Chapter 7 #3
I clamped my mouth shut. The honest answer was, yes, Bressen had hurt me, but I savored that dull ache between my legs as I sat there now. I wasn’t sure how to explain that to myself, let alone Axenus.
“Everything you saw was consensual,” I said after a moment. It wasn’t an answer to what he’d asked, but it was the only answer that mattered.
Axenus looked at me in disbelief. “How?”
“He would’ve stopped if I’d asked him to,” I said. Despite what Bressen had claimed when we returned, I knew that for certain.
Axenus considered this. “Why didn’t you ask him to? It looked as though he was hurting you.”
I felt my face flush. Gods, he was going to make me admit it.
“Because…I enjoyed it,” I said. I held his gaze only long enough to see his look of shock before I turned away.
Seconds of silence hung between us before Axenus spoke again.
“Is this...always how you…?”
“No,” I assured him. “Only sometimes. It helps Bressen when he’s angry or frustrated.”
Axenus looked horrified again. “He takes his anger out on you?”
“I let him use me to release some of his pent-up energy,” I corrected. “He doesn’t take anything I don’t willingly give, and when he feels better, he gives me pleasure back.”
Axenus continued to stare at me. “But he enjoys hurting-”
“I know you probably don’t understand what we do given your own experiences,” I interrupted, “and I can’t explain why I like it, or why Bressen does, but we need you to accept that this works for us.”
The words came out sharper than I would’ve liked. I’d seen Axenus’s trauma firsthand and wanted to be sensitive to it, but I also didn’t want to be judged, to be made to feel as though there was something wrong with me or Bressen because we liked our sex this way.
Axenus continued to stare at me, and I felt bad for snapping at him.
“Have you ever known Bressen to be the type of man who loses control?” I asked Axenus, trying a different tactic.
He blinked at me, and his mouth worked a little before he answered.
“No,” he said finally. “Bressen is usually very in control. That’s why-”
“Exactly,” I interrupted. “He’s one of the most feared rulers on the continent, and one of the most powerful perimortals to ever live. There can be dire consequences if he loses control, so he doesn’t get the luxury of letting himself slip.”
Axenus’s shoulders sagged as he saw where I was going with this. “Except with you,” he said.
“Except with me,” I confirmed. “Everyone needs an outlet, and I’m Bressen’s.
I take his pain and his frustration and his anger for him, and I enjoy doing so.
Whether Bressen likes hurting me or not, it doesn’t matter because I give him permission to do it.
” I shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I’m not sure he does like it, but it does help him. ”
Several more seconds wandered away before Axenus nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” I went on more gently. “And I’m sorry I made you think I was in trouble. You shouldn’t have been in a position where you felt like you needed to help. We shouldn’t have done that out in the open where anyone could see. It won’t happen again.”
Axenus looked away. “But I didn’t help,” he said. “I came through the door and saw what was happening, and I couldn’t move. I just…stood there and watched what he was doing to you. If it had been real…”
He trailed off, and I heard the shame in his voice.
My own shame rose. The thought of Axenus watching Bressen and I aroused me more than I cared to admit.
“If it had been real, you would’ve stopped it,” I said, pushing the other thought down. I reached across and took Axenus’s hand in mine to give it a bracing squeeze before pulling back.
He smiled weakly. “You’re more certain about that than I am. All I could think of was how I owed Bressen for saving me.” He shook his head. “Was I really willing to let him hurt you because of that?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway.
“Maybe on some level you knew it wasn’t real because you knew Bressen wasn’t the type of man to hurt me like that.”
He nodded. The thought seemed to put him at ease. “Maybe,” he said.
I stood, and he did as well.
“Just do me a favor,” I said. “Well, two actually.”
“Anything,” he said.
“Don’t hold this against Bressen. He didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did you.”
Axenus paused, then gave a quick nod. “And the other favor?”
“Forget everything you saw and let’s never speak of this again.”
He forced out a deep breath, followed by a small laugh. “Gladly.”
I put a hand on his arm. “Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to Bressen.” I turned to head for the door.
I’d only taken a few steps when something on the floor caught my eye. A black piece of lacy fabric.
My face flooded with color again as I realized it was the undergarment Bressen had ripped off me and discarded earlier. I detoured toward it and bent quickly to snatch it up as I hurried out of the room, knowing without having to look that Axenus was still watching me.
I’d asked Axenus to forget what he saw, but whether I could ever forget it myself and look him in the eye again remained to be seen.
Tandem Read: Go to Clash of Stone and Steel (Bk 3), Chapter 17