by E. L. James
“Us,” she says, and the simple word sounds like a prayer.
“Hmm. What about us?” I pause. Where is she going with this?
“The contract.”
I stop and stare down into her shrewd gaze. Why is she doing this now? My fingers glide down her cheek.
“Well, I think the contract is moot, don’t you?”
“Moot?” she says, and her lips soften with the hint of a smile.
“Moot.” I mirror her expression.
“But you were so keen.” Uncertainty clouds Ana’s eyes.
“Well, that was before. Anyway, the rules aren’t moot, they still stand.” I need to know you’re safe.
“Before? Before what?”
“Before—” Before all this. Before you turned my world upside down, before you sleeping with me. Before you laid your head on my shoulder at the piano. It’s all . . . “More,” I murmur, driving away the now-familiar unease in my gut.
“Oh,” she says, and I think she’s pleased.
“Besides, we’ve been in the playroom twice now, and you haven’t run screaming for the hills.”
“Do you expect me to?”
“Nothing you do is expected, Anastasia.”
The v between her brows is back. “So, let me be clear. You just want me to follow the rules element of the contract all the time, but not the rest of the contract?”
“Except in the playroom. I want you to follow the spirit of the contract in the playroom, and yes, I want you to follow the rules—all the time. Then I’ll know you’re safe. And I’ll be able to have you anytime I wish,” I add flippantly.
“And if I break one of the rules?” she asks.
“Then I’ll punish you.”
“But won’t you need my permission?”
“Yes, I will.”
“And if I say no?” she persists.
Why is she being so willful?
“If you say no, you’ll say no. I’ll have to find a way to persuade you.” She should know this. She didn’t let me spank her in the boathouse, and I wanted to. But I got to do it later that evening…with her approval.
She stands and walks toward the entrance of the living room, and for a moment I think she’s storming off, but she turns, her expression perplexed. “So the punishment aspect remains.”
“Yes, but only if you break the rules.” This is clear to me. Why not to her?
“I’ll need to reread them,” she says, suddenly all businesslike.
She wants to do this now?
“I’ll fetch them for you.”
In my study I fire up my computer and print out the rules, wondering why we are discussing this at five in the morning.
She’s at the sink, drinking a glass of water, when I return with the printout. I sit down on a stool and wait, watching her. Her back is stiff and tense; this does not bode well. When she turns around I slide the sheet of paper toward her across the kitchen island.
“Here you go.”
She scans the rules quickly. “So the obedience thing still stands?”
“Oh yes.”
She shakes her head, and an ironic smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as her eyes dart to the heavens.
Oh joy.
My spirits suddenly lift.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me, Anastasia?”
“Possibly. Depends what your reaction is.” She looks wary and amused at once.
“Same as always.” If she’ll let me…
She swallows and her eyes widen with anticipation. “So…”
“Yes?”
“You want to spank me now?”
“Yes. And I will.”
“Oh, really, Mr. Grey?” She folds her arms, her chin thrust upward in a challenge.
“Are you going to stop me?”
“You’re going to have to catch me first.” She wears a coquettish smile, which addresses my dick directly.
She wants to play.
I ease myself off the stool, watching her carefully. “Oh, really, Miss Steele?” The air almost crackles between us.
Which way will she run?
Her eyes are on mine, brimming with excitement. Her teeth tease her lower lip.
“And you’re biting your lip.” Is she doing it on purpose? I move slowly to my left.
“You wouldn’t,” she taunts. “After all, you roll your eyes.” With her eyes fixed on me, she, too, moves to her left.
“Yes, but you’ve just raised the bar on the excitement stakes with this game.”
“I’m quite fast, you know,” she teases.
“So am I.”
How does she make everything so thrilling?
“Are you going to come quietly?”
“Do I ever?” She grins, taking the bait.
“Miss Steele, what do you mean?” I stalk her around the kitchen island. “It’ll be worse for you if I have to come and get you.”
“That’s only if you catch me, Christian. And right now, I have no intention of letting you catch me.”
Is she serious?
“Anastasia, you may fall and hurt yourself. Which will put you in direct contravention of rule number seven, now six.”
“I have been in danger since I met you, Mr. Grey, rules or no rules.”
“Yes, you have.”
Perhaps this is not a game. Is she trying to tell me something? She hesitates, and I make a sudden lunge to grab her. She squeals and dashes around the island, to the relative safety of the opposite side of the dining table. With her lips parted, her expression both wary and daring at once, the bathrobe slips off one shoulder. She looks hot. Really fucking hot.
Slowly I prowl toward her, and she backs away.
“You certainly know how to distract a man, Anastasia.”
“We aim to please, Mr. Grey. Distract you from what?”
“Life. The universe.” Ex-subs who’ve gone missing. Work. Our arrangement. Everything.
“You did seem very preoccupied as you were playing.”
She’s not backing down. I stop and fold my arms, reassessing my strategy. “We can do this all day, baby, but I will get you, and it will just be worse for you when I do.”
“No, you won’t,” she says, with absolute certainty.
I frown. “Anyone would think you didn’t want me to catch you.”
“I don’t. That’s the point. I feel about punishment the way you feel about me touching you.”
And from nowhere the darkness crawls over me, shrouding my skin, leaving an icy trail of despair in its wake.
No. No. I can’t bear to be touched. Ever.
“That’s how you feel?” It’s like she’s touched me, her nails leaving white tracks over my chest.
She blinks several times, assessing my reaction, and when she speaks her voice is gentle. “No. It doesn’t affect me quite as much as that, but it gives you an idea.” Her expression is anxious.
Well, hell! This shines a whole different light on our relationship. “Oh,” I mutter, because I can’t think of anything else to say.
She takes a deep breath and approaches me, and when she’s standing in front of me she looks up, her eyes burning with apprehension.
“You hate it that much?” I whisper.
This is it. We are really incompatible.
No. I don’t want to believe that.
“Well…no,” she says, and relief washes through me. “No,” she continues. “I feel ambivalent about it. I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it.”
“But last night, in the playroom, you—”
“I do it for you, Christian, because you need it. I don’t. You didn’t hurt me last night. That was in a different context, and I can rationalize that internally, and I trust you. But when you want to punish me, I worry that you’ll hurt me.�
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Fuck. Tell her.
It’s truth-or-dare time, Grey.
“I want to hurt you. But not beyond anything that you couldn’t take.” I’d never go too far.
“Why?”
“I just need it,” I whisper. “I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Won’t.”
“So you know why?”
“Yes.”
“But you won’t tell me.”
“If I do, you will run screaming from this room, and you’ll never want to return. I can’t risk that, Anastasia.”
“You want me to stay.”
“More than you know. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
I can no longer stomach the distance between us. I grab her to stop her from running, and I pull her into my arms, my lips seeking hers. She answers my need, her mouth molding to mine, kissing me back with the same passion and hope and longing. The hovering darkness recedes and I find my solace.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper against her lips. “You said you wouldn’t leave me, and you begged me not to leave you, in your sleep.”
“I don’t want to go,” she says, but her eyes are searching mine, looking for answers. And I’m exposed—my ugly, torn soul on display.
“Show me,” she says.
And I don’t know what she means.
“Show you?”
“Show me how much it can hurt.”
“What?” I lean back and stare at her in disbelief.
“Punish me. I want to know how bad it can get.”
Oh no. I release her and step out of her reach.
She gazes at me: open, honest, serious. She’s offering herself to me once more; mine for the taking, to do with as I wish. I’m stunned. She’d fulfill this need for me? I can’t believe it. “You would try?”
“Yes. I said I would.” Her expression is full of resolve.
“Ana, you’re so confusing.”
“I’m confused, too. I’m trying to work this out. And you and I will know, once and for all, if I can do this. If I can handle this, then maybe you—”
She stops, and I take a further step back. She wants to touch me.
No.
But if we do this, then I’ll know. She’ll know.
We’re here much sooner than I thought we’d be.
Can I do this?
And in that moment I know there’s nothing I want more…There’s nothing that will satisfy the monster within me more.
Before I can change my mind I grasp her arm and lead her upstairs to the playroom. At the door I stop. “I’ll show you how bad it can be, and you can make your own mind up. Are you ready for this?”
She nods, her face set with the stubborn determination that I’ve come to know so well.
So be it.
I open the door, quickly grab a belt from the rack before she changes her mind, and lead her to the bench in the corner of the room.
“Bend over the bench,” I order quietly.
She does as she’s told, saying nothing.
“We’re here because you said yes, Anastasia. And you ran from me. I am going to hit you six times, and you will count with me.”
Still she says nothing.
I fold the hem of her bathrobe over her back, revealing her beautiful naked behind. I run my palm over her buttocks and the top of her thighs, and a frisson runs through me.
This is it. What I want. What I’ve been working toward.
“I am doing this so that you remember not to run from me, and as exciting as it is, I never want you to run from me. And you rolled your eyes at me. You know how I feel about that.” I take a deep breath, savoring this moment, trying to steady my thundering heartbeat.
I need this. This is what I do. And we’re finally here.
She can do it.
She’s never let me down yet.
Holding her in place with one hand at the small of her back, I shake out the belt. I take another deep breath, focusing on the task in hand.
She won’t run. She’s asked me.
Then I wield it, striking her across both cheeks, hard.
She cries out, in shock.
But she’s not called out the number…or the safe word.
“Count, Anastasia!” I demand.
“One!” she shouts.
Okay…no safe word.
I hit her again.
“Two!” she screams.
That’s right, let it out, baby.
I hit her once more.
“Three!” She winces.
There are three stripes across her backside.
I make it four.
She shouts the number, loud and clear.
There’s no one to hear you, baby. Shout all you need.
I belt her again.
“Five,” she sobs, and I pause, waiting for her to safe-word.
She doesn’t.
And one for luck.
“Six,” Ana whispers, her voice forced and hoarse.
I drop the belt, savoring my sweet, euphoric release. I’m punch-drunk, breathless, and finally replete. Oh, this beautiful girl, my beautiful girl. I want to kiss every inch of her body. We’re here. Where I want to be. I reach for her, pulling her into my arms.
“Let go. No—” She struggles out of my grasp, scrambling away from me, pushing and shoving and finally turning on me like a seething wildcat. “Don’t touch me!” she hisses. Her face is blotchy and smeared with tears, her nose is running, and her hair is a dark, tangled mess, but she has never looked so magnificent…and at the same time so angry.
Her anger crashes over me like a tidal wave.
She’s mad. Really mad.
Okay, I hadn’t figured on anger.
Give her a moment. Wait for the endorphins to kick in.
She dashes away her tears with the back of her hand. “This is what you really like? Me, like this?” She wipes her nose with the sleeve of the bathrobe.
My euphoria vanishes. I’m stunned, completely helpless and paralyzed by her anger. The crying I know and understand, but this rage…somewhere deep inside it resonates with me and I don’t want to think about that.
Don’t go there, Grey.
Why didn’t she ask me to stop? She didn’t safe-word. She deserved to be punished. She ran from me. She rolled her eyes. This is what happens when you defy me, baby.
She scowls. Blue eyes wide and bright, filled with hurt and rage and sudden, chilling insight.
Shit. What have I done?
It’s sobering.
I’m unbalanced, teetering at the edge of a dangerous precipice, desperately searching for the words to make this right, but my mind is blank.
“Well, you are one fucked-up son of a bitch,” she snarls.
All the breath leaves my body, and it’s like she’s whipped me with a belt…Fuck!
She’s recognized me for what I am.
She’s seen the monster.
“Ana,” I whisper, pleading with her. I want her to stop. I want to hold her and make the pain go away. I want her to sob in my arms.
“Don’t you dare Ana me! You need to sort your shit out, Grey!” she snaps, and walks out of the playroom, quietly shutting the door behind her. Stunned, I stare at the closed door, her words ringing in my ears.
You are one fucked-up son of a bitch.
No one has ever walked out on me. What the hell? Mechanically, I run my hand through my hair, trying to rationalize her reaction, and mine. I just let her go. I’m not mad…I’m…what? I stoop to pick up the belt, walk to the wall, and hang it on its peg. That was, without doubt, one of the most satisfying moments of my life. A moment ago I felt lighter, the weight of uncertainty between us gone.
It’s done. We’re there.
N
ow that she knows what’s involved, we can move on.
I told her. People like me like inflicting pain.
But only on women who like it.
My sense of unease grows.
Her reaction—the image of her injured, haunted look is back, unwelcome, in my mind’s eye. It’s unsettling. I am used to making women cry—it’s what I do.
But Ana?
I sink to the floor and lean my head against the wall, my arms on my bent knees. Just let her cry. She’ll feel better for crying. Women do, in my experience. Give her a moment, then go and offer her aftercare. She didn’t safe-word. She asked me. She wanted to know, curious as ever. It’s just been a rude awakening, that’s all.
You are one fucked-up son of a bitch.
Closing my eyes, I smile without humor. Yes, Ana, yes I am, and now you know. Now we can move forward with our relationship…arrangement. Whatever this is.
My thoughts don’t comfort me and my sense of unease grows. Her wounded eyes glaring at me, outraged, accusatory, pitying…she can see me for what I am. A monster.
Flynn springs to mind: Don’t dwell on the negative, Christian.
I close my eyes once more and see Ana’s anguished face.
What a fool I am.
This was too soon.
Way, way too soon.
Fuck.
I’ll reassure her.
Yes—let her cry, then reassure her.
I was angry with her for running from me. Why did she do that?
Hell. She’s so different from any other woman I’ve known. Of course she wouldn’t react in the same way.
I need to face her, hold her. We’ll get through this. I wonder where she is.
Shit!
Panic seizes me. Suppose she’s gone? No, she wouldn’t do that. Not without saying good-bye. I stand and race out of the room and down the stairs. She’s not in the living room—she must be in bed. I dash to my bedroom.
The bed is empty.
Full-blown anxiety erupts in the pit of my belly. No, she can’t have gone! Upstairs—she must be in her room. I take the stairs three at a time and pause, breathless, outside her bedroom door. She’s in there, crying.
Oh, thank God.
I lean my head against the door, overwhelmed by my relief.
Don’t leave. The thought is awful.
Of course she just needs to cry.
Taking a steadying breath, I head to the bathroom beside the playroom to fetch some arnica cream, Advil, and a glass of water, and I return to her room.
