23. The Awakening
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE AWAKENING
Layla
The minute the word leaves my lips, Orion goes still. His eyes go wide behind his mask, and he braces himself like he’s waiting for me to yell or punch him—like I have so many other times in my life.
I’ve spent over seven years pushing him away—telling him I never wanted to see him again. He obeyed me each time.
But he was here the whole time.
The past seven years flash through my mind like a rapid-fire movie.
The cocky smirks. The arrogance. But there was also vulnerability—trepidation every time he would look at me from across the room.
And his eyes always found me first, no matter where we were or who we were with. He never wavered—never gave up.
The bracelet?—
I’ve been his for so much longer than I realized.
“Layla,” he murmurs, and it takes me a second to realize his hands are shaking at his sides.
I haven’t given him any indication that I want this with him—with my stepbrother. Aside from the kiss earlier today, as far as he knows, I’m about to walk out of Inferno.
But that’s the last thing I want to do.
Instead of sitting up, I reach for his hand, placing my palm against the back of his hand.
His hand. Orion’s.
He spasms at the contact, and when I drag his hand to the space between my thighs, his eyes flutter briefly. I drag the hem of my dress up my hips and place his hand against my core—against the silk panties I know are currently soaking wet.
Something low and primal escapes his lips.
I use my other hand and reach forward, pulling his mask off, and his face comes into view.
He should be a painting. He should be studied and worshipped for centuries to come. His scythe-shaped eyebrows. His full lips. His deep, blue, genuine eyes—the way the blue bled into the black of his pupils, like a kaleidoscope. Every single emotion he’s feeling plays across his features. Shock. Arousal. Adoration. Supplication. He’s never been able to hide how he feels, ever the Scorpio.
How have I gone this long without realizing it?
“Layla—”
His voice breaks on my name.
“I need more,” I tell him, moving my hips up into his waiting hand. “ Please. ”
Everything inside me feels like it’s on fire. I’ve never been this turned on—never been this wanton and needy. I’d hump his hand if he’d let me. The friction I need feels so close, yet impossibly far away.
It feels like he’s already embedded in my mind, and maybe that’s because of the hypnosis, or maybe it’s because it’s Orion.
The gangly teenager who showed up on my doorstep one day, giving my eight-year-old self her first crush.
The cool high schooler who helped me with the bullies in middle school.
The stepbrother who helped me with my math homework, and Spanish tests, and watched my audition dances hundreds of times.
“Layla,” he says again, his voice frayed.
He looks down at me, his expression unsure. Just moments ago, he was commanding me so beautifully, but right now, exposed and laid bare for me…
He can’t hide behind the mask anymore.
He can’t hide anything anymore.
And neither can I.
The feelings are too raw. Too real . Too much.
“Please, Orion. I need you . Touch me.”
I see the resistance snap behind his eyes. His pupils bloom, and his expression grows hard and resolute as he moves one of his fingers underneath the band of my silk underwear. A burning sensation sears through my veins, scorching every nerve ending, every trace of his fingertips against my delicate skin. One of his fingers swipes through me, and then?—
He stiffens, and his eyes flick to mine with a sharpened, dark expression. Slowly, he scoots away from my face down to my hips, and when he pulls my panties to the side, he sits back on his heels and uses his free hand to cover his mouth.
“Oh fuck,” he growls, looking at me with black eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Layla.”
His voice sounds so tortured.
“Do you like it?” I ask, lifting my hips to show off my VCH piercing. “No one’s ever seen it before. Well, except for the guy who did it?—”
He snaps.
Using brute force, he spreads my legs with both hands, flattening my knees against the leather.
“You are mine ,” he snarls, nostrils flaring.
His words flood me with pleasure—with something warm and addictive and sweet like honey. I open my legs wider, and his eyes flare with intensity before he looks down at me.
I don’t even feel embarrassed. He already knows the worst parts of me, and despite it all, he still wanted me enough to come here tonight.
“I don’t share, Layla. This beautiful, decorated cunt? It’s mine.”
“Yes,” I whisper, working my hips higher. “Please, I need you, Orion?—”
“Call me Orion again, and we’re going to have a problem.”
I gasp, and everything becomes hazy with lust. I’ve been reduced to a body that desperately needs release—like a taut cord waiting to snap. I can’t take much more.
Especially when he talks to me in that voice—the one I’ve only heard a handful of times.
His Dom voice.
“Please, Master. I need you inside me.”
“That’s nice. I couldn’t give a fuck what you want,” he says. His voice isn’t cruel. In fact, his lips pull into a lopsided smile as he runs another finger through my folds. “I plan to savor you, Little Dancer. Every inch. Every lick. Every breathy word that leaves your lips. At my leisure.”
Panic and elation rush through me. I don’t want to wait—but I also know he’ll make it worth my while.
“Color?”
“Green,” I practically wheeze as his thumb brushes against the metal of my piercing.
“Good. I’m going to ask you some questions now,” he says, his voice a low purr. “If you’re a good girl and answer honestly, I’ll reward you and let you ask a question.”
He flicks the curved barbell, and I keen. I see stars, and my hands curl at my sides as my hips begin to circle, chasing some kind of friction. A smattering of pleasure skitters down my spine, giving me a taste of the reward he’s willing to give me.
“ God ,” I rasp.
“When did you get this?”
“A year ago. I didn’t tell anyone. It was just something for me.”
“Your turn,” he says. “I’m sure you have questions for me.”
“What else are you planning on doing to me tonight? Are you going to hurt me?”
He looks down at me as his brows furrow. One of his fingers teases the entrance of my core, trailing a slow circle around the hyper-sensitive area.
“Yes.” His quick answer causes my whole body to tense with fear. “I will hurt you, but I will never harm you. And that was two questions,” he adds, pinching my clit. Hard.
I let out a sharp gasp. “Oh God,” I mutter, a full-body shudder working through me—down my legs, all the way to my toes. Everything begins to tingle with awareness.
He laughs. “So you are a masochist. I suspected that might be the case,” he purrs, trailing his other hand up my bare leg. “Why are you here, Layla?”
His question catches me off guard. I’m not sure if he means literally or if he means how I practically begged Starboy to meet me tonight.
I suspect it’s the latter, but it feels too personal. Too intimate. Despite having his index finger running down the slippery seam of my vulva, telling him about how conflicted I felt earlier feels like I’m sharing too much.
“I just wanted to meet the person I’d been talking to.”
It’s not exactly a lie. More like an omission. Besides, what does he expect? That I’ll tell him I have feelings for him?
He doesn’t speak. His finger stops its delicate intrusion, and his hand comes to rest on my inner thigh as the other one falls to his side.
Apprehension fills me.
“Turn over.”
I swallow the dread climbing up my throat as I roll over onto my stomach. One of his hands pulls the hem of my dress up, exposing my thong and everything below my waist to him.
“I don’t tolerate dishonesty,” he says, his voice rough like gravel.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, voice trembling.
“And while we’re at it,” he continues, cutting me off, “spare me the apologies. They’re meaningless unless they’re genuine.”
Anger and embarrassment flush through me at his reprimand. “It was genuine!”
He goes still, waiting. His eyes bore into mine, and silence fills the air. Embarrassment flashes through me, and the silence is deafening.
He is in control—something I need to remember.
He decides what he gives me and how much.
He decides the rules.
“Please, Master. I’m sorry. Truly.”
He stands up without acknowledging my apology. I see him walk to the desk and pull something out.
“Because it’s your first time, I’m going to be nice and let you choose. Paddle or flogger?”
My whole body continues to throb with arousal. I can’t think—can’t rationally acknowledge the implications of either fully, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Paddle.”
“Mm. I hoped you’d say that.”
He pulls out a long black paddle. As he brings it over, I admire the craftsmanship. It seems to be made of fine, dark wood. The handle is braided with black leather and gold, and the flattened end of the paddle… has a raised R.
For Ravage.
“Choose a number. One through ten.”
“One,” I say immediately. It seems like the safest answer.
He uses one hand to lightly paddle the waiting palm of the other, and his tongue rolls against his cheek as he considers me. It’s playful and threatening all at once. A cruel smile is splayed across his face.
“Great. We’ll start with ten paddles. You only get one break.”
Well, that’s not the answer I was hoping for by choosing one…
A cold sweat breaks out across my forehead, but I know arguing is futile. “Yes, Master.”
He sets the paddle on my back, and then he bends down to lift my legs, positioning himself underneath me.
My ass is in his lap, and my cheeks heat as his hands slowly run up and down the backs of my thighs.
“We’re still playing our game, Little Dancer. Ask me a question.”
He reaches for the paddle, but I can’t see what he’s doing. I feel so exposed, so vulnerable.
I ask the first question that pops into my mind.
“What kind of paddle is that?”
He runs the wood down one leg, and I tremble with anticipation.
“It’s custom-made. It was actually cut from a piece of furniture in Ravage Castle. When my father moved abroad, Miles donated a lot of his possessions. He had quite a collection of items. This one is made from a type of wood that’s illegal now. I found it last year and repurposed it. I haven’t used it on anyone, though.”
I want to ask why.
I want to speak out of line and risk more punishment, but I bite my tongue.
He traces the smooth wood over the other leg, and I whimper when he nudges my legs apart slightly.
“I made it with you in mind, Layla. So that I could use it on you for the very first time. Rare, cherished, classic, timeless. Just like you. I told myself I’d be a good boy and wait, but patience isn’t my strong suit.”
He lifts a hand, and then he brings the paddle down on my left ass cheek.
I can’t breathe. I’m—it’s—too overwhelming. It’s a new kind of pain for me—sharp at first before it bleeds into a bone-deep ache. It gets worse before it gets better, and all I can do is internalize the pain. It expands outward until I can’t get away from it until I’m writhing to get away from him.
“Give me a color, Layla.”
“Green.” My voice is shaky but resolute.
“If at any time that changes, I need you to tell me. I’ll keep checking in with you, and I expect total honesty—not just what you think I want to hear. Is that understood?
“Yes, Master,” I rasp.
“Good. Now it’s my turn to ask a question. When did you know Starboy was me?”
“When you walked in earlier,” I tell him honestly.
“Before I hypnotized you?” he asks, his voice frayed. I wish I could see his expression—wish I could take in his layered emotions.
“Yes, Master.”
“But you didn’t have any qualms about me being Starboy?” he asks.
“That’s your third question,” I blurt. “But no. I’m surprised it took me this long to figure it out.”
Thwack.
“Oh, f?—”
Thwack.
The double hits stack the pain in a way that makes my eyes water. The heat of the blow builds gradually, but two in a row doubles the sensation, and my breath catches in my throat.
I can’t say I hate it—like I told him before, I’ve been through worse things.
“Say it,” he commands.
“Say what, Master?”
“Say fuck. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you mutter the filthiest words imaginable.”
I swallow as one of his hands soothes the burning on the skin of my right ass cheek. It’s not that I mind swearing. I had a really strict ballet teacher one summer who would make us do two-hundred calf lifts if we swore. It was supposed to teach us decorum, but it just scared me from ever using a bad word. After that, it just always felt so foreign on my tongue. I have dirty thoughts and think bad words all the time, but when they leave my lips, I feel like an impostor.
No one expects the prim and proper ballet dancer to swear, and for so long, I let that persona take over everything. I hid my trashy books and my dark desires. I kept them from everyone I know, something only for me to know. I had lots of thoughts—lots of feelings, and emotions, and times I wanted to tell someone to fuck off.
It never occurred to me until recently that I could defy expectations and say whatever the hell I wanted to say.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Thwack.
My whole body goes taut. With each new swat, pain and pleasure blur together, and the sharpness dulls into a deep, throbbing ache in time with my racing pulse.
“Louder.”
“Fuck,” I say, my voice clipped with irritation.
“Color?”
“Green,” I bite out.
Thwack.
Actual tears begin to squeeze out of my eyes. My body absorbs each hit, and the pain soon twists into a strange, perverse sort of pleasure. The heat from the paddle deepens, sinking into my bones and making the space between my legs slick with arousal.
It’s strange. It hurt so much at first, but the gnawing sensation of my swollen clit and the touch of his calloused fingers against the backs of my thighs overrides the pain.
Enhances the pain.
“We’re halfway done.”
Thwack.
He hits the other ass cheek. Guess we’re doing half and half. The pleasure shifts, its sweetness giving way to something more overwhelming, almost unbearable. The sensations boomerang back into full-blown pain, causing me to cry out. My muscles tensing involuntarily as the pain grows sharper, slicing through the haze of my arousal.
Thwack.
“Oh, fuck,” I cry out, my back arching.
Orion holds me down, running a hand over the sore spots, but even that hurts against my sensitive skin.
“Color?”
“Green.”
Thwack.
“Please,” I sob, my body wracked with only pain. My breath comes faster, shallower, as if I’m running out of air, and the warmth that once radiated through my body now feels like a scorching fire.
“You can take two more,” he growls.
Thwack, thwack.
I scream—two in a row sends me into a tailspin, and I can barely focus on anything other than the desperate, aching need for it to stop—and something that’s slowly simmering underneath the surface of my skin.
“You did so well,” he murmurs, running a hand over the backs of my thighs and down to the back of my knees. I hear the paddle clatter to the ground, but I don’t have the will to look, or to move. I’m still reeling from the amount of pain I just experienced.
“Thank you, Master.”
He chuckles, the sound low and deep. “You’re catching on. Very good.” His hand comes to my hairline, brushing the hair away from my face. The gesture is so gentle and sweet, and it catches me off guard completely. I feel drained in a way I’ve never experienced before, and despite the pain, I’m… content. It feels like I’m floating. “You can ask a question now,” he murmurs, running a hand under my dress and sending sparks of contentment through me.
“Why is penetration a soft limit?” I blurt. With the state I’m in, I can’t dredge up my tact filter, but something tells me he doesn’t care.
His hands stop for half a second, seemingly surprised. Then he continues to stroke me—light, featherlight touches, dragging his finger down to my ankles.
Everything feels heavier like I’m about to be absorbed by the air around me.
“Because I wanted to wait for you.”
I stiffen. “You mean, you’ve never?—”
He laughs. The sound is loud, and it makes me smile.
“You think I’m a virgin? No, not even close.” He leans down closer so that his breath is warm against my ear, his voice steady but laced with something deeper, something raw. “I added that soft limit after we kissed the first time. If it’s not painfully obvious by now, I’ve never wanted anyone the way that I want you. It seemed pointless to pretend otherwise.”
His words power through me, effectively rendering me speechless. Lifting my legs, he disentangles himself from underneath me and helps me to sit up. I pull my dress down as disappointment presses down on me. I’m still so turned on… is the scene done?
Was this it?
Maybe tonight was just a taste of what’s to come, but I hope not.
I hardly notice Orion standing in front of me until he places a warm hand on top of my head. I look up at him as my pulse begins to speed up.
His eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes me squirm. “And now that you’re here, I’m not letting go.”
“Yes, Master,” I whisper, looking up into my stepbrother’s eyes. This doesn’t feel weird—I’m able to stay in the moment, to think of all the ways I want to watch him unravel before me. I don’t know what that says about our relationship, but I’m grateful there’s no awkwardness.
I’ll examine why later, when he isn’t fisting my hair and looking down at me like he should be worshipping me instead of the other way around.
“Does it hurt?” he asks.
I know immediately what he’s talking about.
“Yes. Still hurts. I probably won’t be able to sit correctly for days.”
Something deep rumbled out of his chest. “I bet my initials will look so pretty against your skin. A black and blue reminder.”
“Yes, Master.”
His presence consumes the space between us. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it worth your while. On your knees.” His voice is firm, leaving no room for hesitation. The air between us is charged, heavy with anticipation, and I feel my body respond to the authority in his tone. “Look at me.” When my eyes meet his, I see that spark, that unspoken connection. His demand. “You’re mine,” he whispers, his words sinking deep into me, carrying both a promise and a warning. “And tonight, I’ll remind you exactly who you belong to.”