“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, kissing his neck. “Believe me now?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m somewhat convinced. Are you ready to come back up?”
“Will you be there?” I pulled back to meet his eyes. I broke the rules and let my true feelings shine through.
He groaned. “Damn it, Miya. Don’t look at me like that. You wanted this. You asked for this. What do you want from me!" He clutched my face between his hands, our eyes so locked together I felt the lock itself slide into place. Nothing would tear us apart in that moment.
His question wasn’t a statement. He really wanted to know. “You. I want to fight back and not fear punishment. I want to have my own voice, but I want you to spank me when we’re alone. I want you to kiss me like I’m everything, and I want you to take my body like it’s air and you can’t breathe. I want you to hold my hand and then leave the print of yours on my flesh.”
He moved one of his hands over my mouth, cutting me off. “You know what I want?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. I saw the resolve in his eyes before he said it, knew it would hurt to hear but that I needed to hear it anyway. “I want you not to want those things. I want to want you in my own way forever. I want you not to love me. So I can think straight. The harder you love me, the more I want to rip my skin off with my bare hands and turn myself inside out. Show you that you fucked up falling in love with an empty bastard like me.”
I was already shaking my head, but with his hand over my mouth I couldn’t answer.
“No more talking from you. Every word out of your mouth will result in a punishment. Don’t. Test. Me.” He released me and immediately began getting dressed. “Come. Shower and come up for breakfast.”
I felt resolve settle in me. Fine. He didn’t want me to talk? I wouldn’t. I’d keep my mouth shut. I’d be his submissive. I’d let the darkness choke us both from the inside out.
Maybe then he’d stop lying to himself.
There was so much trapped inside of him, he was terrified of it. Not me. He lost the emotions he hadn’t hurt to gain.
Every time I loved him for no good reason other than because that’s what I felt, a little piece of him chipped away.
It was such a sick thing to realize. That every ounce of love I felt for him, the emptier he became.
My love was ruining him.
At the same time he gave me a reason to exist.
5. – Miya
I showered upstairs in his bathroom, taking my time. I washed and conditioned my hair and then exfoliated and shaved my body. I rubbed some coconut lip balm I found on my side of the bathroom sink all over my lips and then blow dried my hair until it was thick and hanging down my back. I primped to be no one to him. I took great pride in picking out my clothes to lose my voice.
I couldn’t turn off my love.
It had already taken form. It was growing every day.
Soon, it would be bigger than me.
I just hoped it could be bigger than his darkness.
When I made it downstairs, I found him sitting at the table, mug of coffee in his hand. He watched me as I took my place. There were egg whites and avocado toast. I ate without a word, looking at my plate the entire time.
The quiet was louder than my pounding heart. Which said something, since around him, it was constantly set to: pound out of my chest.
“Look at me while you eat,” he ordered.
I gave him my eyes, but nothing else.
His tightened, like he could see I was doing something, but he couldn’t figure out what exactly it was I was even doing.
Just following your orders, Master.
He gave me a slow, deliberate grin. “You’re not going to best me.”
I said nothing. Felt nothing. I ate looking into his rich brown eyes.
His grin fell a little. “No one likes a martyr, Miya.”
I blinked emptily.
“I can bring the life back to your eyes. Since you seem so hellbent on keeping it from me like the fucking brat you are. Why do you have to be such a brat, huh?” But he smiled warmly, like he enjoyed it. “You cannot, not even once, do what you’re told without a war.” His hand slapped against the table and I jumped. “Well, you’ve got one. I’ll bring the life back to your eyes.”
I gave him nothing.
He tapped his fingers against his chin in contemplation. “What should I do to you?”
I put my chin in my hand and held his beautiful eyes.
“Something to make you scream, at the same time as you look at me the way you did the night I took your virginity. You remember that night? Your pussy was mine, wholly and completely, after that night.”
Bastard. I fought to keep the memory from my eyes.
His sizzled. “If you give me your eyes I’ll take you to my chambers.”
But he hadn’t said I’d get anything from it. I remained stoic.
He chuckled. “You’re a smart brat.”
Something started to happen in me.
One order too many.
Hope was seeping through the cracks in my heart.
Something drastic was on the tip of my tongue. He’d never leave his life-style behind. Not even for me.
My soul took over my lips. “I think we should take a break.”
His chuckle exploded. “What?”
“I think we should take a break.” My heart exploded along with his chuckle. “This was a test, Jaxon. And you failed. I gave you my heart and you lied, hurt, and took the first option I gave for you to keep my heart there. Right where you wanted it. Empty.” My eyes stung. “You don’t want me. You want my submission. And I know that. I understand. I knew it when I gave it to you. But you close the blinds and hold me down, and you throw my heart away again, and again. I can’t do it anymore!” I wailed.
He remained still. His eyes exhibited his confusion. He looked like he’d short circuited. “You… want to… leave me?” He placed his palms on the table top, and I feared he did that because he wanted to spank me.
If he did, it would only hurt. And since I was no longer his submissive as of five seconds ago, the notion made me feel dirty. When I consented, it felt like many things, none of which were dirty. But the fact that he still wanted to punish me proved everything I was feeling was right. When Jaxon’s secret was revealed, that he had a vasectomy and would rather have control over me than to have my heart, he’s fisted my light and crushed it.
It showed me what I had forced myself not to see.
I was not a submissive.
I was a broken woman who fell in love with a broken prince.
“Yes,” I whispered, my tears trailing down my cheeks. “This is all too much for me. Everything hurts, all day and night. There’s only minor relief before you’re hurting me again. I love you, Jaxon. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Maybe that was my mistake. I want this. I’ll stick around forever just to have you, but I don’t want to hurt forever!” I cried. “I feel like I’ve hurt my entire life. It’s everywhere I look. Everything I feel hurts! And you can’t even see it! You let me go back to a place where I’m nothing to you, as if I haven’t suffered just to be a shred of something to you. I let another man take my mouth!” I screamed, rising to my feet and screaming into his face. “I gave you my virginity. And what did you do? You cheated with your ex-Mistress!” I didn’t realize how much I had pent up inside of me until it all came flowing out. “I love you,” I sobbed, watching his face break wide open.
His hands shook on the table top. His eyes became glossy orbs filled with dark panic. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me. I hadn’t realized I’d reached my point of no return until I was willing to take only his pain in exchange for him.
I couldn’t do that forever.
I didn’t want to.
My heart did.
She ached for this man. Yearned for every part of him. But maybe he wasn’t going to give me every part. He was a man who was only willing to give me what he wanted. Perhaps I should have real
ized that sooner before I gave him so much of me. I had nothing left but my ability to say yes.
My right to say no more.
“This doesn’t have to happen if you can promise me we can be more,” I told him, hyperventilating. My entire body shook. I was seconds from taking it back.
What was I doing? I loved him.
But did you love yourself? I didn’t know.
And I knew for certain that Jaxon didn’t love himself. He loved me. I didn’t love myself. I loved him. We were empty, and the other filled those places that were depthless and dark. But we did not fill those places inside of ourselves, and in doing so, we’d always be empty pools of pain.
“I want more from you. Less tears and more smiles. I don’t know. Just more. The Jaxon I went to dinner with and the Jaxon I fell in love with. Maybe he never existed. Maybe I just made him up.”
The realization slammed into me. Maybe I had cultivated him in my mind. I reached forward to touch his hand to see if he was real. He was. He flinched out from under my touch, his chest rising and falling so rapidly I could see his pulse thrumming in his neck. He was going to explode.
Break.
I sobbed into my hands. I didn’t want to break him. I wanted to put us back together.
“Please say something,” I begged.
He shot up from the table, his feet pacing the room. The moment I shifted, he spun, staring down at me like I was going to leave. His eyes were bugged out of his head. The sweat on his brow was thick and pungent. His hands shook at his sides.
“I… need you, Miya. You have to know how much. I need you!” he howled, dropping to his knees in front of me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and shoved his head into my lap. “Do not leave me. You can’t.”
I hiccupped on my sob. “I don’t want to leave you.” I held his head to me firmly, threading my fingers through the locks of his sweaty black hair. I cradled him to me. Holding on to my broken man with all my might.
We were broken.
Twisted up in all the things that had been done to us. We hadn’t made the conscious decision to be this shattered. But we were. We were shattered beyond belief, and it was up to me to put us back together. He never would. He didn’t know how.
“But I can’t stay like this. In the basement, like a nobody. I want to be in your bed, like a somebody. After everything, I deserve that. I deserve to have you the way I want, and not the way you created.”
“I can’t be what you want!” he growled, pulling back with hurt and fire in his eyes. “Don’t you get that? I’m not a regular guy. I’ll never hold your hand at the grocery store and send you flowers for no reason. I’m going to make you come like a faucet and then take care of you after I’m done.” He clutched my tear-soaked face and brought it close to his. He pressed a salty pained kiss to my lips. The entire time his eyes stayed opened.
The look that resided in them made me still. It was crazed. His back was to the wall. His hold on me tightened.
“Jaxon, let me go.”
“No,” he said simply.
I tried to free myself, but his fingertips pressed roughly into my temple. “Let. Me. Go. We’re not playing games right now.”
“I was never playing games, you silly girl. I was winning them.” He stood up with me in his arms, grappling with me when I fought him.
“What are you doing?” I screamed, pounding against his chest as he tried to get me into his arms.
He held my arms down and lifted me over his shoulder. “Giving up. Here is your monster, Miya. You wanted him, now you got him.” He marched me into the back of the house.
Toward the basement.
After I had just broken up with him.
Oh shit.
“Jaxon, put me down right now.” I tried to remain calm. “You’re breaking the trust between submissive and Dominant right now. Don’t break that trust, too.”
“I’m not your dominant anymore. You just broke our bond. Now I’m your worst nightmare.” He set me down on my feet in the basement. “Welcome to hell, sweet girl.”
6. – Jaxon
Some moments in life defined us.
I had many.
The very first time I was raped as a child. The scent of his hot breath. The feeling of my soul being ripped out from under me. That lasted two years.
The day the state took me from my mother and forced me to live with my aunt Pyper.
The first time Vega slapped the shit out of me and then made me come.
The moment I got my M.D. degree. It was growth in a fruitless garden.
The first time I took a submissive. It was control in a way I’d never had.
The most monumental moment in my entire life was the day Miya Reemond walked into my Intro to Psych class and my heart skipped at the sight of the innocence in her eyes, the way her cheeks pinked when she saw me staring, the way she undressed me with her eyes in class.
The first time Miya said she loved me.
When I took her virginity.
When she submitted.
When she stole my heart out from under me.
And today, when she broke it.
A single moment can rearrange the molecules in the air around us, shift the tide of our soul. It can turn us inside out or help us stand. The moment those words left her lips: “I think we should take a break.” A part of me irrevocably broke. It would never heal. No matter how this played out. Even if I managed to score a minivan and trap her inside forever, she showed me how weak I was with seven little words.
I didn’t have any control.
That’s why I took it out on women. Because every single woman in my life drove knife after knife into my chest. The people I was supposed to trust as a child demolished any and all trust in me. Vega hadn’t helped me. She’d capitalized on my consuming pain. She was fucked up, too. She had to be. Turning men into playthings.
I knew.
Because I turned every woman in my life into one too.
Even Miya.
A woman who undoubtedly loved me. There was no denying her love for me. It was in her eyes. In her beautiful soul. I could feel it, see it, bathe in it—Miya loved me more than she loved herself.
It was cathartic, having someone love me that much. So much that they’d leave me just to keep that love intact. Too bad for her I wasn’t nearly as selfless. I was a selfish, monstrous bastard. I would dig my claws into her heart again and again, until there was nothing left. I’d pluck every damn petal from her rose, until she was nothing but a thorn. And then I’d prick myself on her, repeatedly, until I dripped blood on to every inch of the ground beneath my feet.
And then I’d lie in it. Forever. With her staring at me the way she was staring at me now.
How could you, Jaxon?
What’s wrong with you?
Why are you doing this to me?
I love you!
I’d had her in the basement for two days now. She’d stopped talking to me. I hadn’t said a word. I stared at her huddled on the sofa. I knew she was hungry, but she refused to eat the food I brought her. She’d drunk the water, but only because her dry throat made it hard to scream at me.
I sat on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I was metaphorically holding my breath. Waiting for her to claw her way out and force my hand. I’d tie her down if that’s what it took.
“Stop looking at me, would you!” she shouted, glaring so profusely at me it almost, almost, blocked the love in her gaze.
She loved me.
She had no choice.
She had to stay.
She was mine.
I kept replaying those thoughts in my head.
She was mine.
She couldn’t leave.
But she could. That was the breaking point. The moment when clarity demanded justice and all I had left were my crimes.
“Sam will come looking for me,” she sneered.
My top lip curled over my teeth. He’d love that. To come in here and be her prince. The fucking normal bastard.
He was fucked up, but he still had a way with the light.
I envied him. I wanted that suddenly. The desire to touch the light had tears in my eyes, but I blinked them back.
Miya’s face softened, which meant I probably hadn’t hid it well. “Please talk to me, baby,” she begged softly.
My entire heart took a deep breath at her softness. It needed that. I was hard, she was soft; we made perfect sense together. Why hadn’t I ever seen that before? Why had I tried so hard to make her hard like me? Her beauty lay in the fact that she was forgiving. That she was strong. She was sweet. She was innocent and even with the pain of her abuse as a child, she was still hopeful.
I put my face in my hands. I felt a weight land on my chest. I had to do this. For her. She’d given up so much for me. The least I could do was give up everything for her.
“Can I talk without you screaming at me?” I asked, meeting her gaze.
She nodded, watching me carefully.
It was the first time I’d spoken in two days. “I love you, Miya. It scares me. It shows me all of my ugly parts, and I hate seeing those ugly parts. But they’re there regardless of if I acknowledge them. You show them to me, because deep down I know if I ever want to keep you, I have to do something about them. And how can I do that? Huh, sweetheart? How can I get rid of my ugly parts without leaving myself completely empty?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes glimmering. “You don’t have ugly parts, Jaxon. You have broken parts. Just like me. I love those parts just as much as I love you. Those parts made you who you are. How can I not love them?”
My eyes slid shut, blocking out the earnestness in her gaze, the depth in her words. She meant that. She believed that. Normally, I’d keep my eyes closed, think of a way to reinstate my control over my emotions, which probably ended up with a hand print on her ass some way, some form.
Dark Submissive (Dark Masters Book 2) Page 5
