“Okay, sweetheart, you want to fight me, this is the time to do it. I've got all night.” He hummed and waggled his finger in her sensitive rear passage, stirring all the nerves to life. Making her feel sick. “I find it strange you didn't put anal on your hard limits when it's obvious it distresses you. That makes me wonder if you believed I wouldn't go down this road, or if you were hoping I would.”
She held on to her silence like a comforter.
“Blindfolds, watersports, blood play, pet play.” One by one, he listed her hard limits. “Would you like to add anal to that list now?”
She'd been through worse than this, she reminded herself. Atticus wasn't hurting her, certainly wasn't being malicious. Keeping her mouth shut was the only thing she had to do, and he'd get bored. He could be patient, but she was the living embodiment of the trait.
He sighed. “In my line of work, you get to know people. How to read them, how to judge them. When they're lying and scared, or truthful and evasive. There's a file on my desk with a big red sticky note on the front. There's a lot of papers in that file, documenting the consistent abuse of—”
The scream in her head deafened her. She stiffened, her blood running through her veins like rivers of ice until every inch of her was frozen. The warmth of his hands on her was the only thing keeping her grounded in the here and now, and even that connection was tenuous.
The story she'd told Anarchy only a couple months before about the Dominant she'd served had been a lie, but only Connie knew that. There was only Connie left alive who knew the truth about those eighteen months of utter hell…or so she'd thought. How the fuck had Atticus managed to dig up that level of hell from where she'd buried it?
Blood dripped down her chin, she'd bitten her lip so hard. “Stop.”
“I will when you let yourself go.” He removed his finger gently from the place she hated beyond reason, and she found herself being lifted, turned, placed gently on his thigh. His eyes darkened when he saw the blood on her face. “I should spank you again for not using your fucking safeword, Connie.”
She’d prefer it over talking about her past. Sitting quietly when he set her on the bed and rose, she watched him prowl over to a cupboard and yank out a packet of wet wipes, saying nothing as he came back to her and began tending to her boo-boos.
Daddy Doms were the best at fixing boo-boos.
It was just a shame she wasn’t a little…
Because being taken care of felt nice.
“My objective tonight is to make you cry, Con. We both know it, and we’re both aware you’ve got it in your head that you’re not going to. So, I’m not going to play nice. I’m going to tie you up and flog you until the cork pops on all that shit inside you, and I’m not against cheating.” He dabbed at her sore lip with a wipe, meeting her eyes with a sober gaze. “I read the file on Evan Saunders, sweetheart.”
It took a lot of effort not to react to that name. Once, she’d had nightmares for days at a time if anyone so much as mentioned it in casual passing. That asshole was in the past, and she kept her past locked in, locked away, and hidden.
“I don’t get why you care so much, Atticus.”
“Because you’re my annoying best friend and I love you. Because you’re family, and because Avalon sees you as an honorary matriarch. None of us will be the same if anything happens to you, and the way you’re acting has us all scared, sweetheart.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Are you going to talk to me, or do I need to get the cuffs and flogger?”
Miserable, Connie dropped her gaze to her hands as she worried her fingers together. They both knew he’d need one, because he wouldn’t give up until he got his way, and she couldn’t give in. “Don’t forget the condom.”
“I think it's time you let me worry about the details, little sub.” Strong fingers gripped her chin, urged her face up so she couldn't avoid meeting vivid green eyes. “I want you to stand up and go over to that curtain in the corner. Feet apart, hands at your sides, eyes closed.”
Everyone knew Atticus's favored position was doggy style. Ninety-nine percent of his scenes involved a hapless sub being bent over just the way he liked. Connie frowned as she realized he was deviating from his usual habits, which meant she wasn't going to be able to read him as easily as she'd hoped. “I thought…I thought you'd want me on hands and knees. Sir,” she tacked on hastily when his eyes narrowed.
“Already told you how I want you. Don't believe you can outthink me, Connie—I won't let you top me from the bottom.” Atticus released her jaw and stepped back. With a snap of his fingers, a pointed jab toward the corner, and a raised eyebrow, he gave her no doubt as to what she was meant to do.
She rose and slunk into the corner, setting her feet shoulder-length apart and forcing her hands to hang limply by her sides. Eyes firmly closed. The muscles in her back and shoulders grew tense as she heard him rummaging through cupboards, sliding drawers open and closed. She was desperate to fidget, to move, to escape if that's what it would take to ease the anxiety building inside her.
Fingers trailed down her right arm from her shoulder to her wrist. Before she could yank away, a padded cuff was slipped around her limb, tightened, and assessed. Heat pulsed into her as the snugness stole part of her independence. A second cuff was fixed into place, and Atticus hummed as he reached around her waist to fasten what she thought was some kind of belt in position, just above her hips.
“Master Atticus?” she asked hesitantly.
Ignoring her, the bastard continued to hum, snapping what sounded like a quick release hook onto her right cuff. Another onto the left. “That looks real pretty.” He moved in front of her, and something made a soft whooshing sound. A small draft caressed her bare skin. “Lift your hands for me, little sub. High as you can.” His fingers trailed over her shoulder as he returned to his position behind her.
Wary, Connie raised her hands slowly, recognising the trap. Still, it was a shock to find her range of movement was now limited to about six inches before the chains attached to the belt around her waist yanked tight. She made an uncomfortable noise in her throat and stepped back quickly as though that would help her predicament.
“Connie, you know the drill. I can get you out of this in five seconds flat if it's too much.” The soft thwack of flogger strands made her flinch and step back again…into Atticus's chest. He nudged her forward, gathering her hair and draping it over her shoulder so the ends tickled her breast. “Open your eyes when you're ready, Connie.”
It was okay, she told herself. If Atticus was flogging her from the rear, he couldn't see her face. Maybe he'd read her body language, but if he couldn't meet her eyes, he wouldn't have any power over how he made her feel. The most effective method of breaking someone down was with eye contact, and he'd put himself in a position where he had none.
Connie arched away as the fronds flicked lightly, almost playfully over her shoulders. No one had been allowed to do this is a long time, and it felt both weird and amazing. The exhaustion in her bones rose to rest beneath her skin as the flogger encouraged her to relax. If she wasn't careful, she'd collapse in a limp heap.
Thwack-thwack, thwack-thwack, thwack-thwack. A slow forehand-backhand rhythm she'd often used herself lifted the blood beneath her skin. Back and forth, back and forth, working slowly from her shoulders down to her butt and thighs. Keeping her eyes shut, she moaned and felt her body sway in time with the beat. Thwack-thwack, left-right.
“Good girl, little sub. Just relax.”
The flogger flicked against her thighs one last time, then immediately started back on her shoulders. Faster this time, a rapid thwack-thwack-thwack, with all three strikes landing in the same spot before hopping down a couple of inches and striking again with thwack-thwack-thwack. Harder with this set, more wrist action behind the punch of leather on her skin.
Her hands jerked uselessly against the restraints.
Over and over again, Atticus worked the flogger from shoulders to thighs, upping the
force even as he changed the rhythm. He said nothing as the flogger swung, but every time he began a new set, he told her she was a good girl.
Goddamn him, he was starting to widen the chink in her armor. Her arms were aching from fighting the cuffs and chains, and her chest was growing tighter with each rapid breath. She hadn't dared to open her eyes yet, because tears were building behind them.
She braced for his, “Good girl,” when the leather strands stung the backs of her legs, but none came. On edge, she waited, trembling viciously, and cried out when his hand cupped her from behind.
“Give me something, Connie. It's only gonna get harder from here, and this sweet cunt is wet and wanting. You're fighting me, fighting submission, and those fucking band aids you've slapped on all these wounds are going to hurt when we rip them off.”
She dug her fingernails into her thighs and used the pain to try and bind the gaping hole in her chest. The one he kept prying open further and further. She was stronger than this; the locks on her inner vault could withstand any—
Heavy leather knots rained down on her shoulders like a vicious hailstorm, sucking the air from her lungs and leaving her gasping. Barely a second passed before another volley pattered down on her butt. A third blow made her eyes pop open on a hollow scream, and she met Atticus's satisfied gaze in the mirror he’d uncovered.
“Oh, you sneaky bastard!” she shouted, flinching as the knots pummeled her shoulders again. All the effort she'd put into rebuilding herself fell away, leaving her core exposed. The emotions she was clinging to so frantically pulsed, framed in the edges of the open wound like a heart. “Stop. Please, stop.”
He said nothing, his eyes never straying from hers in the mirror as his arm showered her with penance. She surrendered to the pain, letting the first tears fall as she understood what the lashes represented. Her failure to heal Alicia. Her inability to deal with her own stress and anxiety. Her lack of strength, her grief, her depression. The knots each carried a weight, and that weight became a punishing force of nature thudding mercilessly into her flesh, over and over.
Pounding her failures and mistakes into her until she broke with a wild, keening sound of utter despair.
Unable to cover her face with her hands, Connie hung her head and accepted every strike from each frond without struggling. Tears dripped, her vision blurring, but she made herself stand there. Made herself take the blows without stepping away, and told herself she deserved every single one.
Her knees burned as they hit the carpet, and she fell forward without her hands to break her fall. With the floor rushing up to meet her face, she found she didn't care. Her heart was bleeding from the pressure of the secrets she cradled close, her body was numb and in ruins. The dominance she relied on was in pieces around her, like a vase dropped from a great height.
An arm hooked beneath her breasts and curled tight, hauling her up against a hot, hard chest. She didn't want comfort. She didn't want saving. Thrashing weakly, she howled. Submission wasn't her gift to give anymore. Something she'd once loved doing was now a nightmare she tried her best to avoid, and it was a weapon being used against her.
Just like it had before.
Only, instead of harming her, Atticus was using it to help.
“That's it, Con. This is the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart. That fucker's gonna sink you to the bottom of the Atlantic if you let it.” He held on to her effortlessly as her struggles increased, refusing to allow her to fight free. His big hand grasped her throat, stabilizing her head and neck. “Take a good look in the mirror, little sub. Look at what repressing your life does to you.”
The image reflected back at her was blurred with tears, but Connie hated it anyway. She was on her knees, her body open to the mirror. Her full breasts were pushed higher by the tanned forearm beneath them, her skin and his markedly different in tones. The woman staring miserably back at her was breathing too hard, too fast, and sweat gleamed in the low lights.
Her face was pale, drawn, with eyes haunted and sunken. Red-rimmed and lined with tears. Her hair was a riotous mess, obeying the laws of no man. By the look of her, this woman was done floundering in icy seas, and was ready to release her frozen grip on her lifeline. To drift down in the black water, down beneath the surface. Just…down.
But the man kneeling behind her wore an expression of grim determination. He straddled her legs, caging hers with his own and towering over her. His eyes were fierce on hers in the shiny mirror, the shadows in the green hiding most of his thoughts. “Look at what denying who you are does to the soul.”
“Master Atticus,” she whispered, her tongue feeling thick and clumsy in her mouth. “Please…I don't want—”
“Look,” he insisted, giving her a slight shake. “Give me a secret, Connie. Give me a secret from your past and we can start chipping away at the iceberg.”
Trapped at every turn. No matter which way she moved, Atticus was there. Guiding her back into the storm instead of out of it. She closed her eyes to the failure in her line of sight, blocked the image of the big, broad Dom supporting the massive mess she'd become. “You already know everything, don't you. You can access everything…and everyone.”
“Don't assume what I do and don't know, little sub. That isn't important. What is important right now is that you tell me, in your own words, something that is making your existence teeter towards destruction. I can sit here all night with you, sweetheart. All day tomorrow too, if that's what it takes. Hell, I can rip a page from Jasper's book and bring welts to your ass with the cane, if that's what you need to loosen your tongue.”
“I hate you.”
“No, little sub. Try again.” He propped his chin on the crown of her head and sighed. “Tell me how it feels to carry the weight of everyone's problems on these shoulders. Braun and Bodie, Jasper and Anarchy…they share their pain with you, and you give them relief, but who lifts that burden off your hands?”
Utterly defeated, she went limp. “No one.”
“Because you won't let anyone help.” Atticus kissed her cheek, then clambered to his feet. The lack of thudding on the carpet told her he'd slipped his boots off at some point. Lifting her off her knees, he scooped her up and laid her out on the bed, her lower legs dangling off the edge. “I want to see your eyes, Connie.”
She obeyed, finding that following orders was getting easier every time he issued one. She swallowed hard when he scratched an itch on his flat stomach, his fingernails leaving red lines over the raised ridges of his firm six-pack. She knew how to leave marks like that on unmarred skin, dragging her nails from here to there on a sub's willing body and listening to him moan.
“I'm going to find you a Dom. Someone you can trust, who cares about you and your welfare. You're not mine to keep, Connie, but until the right person comes along, you will be mine to tend to.” He tugged a gold packet from his back pocket before shedding his jeans and kicking them aside. “I'll be your sounding wall, your Dom, and your friend until the man you need comes. And I'll purge those secrets from you, one way or another, every time we're together.”
Heat pooled in her belly. She couldn't raise her hands to swipe at her face, but she still had some movement. With a moan, she rolled herself over onto her stomach, digging her toes into the carpet to brace herself. She'd rather fuck him than let him continue to drill into her memories, her failures, and her past. Sex she could handle; emotional purging she could not.
“Did I tell you to move, sub?” he asked, setting a hand on her hip and turning her back over.
“No, Sir. But you like to fuck from behind.”
“I do. I really do. But see, if I indulge myself, I'm not going to see this pretty face show me all the sore spots, am I? I'm not going to let you hide anymore, Connie, and you're going to feel me, see me, hear my voice as I fuck you. Your eyes are going to be wide and open, and they'll show me everything I want to see.” He ripped the foil open and sheathed himself with the condom. “They'll answer any question I ask.”
> “No,” she whispered, horrified by the notion. “That's not allowed. That's cheating!”
“It's called using my initiative,” he corrected, hooking the curves of his thumbs and index fingers under her knees and spreading her wide. His gaze roamed over her, almost as tangible as the brush of fingers over her sex. “As Dominants, we understand how sex lowers a sub's defenses. How vulnerable they become.” His thumbs stroked the hollows in the backs of her knees. “As both, you have a unique perspective, Connie. You'll want to capitulate even while you strive to take control back. Somewhere in the middle of that war, you'll tell me everything I want to know and more.”
This was a bad, bad idea. Connie shook her head, unable to comprehend the nightmare of that situation. She should never have agreed to this, should have let the Domme dig her damn heels in. For God's sake, she was just as strong and mule-headed as Atticus. She could top the bastard without thinking twice, and yet here she was, naked and restrained with one of her best friends looming over her.
It would be laughable if she wasn't teetering toward an anxiety attack.
Atticus set her feet on the mattress and frowned. Muttering to himself, he leaned over and snagged two pillows in his big hand. Sliding his free hand under her ass, making her tense, he lifted her enough to slip first one pillow, then the other, beneath her. Between the height of the bed and the additional inches from the pillows, Connie realized he'd set her up perfectly.
Muscles rippled under Atticus' skin as he ranged himself over her, his hands pressing into the mattress beside her head. His chest skimmed her breasts, the fine dark hairs scraping lightly over her aching nipples. She stiffened when his cock settled on her mound, hard and heavy. Thickly erect. “Relax and submit, little sub. These eyes of yours don't belong anywhere but on mine.”
A shift of his hips dragged his cock down, nudging her clit before parting her swollen labia and notching the thick crown against her. Everything was about to change. Her hands strained at her sides, but the chains held fast. “Wait. Atticus, wait, I'm not—”
Talk For Me: Club Avalon Book 3 Page 5
