15. The Call #2
I don't look at Sebastian. Can't.
"I want the playroom."
He goes still. More felt than seen. The shift in air pressure, the sudden weight of his attention.
"That's not a good idea."
"I don't care if it's a good idea." I stand. Turn to face him. "I want pain. I want you to flog me until I can't think about anything except how much it hurts. I want?—"
"No."
The word cuts through my spiral. Final. Absolute.
"Why not?” I'm shaking now, fury replacing the hollow. "I'm yours, aren't I? Available at all times, in all ways. That's what the contract says. That's what I signed up for."
"The playroom isn't for escape." He moves toward me, and I hold my ground even though every instinct screams at me to retreat. "It's not a place to run from feelings you don't want to have. If I took you in there right now, with pain as your only goal, I'd be using you wrong."
"Using me wrong." I laugh, harsh and broken. "That's rich. You've been using me for nine days."
"I've been taking care of you for nine days." He stops in front of me. Close enough to touch but not touching. "There's a difference."
"Is there?”
"Yes." His voice has softened, and somehow that's worse than the coldness. "The playroom requires presence. Surrender. Your full attention on sensation, on me, on what we're building together. Right now, you don't want that. You want oblivion. And I won't give it to you."
"Why not?”
"Because you're not a thing I use to feel better." He cups my jaw, tilts my face up. "And pain isn't a currency you spend to avoid grief. If I let you do that, I'd be failing you."
"Maybe I want you to fail me." The words come out ragged. "Maybe I want you to be the monster everyone thinks you are. It would be easier. It would make sense."
"I know." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "But I'm not going to be easy for you. I'm going to be exactly what you need, even when you hate me for it."
"What I need." I pull away from his touch. Step back. Put distance between us. "You don't know what I need. You don't know anything about me except what the Protocol tells you."
"I know you've spent eight years taking care of someone who doesn't deserve it.
" His voice is steady, relentless. "I know you've never let anyone take care of you.
I know you're scared of how good it feels when I do, because if you admit it feels good, you have to admit that everything before was bad.
That you deserved better. That you wasted years on someone who would sell you to save himself. "
"Stop."
"I know you want to be angry at me because I'm safer than being angry at him." He takes a step toward me. Another. I retreat until my back hits the wall, and he cages me there with his body. "I know you're terrified that you might actually want to be here. That this might actually feel like home."
"I said stop."
"No." His mouth is inches from mine. "You don't get to run from this. You don't get to use me as a punching bag because your brother broke your heart. You want pain, I'll give you pain. But not until you're present for it. Not until you're here with me instead of somewhere else."
"I'm here."
"You're not." He presses closer, his body a wall of heat against mine. "You're back in that phone call, listening to him ask for money. You're in the casino, working double shifts. You're everywhere except this room, with me, right now."
"Then make me be here." The words come out desperate. Hungry. "If the playroom is off limits, make me be here some other way."
Something shifts in his expression. The ice melts into something darker. Hotter.
"Careful what you ask for."
"I'm done being careful." I grab the front of his shirt, drag him the last inch closer. "I'm done being strong and careful and good. I want you to make me feel something besides this. I don't care what it is."
He kisses me.
Not gentle. Not kind. He takes my mouth like he's conquering territory, his tongue sliding against mine, his hands fisting in my hair hard enough to hurt. I moan into the kiss, arching against him, desperate for more contact, more sensation, more anything.
He spins me around. Presses me face-first against the wall, his chest against my back, his hips grinding into my ass. He's hard through his slacks. Evidence that whatever he pretends, he wants this too.
"You want to feel something." His voice is a growl against my ear. "I'll make you feel something. But we're not doing this in the playroom. We're not doing this with toys and restraints. We're doing this right here, right now, with nothing between us but skin."
He yanks my shirt over my head. Unfastens my bra with one hand while the other works at my pants. In seconds, I’m naked, pressed against a cold wall, his clothed body a furnace behind me.
"You want pain." He bites my shoulder hard enough to make me cry out. "I'll give you pain."
His hand slides between my legs. Finds me wet. The Protocol's work, or maybe something more, I can't tell anymore. Two fingers thrust inside without warning, and I gasp, clenching around him.
"You want to stop thinking." He fucks me with his hand, brutal and efficient, his thumb grinding against my clit. "I'll make you stop thinking."
I'm climbing already, the orgasm building faster than it should, and he feels it. He pulls his hand away just before I crest.
"No." The denial tears out of me. "Please?—"
"Please, what?” He spins me back around, pins me against the wall with his body, his eyes boring into mine. "Say it. Tell me what you want."
"You." The word comes out broken. "I want you. Inside me. Making me feel something besides this hollowed-out nothing."
He releases me long enough to strip. Naked, he's devastating. All golden skin and carved muscle and the hard jut of his cock that makes my mouth water. He lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist, and he drives into me in one brutal stroke.
I scream.
The penetration is overwhelming. Too much, too fast, my body stretched around his without preparation. But the pain is sharp and bright and real, cutting through the hollow like a knife through fog.
"More." I dig my nails into his shoulders. "Harder."
He gives me harder.
He fucks me against the wall like he's trying to break through it.
Each thrust knocks the breath out of me, drives sounds from my throat I don't recognize.
The pleasure and pain blur together until I can't tell which is which, until there's nothing in my head except sensation and him and the desperate need for release.
"You're here now." His voice is wrecked, ragged. "You're here with me. Say it."
"I'm here." The words tear out of me on a sob. "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here?—"
"Come."
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave. I convulse around him, screaming his name, my whole body shaking with the force of it. He follows seconds later, slamming deep and holding, the pulse of his release hot inside me.
We stay like that. Pinned against the wall. His forehead pressed to mine. Both of us gasping for air.
"I've got you." His voice is rough but tender. "I've got you. You're here. You're safe."
I don't know which one of us is shaking harder.
He carries me to the couch. Settles me against his chest, still inside me, our bodies tangled together in a way that should feel wrong but doesn't. His hand strokes my back. Long, slow passes that quiet something animal in my brain.
"He asked you for money," Sebastian says finally. "After everything. That's what he wanted."
"Yeah." The word comes out hollow.
"That's who he is. That's who he's always been. The brother you loved existed in your mind, not in reality."
"I know." I press my face against his chest. "I think I've always known. I just didn't want to see it."
"Seeing it hurts."
"Everything hurts." I pull back, meet his eyes. "Except this. Being here with you. That doesn't hurt anymore. And that scares me more than anything Bennett could say."
Something flickers in his expression. A crack in the ice that he doesn't bother to hide.
"The collar arrives tomorrow," he says quietly. "You should see it. Understand what we're building toward."
"What are we building toward?”
"I don't know yet." His hand cups my face, and there's nothing cold in his touch. Nothing controlled. "But I'm starting to think it might be something neither of us expected."
He kisses me again. Softer this time. A promise and a question wrapped together.
I don't know the answer.
But for the first time, I think I want to find out.