat. His eyes squinted at the edges as he grunted his approval. Smith’s hand grabbed a fistful of hair and urged my mouth to glide faster until I was practically choking as he fucked the back of my throat.
“You’re going to make me come in your fucking mouth,” he gritted out. “But I’m not ready to come. I have so much to do to you, but…“ A low rumble cut him off as he grabbed my head with both hands and thrust himself so far that my lips smashed against his balls. I gagged a little but as the first heat spurted down my throat I instinctively relaxed, giving my body over to him entirely.
There was only pleasing him. I didn’t need to breathe. I needed to give him pleasure. I didn’t need to think. I needed to accept the gifts his hands and mouth and cock would give me. There was only him, erasing the world until all that remained was the tether he offered.
Smith withdrew and shook his head. “Look at what you made me do. Now I have to find a way to make myself hard again so I can fuck you properly.” He considered for a moment, studying me like a connoisseur might pause to appreciate a meal before taking the first bite. “On your feet.”
I scrambled up, his words an irresistible command. I was his puppet—whatever he commanded, I would do without question, without thought.
“Against the wall.” I moved closer until my breasts grazed it. My nipples tightened as they made contact with the cool plaster. Smith walked behind me, placed a hand on the middle of my back and smashed me to the wall. I gasped with pleasure as the mood darkened further. He didn’t kiss me, though. Instead, his other hand spread my thighs wider.