Chapter 9
Odette
I ’m trembling all over, deafened by the sound of my own heartbeat.
Mr. Fairfax has his fingers buried in my hair, my head pulled so far back it’s painful.
His burning blue eyes take up all my vision, searing my soul, and I’m so aware of him—of how he’s bent over me, of his sheer physical strength and power.
He could break me in two if he wanted to, but he won’t, and some subconscious part of me knows that.
That power is under his tight control, and all I can think about is how during the attack, the man who hurt me wasn’t controlled in the slightest and how that was the scariest part.
He was furious, though I don’t know what at, calling me vicious names and punching me, shoving me roughly.
It was like being at the mercy of a rabid dog.
But though Mr. Fairfax is being rough with me, there is no anger in his eyes. He’s fierce, but it’s a controlled ferocity, and I don’t know why that’s so fucking hot, but it is.
I thought he might be too careful with me when he mentioned knowing about the attack, and I was furious that Lucas told him.
I didn’t want him to know, because there are so many things about it that I just don’t want to revisit, still less recount to this powerful, strong man.
Still, when he did mention it, he was very matter-of-fact and there was no hint of judgment in his eyes, so that was something.
I suppose it’s true that he should know what happened to me in case anything triggers me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him going easy on me.
Part of me is regretting that now, though, as he holds me fast in an iron grip. It’s brutal but it’s a controlled brutality and while the regrets churn away, other parts of me glory in the roughness of his handling. As if I can take it. As if I’m strong.
I gasp aloud as his grip tightens, reminding me that he needs an answer and so I force out the words, my voice hoarse and shaken, “Y-yes, I p-promise, M-Master.”
He doesn’t release me — if anything his grip tightens — and it hurts.
It makes my eyes water, sends prickles of pain all over my scalp.
But there’s something about the pain, about the way he’s standing over me, about my own nakedness while he’s fully clothed, that intensifies the vicious throb between my legs in a way I don’t quite understand.
Undressing before him, folding my clothes and putting them next to the couch, had been so incredibly awkward and yet it had also been so hot.
Especially with him watching my every move, knowing he could see every part of my body.
I found myself wanting to know if he thought I was pretty, or sexy, or whether any part of my body appealed to him.
But I could barely bring myself to meet his gaze, let alone see what was in it.
Still, he’d mentioned that he’d found my strength interesting and that compliment went straight to my head like good champagne. And now that he has me in his grip, I’m clinging to it like an oyster with a piece of grit and polishing it into a pearl.
He’s so strong, so powerful, and if he thinks I have strength and that he wants to test it, then what I want is to be tested. And to beat him.
His gaze is overwhelming in its power and I want to look away, but I can’t. The force of his gravity is drawing me helplessly in, and I can hear someone breathing harshly and fast, and it’s me. I know it’s me.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he asks.
I want to nod but I can’t, not with the way he’s holding my head. “Y-yes,” I manage to force out, knowing better than to lie this time.
“Do you want me to stop?” There is no inflection in the words. It’s as if he’s asking me if I’d like a cup of tea.
I can’t look anywhere but up at his face and so I try to read it, read him. Is this a challenge? A dare? Does he want me to say yes? Does he want me to fight?
“Don’t think,” he murmurs, his voice low and dark. “And don’t try to second-guess me. What I want and my will are all that matters.”
I heave in a breath, trying to get my head around the question, because if his will is all that matters, then why is he asking me what I want? “But….I….d-don’t…” I try to get the words out, but my voice is shaking so much. “I don’t…understand…”
“No, of course you don’t.” He leans down further so we’re nose to nose and there is no escaping him.
No escaping the delicious scent of his aftershave or the forceful hand in my hair, of the heat of his body so close to mine.
“So, for future reference, the correct reply to that question is, whatever you will, Master. ”
I open my mouth parrot the answer, but instead, he closes the distance between us and brushes his mouth over mine in the softest, most featherlight of kisses.
Shock ripples through me. That’s the last thing I was expecting and the contrast of his hot mouth with the punishing grip in my hair makes everything in me go tight.
I want to lean into his kiss and I’m unable to stop myself as I do, but his fingers tighten as he lifts his mouth from mine, holding me in place.
“Keep still,” he says. “You’ll accept what you’re given and nothing more.”
I’m shivering, oddly bereft, as if he’s taken a promised treat away from me and for no reason.
My lips feel sensitized, the heat from his lingering, and all I want is for him to kiss me again and deeper, harder.
But as he’s shown me from the beginning, what I want doesn’t matter, only what he does, and so I have to try and hide the longing in my gaze.
I know he sees it though, because that cruel mouth of his curves slightly, as if my desire amuses him. Then he lets me go, so suddenly that I nearly fall over. Rising to his full height, he turns and without a word he vanishes through the doorway, leaving me alone in the room.
It’s as if a storm front has passed, all the electricity in the room draining away.
My scalp is still tingling from the force of his grip and my lips burn.
Every muscle in my body is tense, my skin drawn tight over my bones, and the throb between my thighs won’t go away.
I so desperately want him to touch me I can’t think.
I look down at my hands, my fingers digging into my thighs as if I’m trying to hold onto something to stop from falling, and all I can think is that this is way more intense than I’d expected. He is way more intense than I’d expected, and I can’t deny that it’s testing me.
I could say my safe word if I wanted to, I know that, and I have to admit that I’m kind of tempted. I don’t know if I want his particular brand of intense, or maybe it’s more that I don’t know if I’m ready for it.
You aren’t and he told you that.
He did, but I didn’t listen. Perhaps I should have.
It would be easy to slip out now. To grab my dress, shoes, and purse, and scuttle away like a frightened rabbit.
Go back to my dreary apartment and sit there in the middle of the wreckage of all the dreams I had for myself, of getting my degree and getting started on a career in financial analysis, with a view to starting my own company.
All of them gone because some fucking man decided he could help himself to my courage and strength and sense of self, leaving me panic-stricken and a mess.
A thread of fury winds through me at the thought, thick and hot, and something in me hardens.
No, fuck leaving. I’m not running away just because this is intense.
Maybe Mr. Fairfax is being deliberately mean because he wants me to run, but fuck him too.
He also said I had strength, that he wants to test it, and if this is part of his test then I’m going to fucking ace it if it’s the last fucking thing I do.
I wasn’t the class valedictorian in high school for nothing.
So I sit there, my fingers still digging into my thighs, unmoving.
Determined not to move even an inch so when he gets back he’ll have nothing to complain about.
But time begins to move weirdly. I feel as if I’ve been sitting here for an hour, but maybe it isn’t an hour.
Maybe it’s only been ten minutes. Or five.
I stare at the doorway but it remains stubbornly empty, and I have to breathe through a strange and burgeoning panic. Perhaps he’s gone. Perhaps he went out and left me here and he won’t come back till much later. Or perhaps he won’t come back at all.
There is no sound anywhere, the apartment perfectly insulated. I can see the lights of the city through the plate glass windows and other buildings surrounding us. Can they see me? Can they see me sitting here naked and trembling?
Time gets even weirder, slowing and elongating like hot taffy, and I can hear my own breath rushing in and out of my lungs. And somehow everything feels as if it’s getting tenser and tenser, and I’m going to scream if I’m not careful.
But just before I do, suddenly he comes back into the room carrying a wooden box, and all the tension in the room ratchets up even higher. He’s bringing that electricity back with him, too, and I can feel sparking all over my skin.
I sit up straighter, expecting him to glance in my direction, but he doesn’t, and that makes the ember of stubborn anger sitting in my gut burn hotter. Fine, if that’s how he wants to play it then, I’ll show him. I’m ready. I was born fucking ready.
Mr. Fairfax sets the box down on the floor next to the low slab of granite that is the coffee table, then begins taking things out. I watch him, my mouth getting drier and drier as I suddenly realize what all those things are — I’ve seen them in the web searches I did.
A black leather flogger. A red ball gag. A pair of jeweled clamps with a fine chain linking them. A heavy duty looking blindfold. Some black cuffs. A vibrator.
He says nothing once they’re all displayed, merely straightening and then going over to a sleek drinks cabinet of dark wood, taking out a tumbler and a bottle.
He opens the bottle, pours a measure of golden liquid into the tumbler, then strolls back to the coffee table and looks meditatively down at the toys he’s laid out.
My breathing sounds shaky in the endless silence and I find I can’t look away from the toys or from him.
Is he thinking about which one he’s going to use on me?
Because obviously they’re for me, aren’t they?
A shiver moves through me, a strange mixture of fear, desire, dread, and a breathless anticipation.
My brain won’t stop picturing him using all those toys on me in all kinds of ways, and I don’t know whether I’m terrified or turned on.
He doesn’t move, sipping slowly from his tumbler, and time seems to stretch out the way it did before—becoming elastic and syrupy.
My brain is moving faster and I’m starting to pant, because I don’t want him to use those things on me.
I don’t. I was hurt in the attack, my hands scraped against the brick wall of the building as that bastard held me against it, forcing me into immobility.
I hadn’t thought all the bondage stuff would be a problem, but now it’s staring me in the face, I realize it very much is a problem. And I don’t want it to be.
I don’t want to be afraid, but I am.
“I can hear you breathing, sub,” Mr. Fairfax says, still looking down at the coffee table. “You sound afraid. See something you don’t like?”
Is it a rhetorical question? Do I answer?
“You may answer,” he continues, his attention on the toys even as he reads my mind.
“Y-yes,” I stutter hoarsely.
“You want to give me your safe word?”
“No.” This time there is no stutter.
Finally he turns and glances at me, his gaze a fierce blue flame and sucks all the air from my lungs. I can’t read the expression on his face, but…is that approval? Is he pleased?
He takes another sip of his drink, still studying me. “Pick one,” he says. “Pick a toy you’d like me to use.”
I blink, unsure, because he’s really going to let me decide on a toy?
That seems very generous of him. But his expression remains enigmatic and it seems as if he’s waiting for me to choose, so I look at the array of toys, my breath shuddering in and out.
They all look little frightening if not outright painful, so I go for the one I’m at least familiar with.
“The v-vibrator,” I say, my voice husky in the silence of the room.
His gaze is still pinned to mine as he nods slowly. “A fine choice,” he murmurs. Then he knocks back his drink, puts the tumbler down on the coffee table, and picks up the jeweled clamps instead. “But again, the correct answer to any question I put to you is, whatever you will, Master . ”
Fuck. That was another test?
And you failed it.
I lick my dry lips, my eyes prickling for some reason. “I-I’m sorry. I should?—”
“You’ll learn,” he interrupts, holding the jeweled clamps in his hands as he comes over to where I’m kneeling.
He crouches down in front of me, searching my face with the kind of focused intensity he seems to bring to everything he does.
“You can cry, sub,” he says. “It’s hard when you disappoint people isn’t it? ”
I blink furiously, because I don’t want to cry.
I’ve gotten used to failing people over the last couple of years, so why the fuck it matters to me so much that I failed his stupid test is anyone’s guess.
And who cares if I cry in front of him anyway?
I already have, so it’s not like he hasn’t seen my tears.
“You’re used to succeeding,” he goes on, still staring intently at me. “Luc told me. In fact you’re a regular little high achiever aren't you?” He holds the clamps delicately. “In which case here’s another test for you.”
And before I can do anything, he fastens the clamps to my throbbing nipples.