KNEEL (Sins of Seven Book 1)

by Dani René

  Deep down, I want her to fall into my arms once I’ve confessed and tell me it’s going to be okay. For the first time in all my life, I want to collar a submissive. I want to claim her and no other. My chest aches, tightens painfully as I recall how much Evangeline Gallagher means to me. And how much she’s about to hate me.

  “I took the money, I agreed to come in here and find you. I agreed to hurt you in the voyeur room. I said yes to degrading you, humiliating you. In the same room where people can watch and get off on the shit going on inside. She knew I was a monster and she took that as her in to drag me into this sick plan of hers.”

  “I don’t understand. Who are you talking about?”

  I can’t look at her, so I drop my gaze to the floor. I watch her shoes move into my line of sight. She’s imploring me to meet her eyes, but I can’t. I can feel her heated stare on me. It’s burning a hole right through me.

  “She wanted to see you suffer. I don’t know why, I didn’t ask.” I shake my head in frustration at my stupidity. “But after that first night, I couldn’t stay away from you, so I told her that I was done with you, that one night was a once off.”

  I finally lift my head to face Eva. I want to reach for her, but it’s too dangerous. We’ll both hurt each other and that’s not what I want.

  “She believed me until she walked in here last week. We were leaving after playing a scene. I received a call that evening at my office, telling me that if I don’t let you go, she’ll expose who I really am. She’s threatening to take my company, to tell you I’d taken money to fuck you, and I have no way to change her mind. I didn’t realize who she was to you until you told me your name.”

  “Nate, nothing you’re saying is making sense. Who is this woman? She’s blackmailing you. It’s illegal. Why me? I’m so confused nothing you’re saying is actually an explanation to why you left. What she’s doing is wrong, you can report her. You can go to the—”

  “I can’t go to anyone. If I do, she will sell the photos and videos she has of me in the dungeon to the papers. I’ll lose everything.”

  Eva steps forward then, she doesn’t reach for me, she only looks into my eyes. “It sounds to me like you’ve already lost everything that means something to you.” Her honesty is jarring.

  “Yes, I have. I want you, Eva. You’re my everything. Since the moment I laid eyes on you, the only person who’s ever accepted me for who I am and not for what I can give them. The only woman I want in my arms, in my home, and in my bed. I need you, my beautiful diamond.” I implore her with a gaze. I pin her in place with a look that tells her I love her. I’ve never said the words to anyone. But I want to say them to her. Not now. This isn’t the right time. I want her to be with me because she wants to be, not because I’m telling her what she wants to hear.

  “Then tell me who this woman is that’s doing this to you? Nate, if you want this to work, if you really want a second chance, then you need to trust me.”

  She’s right. I do. I need to let go of the fear of people walking out on me. To steel myself from having that happen, over the years I’ve made sure that I was the one to walk out. Now, I have a choice.

  “Marissa Gallagher,” the words fall from my mouth, effortlessly yet painfully. Slowly, her gaze glosses over, tears fill those beautiful blue orbs and they shimmer as she regards me.

  “My… my fucking mother? Did you…? Oh, God…” she murmurs while stepping back, not finding the words I know she’s dying to ask. I should answer. Put her out of her misery, but I don’t. I’m an asshole like that, so I watch her stumble over the question. “You… Did you? You and her?” Her face is filled with torment so pained, that I feel it in my chest.

  With Eva, every emotional scar I’m causing her, is one I’m carving into my own soul.

  “Answer me!” Her screech is loud, it bounces off the walls causing me to step closer to her which is a mistake. Her hand comes out again, but this time I’m too fast. Before she can make contact with my face, I grip her wrist, pulling her against me. The tears she held back all this time fall, they race down her pink cheeks in trails of salty emotion.

  “I have never been with her, never laid a hand on her. She and I never fucked. There’s this strange addiction that she has to seeing women, submissives she chooses debased. Degraded,” I utter, as bile rises in my throat, causing me to want to kill for the woman in my arms. She shuts her eyes to my gaze and I miss the blue, the pools of torment that I caused. “Eva, please look at me.”

  “I can’t, Nate. I can’t do this. That money that paid off your debt, that was money you took to fuck me. To hurt me. To humiliate me in front of her, all for what? Did she tell you why she was doing it? Did she explain why she is so angry at me?”

  I shake my head, but I know she can’t see it, so I give her the honest answer. “No, I didn’t know who you were to her until you told me your last name. I had no idea why, or how, all I knew was I had to do what she asked.”

  She’s silent for a moment, and I feel the tension radiating from her. “So you knew most of the time we were together who I was, but you didn’t once think to say anything?”

  “Eva, I was scared of losing you. I realize now how stupid that might sound, but seeing you walk out the door was something I couldn’t bring myself to see.” My voice is raspy as the guilt chokes me with a vice like grip.

  “When my father died he left all his assets to me. Money beyond my wildest imagination. A week after his funeral just after they read the Last Will and Testament, that’s when she reappeared in my life. It was sudden that she was back in the picture. After all those years, leaving me with him, walking out on her family. Apparently, somehow, she had heard through the grapevine that I was about to inherit a fortune, she decided to play the doting mother.”

  Eva doesn’t look at me as she tells me her story. Her truth. And I have a feeling this is going to gut me more than anything I’ve ever been through.

  “She had lawyers who fought that she was my legal guardian which allowed her to take hold of all that money I had from my dad. Slowly, she swindled it into foreign accounts I can’t find. I never told anyone about this, Carrick knows what she made me do, what she and her vile filth of a partner made me do. I had to stop him from murdering them in cold blood that night. I was forced out of the home my dad gave me when Carrick found me.”

  “What did they do to you? Why are you so broken, my beautiful diamond?” I ask. When I reach for her, she doesn’t move. “I want to know. I’ve trusted you, please trust me. This,” I gesture between us as I cup her cheek in my hand, “is not ending. I can’t live without you, Eva. I know I can’t. But I want you to tell me what happened to you. We can work through this, if you can forgive me, if you can find it in your heart to see past my mistake, we’ll figure this out.”

  She darts her gaze to me. For a moment, I think she’s going to deny me, but she closes her mouth again, as if considering my words. It feels as if I’m standing on a goddamn cliff about to jump. If she refuses me, I’m not sure how I’d walk out of here. But I’ll never give up fighting for her.

  “Eva, you are my everything. Mine. No one else’s. You know that and so do I. Even if you walk out here right now, I’ll find you, I’ll fight for you, and make no mistake, I’ll hurt, maim, or kill anyone who stands in my way.”

  She inhales a deep breath, and then utters her confession with raw, agonizing honesty. “When my mother brought home her partner as she called him, Morgan was nice, he was friendly. But I didn’t realize what they’d gotten themselves into. He slowly became more…” Her words trail off and I know immediately what she’s not telling me. My blood pressure hits an all-time high as I see red. I see fucking death before me and it’s going to be by my hand. “It was the night of my sixteenth birthday everything changed. They said they were throwing me a party. But it was the night my mother really started showing her true colors. They had invited so called friends that…”

  She breaks then, Eva fucking shatters and fal
ls into my arms like a rag doll. I’m holding her up, scooping her into my arms, I walk over to the sofa and sit down with her curled in my lap.

  “Morgan had a few friends over, they were sniffing coke off the dining room table. The same table where my father and I used to have dinner.”

  “Eva—”

  “Th-they paraded me in front of those men, six of them sat and ogled me,” her voice cracks and I feel the pain in my own throat. “Their hands… Morgan said he’d make sure when by the time I was eighteen that I knew what a whore felt like.”

  “What the fuck did your mother do?”

  Her gaze lifts then, meeting mine with acute torment in those blue eyes. “Nothing. I was forced to watch her fuck those men while they groped and grabbed me. She enjoyed it. That’s when I ran.”

  I’m close to exploding, to fucking breaking something, someone. And I know who’s going to help me sort this bitch out. Marissa will fucking pay and when she does I’ll be there to watch her fall so far down the abyss of degradation and torture. And I’ll smile.

  Her confession cracks through the concrete walls that I’ve built around my heart and I know it’s time. Right here, right now. I need to do it.

  “I love you, Eva. I want nothing more than to call you mine. I swear on all I’m worth, I’ll make her pay for what she did to you. Her and that piece of filth. But I want us to do it together. Be mine. Please? Let me be your knight this time, not Carrick, not anyone else. I’ll prove to you I’m worthy of you, your submission, and everything that comes along with it. But most of all, I want to hold that beautiful heart you keep locked away in my hands. To keep it safe from breaking. Will you give it to me?”

  A moment of clarity attacks me with vengeance and I know what I need to do. I lift her, setting her on the sofa and for the first time in my life I drop to my knees. I kneel for a woman. I submit to her instead of the other way around.

  Her gasp is soft, a gentle sound that seems to lull me into a cocoon of safety. Confidence soars as I reach into my pocket and hold up the long velvet box which holds the gift I bought before I walked out and left her. I was always too scared to give it to her. Too scared to admit I wanted her as mine.

  “Nate,” she says in a tone filled with surprise. Sadness no longer lingers in her blue eyes and I intend to keep it that way. Forever.

  “Eva,” I respond. We don’t need words. Since the first night we met, we never needed to say anything. Our souls converse in ways that our mouths cannot.

  My own fear of loving her is gone. Now, all bets are off. She takes the box, snapping it open. An inhale of surprise is the only thing I hear. A smile lingers on her full pink lips. The silver collar with a small heart locket that’s been engraved for her sits nestled in the black velvet. Nate’s Sweet Slut. It’s the only name I’ve ever called her in our scenes because she is mine.

  Eva

  I want to turn away, I should turn away. Tell him no. After all the pain and agony, I should run a mile. But in doing that, I’ll only allow the hold that bitch has over me to continue. My mother’s done so much to me. Hurt me in ways I couldn’t even begin to explain. Now’s my chance to face my past, or keep running. It’s time to either walk into the storm with my hand in Nate’s and my feet firmly on the ground, or I can be the spineless bitch she called me all those years ago.

  I don’t blame Nathan. Deep in my heart I know what she’s capable of. I’ve been her toy for far too long. It’s time for me to fight back, to take my life into my hands.

  A calmness settles over me. If I’m smart, I’ll tell him to move on and I’ll do the same. But, I’ve never been smart. I’ve always listened to my heart. And right now, as I meet his imploring gaze, having him kneel for me, I know I’m going to agree to go with him.

  He took money to hurt me. To shatter me for a woman who hates me. I knew one day she’d find me. Her cold heartless demeanor had been her downfall. She never had love in her life. And she made sure no one else around her did either. When my father died I was alone, until the wicked witch walked back in and took everything from me.

  I grew up not knowing what a mother’s love or affection was. When I finally ran, I packed my backpack with some clothes stuffed into the space along with my toothbrush and my notebook. I left everything behind and let her have it. Money never meant anything to me, all I wanted was my dad. After what she did to me, what Morgan did to me, I knew I’d never know what family is.

  The night of their so-called party, when those filthy men groped me. Their vile hands on parts of my body, fingers prodding me, grabbing my breasts, spitting disgusting words. It was then I knew if I didn’t get out I’d lose more than just my virginity. I’d lose my soul in the process.

  When I met Carrick, he promised to care for me. To make sure nothing harmed me in any way, and he kept that promise. He found me out of my mind from the tequila I inhaled like it was giving me my next breath and the coke I’d shoved up my nose. He dragged me to the parking lot of the club I’d almost been raped in and slapped some sense into me.

  He was my new family. Sex wasn’t anything special to me anymore. It was a means to an end. My end. The girl that my dad raised died, and in her place, was a cold woman who needed the pain to forget. My story isn’t filled with sweet words and roses, it’s the whips, chains, and degradation that make me forget. When I knew what I needed to do, it came easily to me.

  That night I finally let go of my past, I begged Rick to take me. I slutted myself out to a man who acted like my knight in shining armor. When he finally relented, I told him to show me his darkness and he did. I was a sixteen-year-old submissive for six months while I learned what this life was like. I don’t hate him for it. He did save me in so many ways. I took to it like a fish to water. And that’s where my journey begun.

  “Eva, I know we can be good together. We both have demons to overcome, we both need the other to survive, and we can mend our souls by looking to our future. I can’t live without you. As dark as my world is, without you, it’s like walking through life blind. I need you,” Nate implores me. Never did I think I’d see a man like him kneel, beg, or plead. I hold power that I never knew I had with him. All our time together I was always on the receiving end of his dominance.

  Now, I have a choice to make.

  I look into his eyes, those beautiful pools of dark brown that haunted my dreams over the short time we’d been apart. I was a walking ghost without him, and now I know he felt the same pain I did. “I don’t know if I can accept the collar… yet,” I say, my voice raspy, my throat dry, aching from screaming at him moments ago. “We need time. I need time, Nate.” He nods slowly, relief that I’m not refusing him painting his handsome face.

  “Come home with me, Eva?” He asks, his voice low, filled with longing. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but staying with Carrick isn’t helping matters. “I’ll make you dinner, draw you bubble baths and you’re welcome to stay in the guest room if you feel you need time. I know I lied. I hid the truth from you, but as we spent more time together, all I wanted was you. Her agreement was null and void by the time I’d asked you to have dinner with me. That was the first date I’d ever had. And when you looked at me with those beautiful eyes, filled with amusement, fire, and yearning, I knew there was no way I was letting you go.”

  He takes my hand, holding it between both his large ones.

  “I’d never dated my slaves. They were merely toys to me. You…” his words trail off, his mind ticking by all the ways he can get me to agree. When he glances up at me again, he continues. “You’re the only woman who’s gotten into my heart and I can’t lose that. Finally, I’m greedy for the right thing. My greed brought me you, and my addiction won’t let you leave. I don’t know how we’re going to land on our feet, but we have to try.” He drops his head, looking at my shoes like they’re going to give him the answer he seeks.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Ashcroft. Right now, it feels as if we’ve just jumped over the ledge and we’re currentl
y in a freefall. Let’s worry about landing when we get there. Baby steps first,” I offer, shutting the velvet box, but holding onto it. “Since this is mine, I’ll keep it until we figure out where we stand. If that’s okay with you?”

  “Anything you want,” he smiles, rising to full height, towering over me in his commanding way. His gaze pinning me with not desire, not lust. It bores into me with love.

  “Anything?” I quip, my body responding in a completely different way. I don’t need the spanking, the toys, or anything else. I only want him and the affection I know he’s capable of. Right now, more than anything, I want the sweet, gentle caresses rather than the pain. Tonight, I need the light, in this dark world I’ve become accustomed to living in. In this lifestyle, there’s no way you can stop yourself from forever dousing yourself in the murky shadows. I need it. He does too.

  When he finally reaches for me, I fall into his arms. All the while we both stood on our own, but now, we need to stand together. We have a war to fight, a dragon to slay. I never realized how much she hated me, I thought running away would make sure she’s out of my life, clearly not.

  “Eva, I thought walking away from you was the right thing to do, I did it because I didn’t want her hurting you anymore. Fuck, I know I’d done enough damage that night I walked out. But when you told me that Carrick was going to collar you…” He trails off, and I know that must have hurt him as much as I was hurting. “I can’t handle it, Eva. I can’t lose you.”

  “You mean you can’t handle someone else having me,” I murmur under my breath. When I glance up, I see him nod, but doesn’t voice his response for so long, I think he’s about to change his mind. The cruel way I’ve always been broken was being reprimanded for wanting something, having it pulled out from under me. And now, even as an adult, I still expect it.