Chapter 16 What If I Want You To Ruin Me?
WHAT IF I WANT YOU TO RUIN ME?
SEBASTIAN
After a long shower where the scalding water had done nothing to erase the thoughts in my head, I throw on a pair of sweatpants, not bothering with a shirt, and head back into the kitchen. I’m pouring myself a glass of whiskey when the door to my suite opens and Annika lets herself in.
I raise an eyebrow, about to ask her what she’s doing, just waltzing in here, when Lily appears behind her.
She casts me a wary glance, and I study her for a moment, noticing the way her gaze halts on my shirtless torso. Given she saw me completely naked with my cock in a man’s arse twenty-four hours ago, I think she can handle seeing me without a shirt on.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, Annika?” I ask, lifting the glass to my lips while I turn my focus to the curvy brunette with mischief in her eyes.
I’d thought she might be the safer option to start the conversation, but now I’m not so sure.
“Lily and I have been talking,” she says, and I have to resist the urge to groan.
This is going to hurt my head, I can already tell.
“And what might you have been talking about?”
She shrugs. “About how Lily is ready to make some changes.”
Lily shifts uncomfortably beside her, and I wonder how she managed to talk to Annika about anything with how much she’s struggling to look at me right now.
“I see. What kind of changes?” I lean back against the bench and cross my arms.
Lily tracks the movement with her gaze, before snapping her eyes upwards to mine and quickly looking away again.
“Lily would like to start dancing again. I told her we’d help her find a class nearby, and she’s going to use the room off the gym with all the mirrors. And she’d like to resume her studies.”
Raising a brow, I run my thumb along my lower lip while I take this information in. It certainly wasn’t how I expected the conversation to go with how Annika was grinning like the Cheshire Cat when she walked in.
“We can definitely make those things happen,” I say with a nod, feeling some of the tension in my shoulders loosen.
Annika nods, and for a fraction of a second, I think maybe last night’s problems are behind us.
But then the giant pain in the arse turns her wicked grin on me and I know I’m not going to like the next thing that comes out of her mouth.
“Oh, and she’d also like to discover what she enjoys sexually.”
Yep, I knew it was too much to hope that this would not be painfully uncomfortable.
I glower at Annika for a moment, but eventually I have to look at Lily. I’d expected to find her hiding behind her hair once again. Or turning bright red with embarrassment.
What I certainly hadn’t expected was to find her standing there with her arms crossed and her eyes blazing with determination while she waits for me to speak.
I hesitate before replying, looking from one woman to the other. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say here,” I say after a moment.
Annika smirks, enjoying all of this far too much.
“Well, given Lily and I discussed what she saw last night, I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to help her with that, too.”
Needing a moment to compose myself, I lift the glass to my lips again and drain the last of the whiskey. There isn’t enough alcohol in this entire mansion right now to help me deal with this turn of events.
The two women remain silent, one grinning away while the other looks between the two of us, no doubt trying to work out what the hell is going on.
“And why do you think that, Annika? Surely you have the skills to help Lily.”
She shrugs. “Oh, I plan to help, too. I’ve already procured her very first vibrator from the new shipment that came in earlier.
” She holds up the box for one of the clit sucking vibrators that both she and Imogen favour, before tossing it onto the couch.
“But you and I both know that you are the best choice when it comes to assisting people with exploring their limits.”
I pause, slowly lifting my brow once again. “Just how much detail did you go into during this conversation?” I ask, anger simmering within me.
Annika keeps on smiling. “Well, Lily had questions. And given that honesty is the best policy…” she trails off, but I can put two and two together.
Fucking hell, she’s told her everything.
Lily clears her throat. “I think it’s my turn to speak.”
Fabulous.
“By all means,” I say, my exasperation showing in my tone. “The floor’s all yours, Lily.” I wave my hand through the space between us all.
She looks at Annika. “I can take it from here.”
Annika cocks her head to the side, studying Lily for a few moments. “You sure?”
Lily nods. “Yeah. It’s okay. I don’t need a chaperone while I speak to Sebastian.”
Annika gives her a brief nod before looking at me again. “Try not to be yourself, DeLuca.”
She saunters back out the door, and I resist the urge to remind her I’m her boss, not the other way around.
Once we’re alone, Lily and I watch each other, and I wonder if she’s lost the nerve to speak up. While I’m really wishing this whole situation wasn’t happening, I’m also curious to see what she has to say.
After a moment, she moves closer, although she remains out of arm’s reach.
She draws a deep breath and tucks her hair behind her ear before finally speaking. “Do you know what caused Joseph to hit me the first time?”
Of all the things she could have said, that was the last thing I expected. Throughout this entire conversation, I’d not once thought about her arsehole of a husband, which is already enough to throw me off balance.
“No,” I say, feeling some of the frustration slip away.
She lifts her chin, holding my gaze with the steely determination I haven’t seen on her face since I walked out of her life.
“It was around a month after our wedding. And I’d asked him if we could try something new in the bedroom.
He’d insisted on waiting til we were married to have sex.
Really leaned into the whole “good Christian” personality he portrays.
Probably should have been my first clue, huh?
I mean, neither of us were virgins, and I wasn’t raised in that world, but I guess I thought it was romantic.
” She grimaces, and I feel my jaw tense.
“By then, he’d proven to be a rather selfish lover and never waited for me to come.
So I asked him if we could maybe use some toys or something.
Try some new positions. Anything to make it more enjoyable for me. ”
I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to curl my hands into fists at my sides. “And he hit you?”
She lets out a hollow laugh. “Right after calling me a whore, he slapped me so hard my head snapped back and hit the wall. No one had ever hit me before, and the pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
” She reaches upwards to brush her hand over her right cheekbone, almost as though reliving the memory has brought the pain back to the surface.
“My father was an arsehole, but he was verbally abusive. I thought I’d experienced the worst of humanity by that point, but no.
Turns out, things could get a lot worse.
And it did. I never brought it up again, but it was like a dam wall had broken and the truth of Joseph’s character came out.
And eventually, I began to believe what he said.
That I was disgusting for wanting to experience pleasure during sex.
He’d cut me off from everyone who cared about me, as you know.
I had no access to money, and he monitored my phone and internet usage.
Dad obviously didn’t give a shit, because my marriage to Joseph got him in with all the people he’d been trying to work with for years.
And Mum was too hopped up on drugs to notice anything…
So I had no choice but to stay. And push aside any lingering desires I might have.
After that first time, he learned to leave bruises where no one could see them.
Can’t have his trophy-wife looking battered and bruised at all those events, after all.
It was all part of the way he controlled me.
How he kept his dirty whore of a wife in line.
He got off on the pain he caused. And I became numb to it. ”
Throughout her story, the rage I’ve been keeping at bay for the last few months is threatening to overcome me.
All I want is to get on the next plane to Sydney and beat the living shit out of the arsehole.
But I know that isn’t why Lily is telling me all of this.
And my anger won’t do anything for her right now.
She continues speaking, almost as though, now she’s started, she can’t stop.
“When Daniel got me out of there and took me to the club, I was terrified at first. I worried that being around all that sex would turn me into exactly what Joseph said I was. I couldn’t fathom the idea that any of the sex workers actually enjoyed what they were doing.
In my experience, sex was something a woman was forced to endure.
Simply tools for men’s pleasure. It’s why I stayed hidden away.
Because my own curiosity felt wicked. It wasn’t until I came here and started spending time with Annika and Imogen, and saw how comfortable the sex workers here are with one another that I started to reconsider.
They seem to really enjoy what they do. By seeing that, it almost felt like I could give myself permission to let that curiosity come to the surface. ”
I nod slightly, and she moves closer now, reaching out to touch my arm, which is still crossed over my chest while I grip the opposite bicep.
“You gave me the opportunity to feel like myself for the first time in eight years. To make true friends, who exist outside that bubble we lived in down there. But I’m not made of glass, Sebastian.
When I saw you all last night, so clearly enjoying what you were doing - without any guilt…
I want that for myself. I want the chance to feel what it’s like to have someone else give me pleasure.
To learn what it’s like to be with someone who isn’t only focused on their needs alone. ”
The tension in my body has me wound so tight I’m worried I’m about to explode. I’ve spent years mastering my emotions. To keep the anger and rage at bay. But hearing first hand just how bad Lily’s life has been threatens to become the thing that causes me to unleash.
Perhaps sensing the war I’m fighting internally, she places her hand softly to my face, smoothing her thumb over my cheekbone.
“I didn’t tell you all this to make you angry. I know you hate him. I hate him, too. I think I hated him for a long time. I just didn’t know how to get out of that situation.”
I reach up to cover her hand with mine, slowly lowering her hand but not letting it go as I hold her determined gaze. “You have no idea what you’re asking of me, Lily. You’d be trading one type of control for another.”
She smiles. “I watched you last night, Sebastian. Even without Annika’s explanation about everything, I could see that you were focused on the pleasure of everyone else.
You were dominating, but there was no rage there.
You weren’t getting off on the power you had.
You aren’t the monster you seem to think you are.
I know who the true monster is. But…” She closes the remaining distance between us, her blue eyes wide and imploring as she presses her chest to mine.
“What if I beg you to show me how it should be? To show me what I’ve been missing out on? ”
Despite everything in me that says that there is no way this can end well for either of us, my grip on her fingers tighten as I study her closely.
Then I shock the absolute shit out of both of us and crush my mouth to hers.