by CD Reiss
I felt like the queen of the universe, and for a moment, no more, I felt worthy.
I kissed her mouth when it was done and held her tightly.
“Deacon sent you to show me what it was like to dominate someone,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Should it feel like playacting?”
She sighed. “No.”
“You knew I wasn’t a Domme when you came here.”
“Yes. But you know Deacon. You can’t reason with him.”
“So basically I’m just a horny perv?”
She laughed. “Yes. And you can do anything and go anywhere you want. That comes from me, not the Master.”
I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling. “Isn’t it funny… technically I could always do whatever I wanted, but I think now I really can. And it’s scary.”
“Freedom can be frightening,” she whispered, half asleep. “You’re only free to choose how you’re going to not be free.”
Had I been scared that whole time? Had I held myself back from doing things because I was afraid? I tried to put myself in the shoes of my younger self. Back in Carlton Prep, when they’d tried to place me in college and they suggested business, I thought they were saying something for the sake of saying it, and I’d felt the walls closing in. Once I chose something, I’d be trapped in it.
Was I trapped with Deacon? Was his freedom a lie?
I could live without him. In the vulnerable place between wakefulness and sleep, between the submissive I thought I was and the Domme I’d just tried to be, I saw the truth. I didn’t need him. But did I want him?
I was almost asleep when a voicemail came in.
Elliot.
This is the deal. You show up at my office at eight sharp or I’ll get you reassigned. There is no negotiation.
Relief filled the place where the last of the tension had been, as if a drain had opened in the bottom of me and the ugliness fell out. I only had to wait three hours to apologize.
16
FIONA
“This is the deal. You show up at my office at eight sharp or I’ll get you reassigned. There is no negotiation.” I hung up before I could soften it or backpedal.
That was risky. She was as likely to make sure she never saw me again as she was to make an effort to ensure I stayed in her life. But I didn’t have any other cards to play. Threatening to put her back into Westonwood might give her exactly what she had been trying to get, if even subconsciously.
The clock said 7:58. Her call had come in seven hours ago.
I’d made the task of getting to the session on time almost impossible for my own sake as well as hers. I couldn’t live with her troubles and addictions. She’d ruin me. Calling her in at eight o’clock was self-preservation at its finest. She’d miss the appointment, I’d recuse myself from her care, and that would be it. I’d find a life somewhere in the rubble.
The little light behind my desk flashed.
Someone was in the waiting room.
Did I have another appointment?
I opened the door. She stood there, sunglasses on, smelling of soap, fingers twitching.
“Fiona.” I didn’t have anything more to say. I was overwhelmed with relief that she hadn’t let me push her away. I’d never wanted so badly for a plan to fail.
“Apologetic. Ashamed. Scared. Tired as hell,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m using different words to describe myself.”
17
FIONA
I unloaded everything about the party, all its debasement and debauchery. I didn’t sugarcoat it. I was honest. I’d never been so honest in my life. I didn’t hold back a thing.
“My call,” I said. “It was… I’m sorry. I wanted to hurt you, and yes, I got high and stupid, and I lost interest in the whole thing. I think it was because you weren’t coming for me. It pissed me off, but it made me look at myself. And I was glad you weren’t coming.”
“So you went home?”
“Yes.”
“What did Deacon do?”
“What did he do? Well, let’s see. Apparently he was on his way to Eretria, so he sent a mutual friend to fuck me?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“And I’m going to tell you what happened, but first I have to talk about the stupid thing I said to you yesterday and it was… did I say stupid?”
“What did you say?”
“I said I loved you. I think I meant it.” Fuck this. I wasn’t a high school kid with a crush. I was Fiona Fucking Drazen. “Actually, I know I meant it.”
He leaned forward, just a foot or so closer, and I felt the space between us contract and pull at me, as if I could lean forward another inch and close the gap.
“Transference,” he said. “It’s when the therapist fills a gap in your life that you recognize because of the therapy.”
I pressed my lips together and broke his gaze before it broke me. “Maybe. Sure. I was missing a therapist in my life and there you were.”
I sniffed. Stupid snot was gathering in my sinuses, and I had to sniff to get rid of it. I cleared my throat. Looked at my hands, then at him. I felt like an ass.
“I shouldn’t joke,” I said.
He smiled. “Countertransference is when the patient fills a place for the therapist.”
Breathe. Breathe. You have to function. Breathe.
“That sounds like normal people,” I said. “You know, with needs. They meet each other and they fill needs.”
“When you left Westonwood, I saw you by the door. I asked you to wait.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?” He asked it as if he already knew the answer.
“I told you right there. I’ll destroy you. Men like you… you’re nice. I’d eat you up and spit you out. I’d fuck you and leave you and—look, this isn’t my ego talking. Nice guys don’t last in my world. Nice guys with boundaries and common sense? I’m not paying for your therapy bills.”
He laughed. I laughed.
Then he rubbed his eyes. “You knew how I felt. So you may feel vulnerable about what you said yesterday, but I opened that door. And the professional man in me regrets that.”
“What about the unprofessional man?”
It took him a long time to answer. Two hours. Two minutes. Time folded in on itself. Could have been no time at all. But I saw every single thought cross his mind. A war raged behind his eyes.
“I promised myself before you got here that I wouldn’t do this.”
I leaned forward, putting up my hand. “Don’t. You’re right. Don’t do this. I’m not worth it.”
He looked me dead in the face, his hair a little askew, an expression so certain that he could have told me black was white and I would have believed him.
“But you are. You’re worth all of it.”
I sat back in my chair. “What do you want?”
“This session is supposed to be about you.”
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“We’re even then. In saying stupid things that are true.”
“No. We’re not.”
Another two hours passed while he looked at me, and I fell into him. Maybe my feelings were transference, like he’d said, and maybe I was filling some gap in his life, but that didn’t make it a lie.
Maybe it did, and I just didn’t care.
As if we were pulled on the same string, he stood at the exact time I stood. He put his hand on my neck. I didn’t realize I was cold until I felt the warmth of it. I leaned into his touch because it was so gentle, so firm, and I let him pull us closer.
“This is wrong,” he said softly, as if giving it a name, accepting that name, and continuing.
I knew what he was doing, and I let him. Let his lips brush mine. Tasted the lemon water on his breath. Moved into the softness of his mouth, the wetness of his tongue as it entered me. His groan rumbled into my throat. I let hi
m push our bodies together because I’d craved him from the minute I saw him. He understood me and he still wanted me, not in spite of my failings, but because of them.
I pushed my hips against him. He was hard. Very hard. Ready for it, and Fiona Drazen never turned down a hard cock. He pushed me against the wall, moving his mouth along my neck, his lips fire to the kindling of my skin.
I pushed him away, and we stood inches from each other, panting as if we’d run miles. I wasn’t ready. I wanted more from him, but I couldn’t expect anything yet. Not unless I wanted to ruin him.
“I can’t,” I said.
He smiled. “No. You can’t.” He kissed my cheek, lingering there, and I knew with a little prodding, I would have been on my back. Instead he whispered in my ear. “Not today.” He ran his finger along my jaw and down my throat, leaving a path of tingling skin. “There’s no looking back for me. So when I finally do what I’ve wanted to since I met you, that’s it. No more fucking around.”
I nodded and kissed him again. I didn’t feel whole because of him. I felt whole because I’d chosen him.
18
FIONA
When I was a girl, I had one place where I felt at home. Where I didn’t feel eyes on me or pressure to be anything. I had to be perfect, but dressage had a set of rules for perfection I could follow easily and be done with when I got off the horse.
I got on the 110, down to Rancho Palos Verdes, where Snowcone lived. The smell of hay and horseshit was like home to me, and all the world slipped away.
“Hey!” I said when I saw Lindy arranging tack in front of the stables.
“Fiona!” She approached with a hug. “It’s so good to see you. You look great.” Lindy had Ivory Girl skin and straight brown hair she kept cut to the top of her shoulders. She hadn’t aged past thirty-five.
“Thanks.”
“I have the last of Snowcone’s things all put together.” She started walking inside, boots landing in a pile of mustard-colored horseshit. A true horse person, she didn’t even notice.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I love that horse, but she’s yours, and you taking her is—”
“Taking her?”
“Did you guys get your signals crossed? Your boyfriend came and got her an hour ago. I went to see the Laurel Canyon space yesterday, and it’s perfect.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course it is. Thank you, Lindy. Thank you for everything.”
19
FIONA
I had to remind myself why I was irritated with Deacon because I’d already forgiven him for taking Snowcone. I had nothing to offer my horse but neglect.
But that wasn’t the point. What the fuck was Deacon doing in Los Angeles? He couldn’t leave me alone for a minute. Who even knew what kind of clusterfuck he’d turned his back on in favor of watching me? Probably twenty journalists being held in a closet and his team was supposed to rescue them, but no. Fiona was on a bender. So he stayed to bring her horse to his stables.
Deacon was walking Snowcone around the pen. He was most comfortable in jeans and boots with a heavy button-down shirt. His forearms were wiry and taut, and his jeans hugged his hips as if they were made for him. Both he and Snowcone were well-muscled machines, and I sighed.
“Hey,” I said, falling into step with them. “I thought you had something to do over there.” I jerked my head in the way I did when I meant Africa.
“It can wait.” He was full of shit.
“You couldn’t have gone there and back.”
“I didn’t go. I got off the plane before it took off.”
God. Fuck him.
“I’m mad at you.”
“Why?”
“I never agreed to let Snowcone move here. This pisses me off.”
“You don’t sound mad,” he said.
“I am.”
“You’re not. You’re relieved. You have an excuse to stay.”
He was so sure of himself. So measured. There wasn’t a woman in the world who wouldn’t fuck him, so why should I be any different?
“Does everything always make sense to you? Like, you want to keep me here, so you find a way to do it and that’s that? I mean, I don’t even know what I want, so you just think, ‘oh, let me want something for her’? Is that what goes on in your mind? Is that your power trip?”
“Stop pretending you don’t want to stay with me.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
He stopped, yanking Snowcone back. “You want to be here, and you need to be here. When you leave, you party. When you party—”
“I stabbed you to get away from you!”
“You didn’t stab me. The drugs did.”
I pushed him. He didn’t budge, but I pushed him again. I wanted to wake him up, to show him what he wasn’t looking at. “You trapped me. You trap me with shit like this.” I pointed at my horse.
“By being perfect for you?”
“By letting me run around like a whore.”
“That’s not what it was, and you know it.”
“By being perfect for all of my worst impulses.”
“They’re a part of you. What do you think you’re going to do now? Settle down in a ranch house in the Valley with a disgraced therapist? Have two kids and take Valium and fuck the pool boy behind his back?” His face jutted forward and his arm was thrown back, pointing at an imaginary house in a real suburb. “You’re better than that.”
“I’m not. I’m not even good enough for him.” I swallowed, because I hadn’t meant to say that. Not “for him,” but my emotions had swarmed until there was no stopping the words.
“Really?” he said. “Did you fuck him yet?”
“It’s not your business.”
“You’re right.” In a flash, he had me by the back of my hair. He yanked it until I was looking into his piercing blue eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It. Does. Not. You’re mine. Your home is with me. And you can stab me another hundred times, and I’ll bring you back. Because there is not another man on this earth who understands you the way I do and no woman who understands me.”
“Let me go.”
“Never.” He twisted my body under him. His teeth were clamped shut, making his jaw stronger, tighter, more square. He was beautiful when in power and anger.
“I forgot…”
He dragged me to my knees. “Forgot what? This? How much you need this?”
“My safe word,” I said. “I forgot it.”
His reaction was immediate, and he let me go. I was still on my knees, hands in the dried leaves and needles.
“What’s he going to do when you need to be broken?”
“Nothing.” I got up, shaking from nerves. “He’s not you. No one is.”
“Do you love him?”
I didn’t answer right away. I just stared at the face of the man I’d loved first, and would always love. I was hurting him. Every day I stayed with him, I cracked his armor, and if I left, I’d tear the armor away. It wasn’t fair. He was too strong, too confident to let me do this to him. I didn’t want to answer. I wasn’t ready to own how it would affect him.
“Do. You. Love. Him?”
“No,” I whispered.
He surprised me by smiling. “No, of course you don’t. You can’t.”
He laid his hands on my crossed arms. Bone and sinew, with a squared joint at the base of the thumb. The hands of a man. Hands that bruised and tied, fingers that disappeared into my body. I couldn’t deny them. My arms dropped to my side. I practically groaned when my throbbing pussy woke up. Elliot had left me unsatisfied, and here was Deacon, ready to take me.
“I don’t want to be saved,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“You never needed to be saved. You only ever needed to be broken.” He touched my lips with the pad of his second finger. “Remember this. Remember that you are not an average woman. You don’t have average needs.”
He leaned in until I could smell his rough scent, his dominance, and I went liquid.
“Open your mouth,” he whispered.
I parted my lips. He put in two fingers, pushing to the back of my throat. I was mush. Oatmeal. The thought of his ministrations left me powerless.
“Anyone can fuck you,” he said, fucking my mouth with his fingers. “I’m the only one who can break you.”
I groaned against his fingers.
“Pull your pants down,” he commanded.
I unbuttoned them and yanked them to mid-thigh. Cool air hit my ass, and I had a moment of worry that was chased away when Deacon spoke again.
“Pull your shirt up.” He jammed his fingers down my throat, and I took them, choking as I pulled my shirt over my tits.
He grabbed a pierced nipple and pinched, pulled, twisted all at the same time, using the silver ring as leverage. The pain went right between my legs. He slid his wet fingers out of my mouth and put them between my legs, roughly running past my clit and hooking them into my cunt. I squealed. The pleasure was like a gunshot.
“You want me to fuck you, Kitten?”
“No,” I gasped, every breath a lie.
“What does your wet little cunt want?”
“Break me.”
He twisted my clit, and I screamed in pleasure and pain. I was close. So close, and when he rubbed my clit again, I came, standing in the middle of the yard.
“Get on your knees,” he said.
I fell as if pushed by invisible hands, knees landing on the soft earth.
“Crawl to the stables.”
Pants at mid-thigh, shirt hoisted under my arms, I crawled, eyes on the leaf-strewn ground, ass out in the air, a man behind me.
The last time I’d been like this—
I’d said no.
The last time I’d been on my hands and knees in a little forest, I was being ass-raped by a psychopath. But I didn’t have to think about that. This would be different because I was with Deacon. I felt a pressure on my back. He pushed me with his foot. It was humiliating, but I was safe, and I was aroused with a heavy tingling below the waist.
