Chapter 5
Odette
M y heart is rabbiting about in my chest and I’m finding it difficult to breathe. I don’t know whether it’s because my second thoughts have grabbed me by the throat and are now choking me, or whether it’s him.
I don’t know what I thought being his submissive would be like, or what he’d be like as a Dom, but it wasn’t this.
Maybe subconsciously I expected him to be a harder, older version of his son.
Except there’s nothing of Lucas in his blue stare.
While Lucas’s questions made me overthink everything, I knew he was asking because he was trying to make me comfortable.
But there’s no concern for my comfort in Mr. Fairfax’s eyes.
I’m prey and now he has me in his sights, he’s not going to let me escape.
I couldn’t believe it when he first touched my hair.
A delicious shiver of anticipation had gone right through me at the brush of his fingers.
I’d felt a little smug, too, that going down on my knees the way I’d read about had worked.
But the moment he took my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him as he laid down the law, his voice breaking over me like an iron rod over my back, all my smugness vanished. I knew I’d made a mistake.
I had a couple of boyfriends before Lucas and the sex with them was fine.
Pleasant, but nothing particularly memorable.
Lucas is good in bed, but with him I always felt as if it was the sex itself that was the important bit, not me.
Even after the attack, I felt as if his kindness and considerateness were because that’s what he thought was expected of him and not because he actually wanted to be kind and considerate.
Luc certainly never looked at me the way Mr. Fairfax is looking at me, with a laser-sharp intensity backed by the iron and steel of his will.
It’s a force, that will—almost palpable, pressing down on me hard, and a part of me wants to bend beneath it.
That part frightens me. It reminds me of when I was jumped outside the bar, how I froze like a deer in the headlights of a car.
Of how I didn’t fight, didn’t scream, didn’t do anything at all.
It was as if it was happening to someone else and I was just an observer, watching from outside my body as I was punched in the face, pressed up against a wall, his hands tearing at my dress.
I was weak in that moment, powerless, and that same sense of powerlessness creeps through me now and I don’t know why.
I know he won’t hurt me, not like my attacker did, but this isn’t what I thought I’d be getting myself into and I’m frightened.
Yet what’s more disturbing is that there’s a pressure between my legs, an ache, as if my body likes this and wants this and I don’t understand that at all.
“Well?” he demands in that voice that leaves no room for argument or protest, only obedience. “You heard me, sub. Do as you’re told.”
My mouth is dry and my brain is whirling frantically. “I…I…” I stutter, struggling to think.
Abruptly he reaches down and this time his fingers burrow into my hair beneath my hair elastic to grip it. I gasp because it hurts and then I gasp again as he yanks me roughly upright on my knees, pinpricks of pain erupting all over my scalp.
“I gave you an order, sub,” he says, his fist clenched tight in my hair.
Tears start in my eyes. I’ve never been handled this way before. The only time I was had been when I was attacked, and now it feels as if Mr. Fairfax is doing the same things to me and I can’t deal.
He yanks my head back again, so I’m forced to look up at him once more, the intensity of his blue gaze difficult to hold.
It makes me feel so vulnerable to be looked at this way, as if he can see all my weaknesses, all my flaws, and I don’t want him to see them.
I don’t want him to look at me that way.
“I told you this wouldn’t be easy.” He’s studying me like a scientist studies an animal he’s dissecting.
Clinical, analytical. “There’s a reason I said no to you, but you insisted.
And you forced my hand.” His fingers work in my hair, burrowing deeper, curling into a fist and my vision wavers, my eyes full of hurt tears.
“But if you don’t like it, you can use your safe word. I’ll stop and you can go.”
My throat aches, my heartbeat like thunder in my head. I can feel yet more tears gather, because his grip hurts and a weird toxic mix of emotion is churning inside me. Fear. Anger. Shock. And perhaps the weirdest of all, desire. And I still don’t understand why.
I could say my safe word and get out of here, and part of me really wants to.
He wants you to, too.
It’s true, I think, as I’m held captive by his blue stare. He wants me to use it. He expects me to use it. He thinks I can’t do this, that I can’t handle him.
He’s right. You can’t.
Something in me hardens unexpectedly. Because no, fuck that.
Yes, this is all a shock to the system, but it is something I asked for.
Something I wanted. Something I actually insisted on, and sure, I could say red .
I could turn around and walk away, but where would that leave me?
And what would he think of me? I don’t know why I care about his opinion, but I can’t bear him thinking me a coward.
He’s so strong, so forceful, and I want to be equal to it. I don’t want to be weak.
So I blink my tears away, press my lips together, and shake my head once.
Something flickers in his eyes and it looks like surprise, and the hard part of me, the stubborn part, is abruptly, fiercely glad. He wasn’t expecting that, was he? Good. I may be much younger than he is, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything, or everything about me.
The surprise vanishes from his eyes, but his grip on my hair doesn’t lessen. His face is impassive, his stare relentless. “I won’t ask again,” he says.
And he won’t, that’s clear. If I don’t do this, he’ll let me go and walk out, and that will be it. I won’t get a chance to prove myself to anyone, let alone him.
So I swallow and lift a shaking hand, reaching down over my dress and down between my thighs.
His fist tightens in my hair, giving me a hard shake, making me gasp aloud.
Yet more tears of pain start in my eyes.
“No.” His voice is hard, implacable. “Not like that.” Before I can take another breath, keeping a firm hold of me, he bends, takes a fistful of my dress, and yanks it up over my hips.
“I want to see it, sub,” he growls. “I want to see your fingers in your cunt.”
The word cunt sends a hot shock through me.
It’s not as if I haven’t heard it before, but hearing him say it is a whole different thing.
The sound of that hard ‘c’ makes my face flame, yet the pressure between my thighs is increasing.
Lucas doesn’t do dirty talk, and I’m not used to it, but it’s clear my body likes it.
My body likes his orders, too, no matter the pain or the fear, and it wants more.
He’s looking straight into my eyes and seeing my every thought, knowing I’m finding this difficult and that it’s not what I expected. Except there is no I told you so in his gaze. It’s detached, neutral, passing no judgement, yet the sheer relentlessness of it makes me want to hide.
I can hear how fast I’m breathing, panting almost, and it’s not going to work. I won’t come with him holding my hair like that, so I force out, “It hurts.”
“I know.” He makes no move to release me. “I don’t care.”
I take another panicked breath. “B-but I won’t be able to come.”
“Yes, you will.” He says it as if it’s a foregone conclusion. “You will because I told you to.”
Yet I’m consumed by the fear that I won’t, no matter what he says.
That what he’s doing is too frightening, too painful and not sexy, and I just won’t be able to.
I realize that I can’t bear the thought.
I can’t bear the thought that what I’m doing now has just been an awful, terrible mistake.
I’m so stupid, so naive. Thinking I could do this, deal with him, and I can’t. I’m not brave enough.
My tears overflow and I feel them running down my cheeks, and I don’t know why I’m crying. I don’t know why this matters so much to me, but it does, and now I can’t stop.
Mr. Fairfax watches impassively. “Cry all you want,” he says. “It won’t make any difference.”
I give a little sob. “I…c-can’t.”
“What did I say about trust?” His gaze doesn’t waver from my face. “If I say that you’ll come, then you will. Don’t second guess and don’t think. All you need to do is what I told you.”
Say the word. Say red .
That would be so easy, but he told me submission would be hard.
I just didn’t realize exactly how hard. He told me to trust him, yet that’s so difficult to do.
My tears mean nothing to him, I can see that, and the fact that his grip hurts means nothing too.
Lucas would have comforted me, would have instantly stopped doing anything that would have hurt me.
You didn’t want him to be careful with you though. You were tired of that.
It’s true. I was. But I wasn’t prepared for the harsh reality.
“Give up then,” Mr. Fairfax says, his voice dripping with disdain. “I told you that you weren’t ready.”
I swallow, doing my best to hold his gaze, and that’s when I see it.
Beyond the impassive wall of his blue stare, a spark of challenge glitters.
Do this, he is saying. Do this, I dare you .
And I shiver as something in me rises, punching through my fear, wanting to meet that challenge. A thread of anger, of determination.
So despite my fear and my doubts, I lower my shaking hands to the waistband of my silky, purple panties and I shove them down to my thighs, holding his stare all the while.
I expect him to look down at my pussy, but he doesn’t, and somehow that makes it even more difficult.
Yet also inexplicably, intensely erotic.
He’s looking at me , not my body, and something in me likes that a lot.
It wants to show him that I can do this, that I’m not a coward, so even though tears are still rolling down my face, I slide my hand down between my thighs.
I’m surprised by how wet I am, despite my roiling emotions, and quite frankly it’s embarrassing how much my body has disagreed with my head.
Again though, he doesn’t look down. “Eyes on me, sub,” he orders. “Do not look away.”
I’m shaking as I stroke my reluctant fingers over my clit, and a gasp escapes me. I’m shocked by how sharp the pleasure is and how it seems to be intensified by his fierce blue stare.
He doesn’t speak, noting every little change in my expression, every little flicker of helpless pleasure, studying me with intensity and deliberateness.
I can’t hide anything from him, not a single thing, and I can’t stop trembling as my fingers move over my clit, stroking harder, faster.
And I know he’s right all of a sudden. I will come and I’m going to come hard and I’m almost there?—
He reaches out and jerks my hand away.
“No!” I cry out before I can think because fuck, I was so nearly there .
My orgasms sometimes take ages, but I was about to come so fast, and I can’t believe he stopped me.
I try to pull my hand from his grip, but it’s like trying to get rid of an iron shackle.
“Don’t,” I gasp, promptly forgetting everything he told me about obedience.
“Please don’t. You told me to make myself come, you told?—”
“And now I’ve changed my mind.” His voice is flat, his gaze unwavering.
I’m so turned on I’m in literal pain and I still can’t believe he stopped me. “Why?” I demand. “Why did you?—”
He doesn’t let go of my wrist. “Because I did.”
“But I?—”
“I don’t explain myself to subs,” he interrupts, steel in his voice.
I start crying again, I can’t help it, silent tears rolling down my face, the pain of thwarted desire throbbing between my legs.
He continues to ignore my tears. “Pull you panties up. You may stand.”
I don’t want to. I’m so angry that I don’t want to do a thing he says. And yet clumsily and with shaking hands, I yank my panties up—shoving my stupid dress down, then getting to my feet. My knees are weak, I’m still so close to orgasm I want to scream, and I don’t know why I’m still crying.
He gazes at me without any discernible expression, his blue eyes enigmatic, and lets the silence sit there for far longer than I want it to. Then he says, “That was fifteen minutes. Time for you to leave.”
I heave in a shaky breath, anger at him and at my own stupid weakness rising and rising. Furiously, I swipe at my wet cheeks. “You can’t do that,” I say thickly. “You can’t say those things to me and?—”
“I gave you a taste of what submission feels like.” He cuts me off, his voice iron and steel. “If you want to find out more, there are plenty of Dominants on the app to choose from.”
Fury burns hot inside me, in fact, I can’t remember the last time I was so angry. In fact, I’m so furious I’m crying again, and I’m tempted to finish myself off in front of him anyway, just to spite him. I lower my hand but he says, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
And much to my intense rage, I obey. His hard blue stare is too much, and I’m just not brave enough.
“Fine,” I say furiously. “Fuck you then.”
Then I grab my purse and I leave.