by Amy Valenti
Broken. Now that was the term, wasn’t it?
I’d had to fall in love with the one infamously broken Dom in Los Angeles.
I called Callum without consciously making the decision to do so.
“Hey, Alex, what’s up?”
“I tried,” I told him hopelessly. “But I failed. He’s still fucked up, Callum.”
I heard his slow indrawn breath as he contextualised my words.
“You had a scene?” he asked after a moment.
“Last night.”
“How was it? You okay?” His concern was touching, but it wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t that I was having a post-scene meltdown. I was just coming to terms with harsh reality.
“Not good enough for a repeat performance, I guess.”
Callum sighed. “It’s not you, Alex. I promise you that.”
“Everyone keeps telling me that. You. Him. But no one will tell me what it fucking is, if it’s not me,” I snapped.
“I’ll talk to him,” Callum said. “But physically—how are you? I’m a little worried he’s left you alone when you sound like this.”
I shrugged off his concern like it was a physical thing. “It was my decision to go home. I left him beating the crap out of his stupid punching bag. Seems like he’d rather hurt that than me.”
“With the way he punches that bag, I’d call that a good thing,” Callum said wryly. “I’m sending Kat over to you, okay?”
“Oh—no. I don’t need to inconvenience her; I’m fine.”
“Then why’d you call?” he asked quietly.
I didn’t have an answer to that. Maybe I wasn’t as fine as I’d thought.
“How did it go last night? Before Spencer put the barriers back up, I mean?”
I hesitated. “I don’t even know how to do it justice. It blew my mind. And I don’t know how I’m gonna survive without it now I’ve had a taste. Is it so selfish of me to want it that badly?”
“No.” After a pause, he asked, “You gonna leave him?”
The big question, and yet to me, it was a no-brainer. “No. I love him too much to let him go. I’m just gonna have to get used to not being a submissive or a masochist, and go back to being plain old Alex Ashford.”
He snorted. “Plain old Alex Ashford is gonna have the paparazzi on her tail less than six months from now. You’re about to make the big leagues, remember?”
I made a face at my reflection in the glass coffee table. “Remind me to put on my happy face.”
“Just make sure none of your bruises are ever on show, all right?” he said, his tone serious. “They’ll have you in the middle of a domestic abuse scandal before you can blink.”
I winced. “Good point. I’ll be careful. Assuming I ever have any more bruises after this week.”
He changed the subject again, and we chatted about anything and everything until someone knocked at my door. “That’ll be Kat, I guess.”
“Go answer it. And let her know if you need anything. She’ll come to me if she needs to. Take care of yourself.”
I thanked him and hung up, then opened the door to find a worried-looking Kat Armstrong standing on my doorstep.
Kat wrapped me in a blanket and gave me an almost Domme-like stare when I protested that it was the middle of summer and I wasn’t even cold. Then she held my hand while I told her what had happened. The physical contact was reassuring.
It was easier to talk to Kat than it had been to Callum. I didn’t know why I’d called him first—maybe because I wanted him to knock some sense into his best friend?
“That scene sounds out of this world,” she said admiringly. “I’d love to see Spencer’s dungeon one day.”
I snorted. “He’s probably locked the door and thrown away the key by now. No more BDSM for him.”
Kat gave me a sympathetic look. “It’s hard to understand where he’s coming from, and I don’t know what happened either. Callum does, but he won’t tell me. But it sounds like he went through something pretty traumatic with his last sub. I can kind of relate.”
Something about the way she said it made me pay closer attention to her. “Something happened to you?”
Kat smiled to reassure me. “Long time ago. Don’t worry. It’s left me with some…issues. When I first met Callum I told him I wasn’t his damn submissive and I didn’t want anything to do with him. You can imagine how much that put him off.”
I rolled my eyes. Callum was a mild-mannered guy most of the time, but he liked to get his own way. “So what changed your mind about him?”
She looked a little embarrassed. “I got to researching what BDSM really was, rather than the abuse I’d experienced in the past, and I realised he was a Dom, not an abuser. So I took the chance.”
I’d hoped she’d reveal some magical secret I could use to get Spencer past his issues too, but it seemed that wasn’t to be. “I’m glad you did. Callum’s a great guy.”
“Wanna share him?” she joked. “I know he wishes he could go harder on me sometimes. It doesn’t take much to get me to slow word. I’m trying, but things come back. Old memories.”
I shook my head at the idea of sharing Callum. He wasn’t the one I wanted, and we both knew it. “Old memories, huh?”
“Maybe Spencer just needs to talk?” Kat suggested. “I know he’d probably drop the F-bomb a few times and then shut you out if you suggested it, but you could always figure out some way to get his mouth running. Maybe you could get him drunk. Callum said whiskey is their girl-trouble drink of choice.”
I didn’t think I’d ever seen Spencer drunk, or that I wanted to. “What’s our boy-trouble drink of choice?” I asked, shrugging off the blanket and taking a step towards the kitchen.
“I think at ten in the morning, it’s coffee.” Kat smothered a yawn. “I’m so not a morning person.”
After a couple of cups of coffee and more girl talk, we were interrupted by a banging on the door so forceful, it had to be Spencer. We exchanged looks, then Kat bounced to her feet before I could get up.
The sound of the door opening was followed by a moment of silence. Despite my trepidation, I had to smile as I imagined the glare Kat was giving my boyfriend.
“I need to talk to her.”
“Does that conversation start with the words ‘I’m sorry’?” Kat was trying to be quiet so I wouldn’t hear, but I could just about make out the words. “Because if not, turn right around and leave. I told you not to treat her like this.”
She did?
“None of your business, Kat. Let me talk to my submissive.”
My heart leapt, but then sank again. He was probably just pulling the ‘I’m a Dom, you’re a sub, so I overrule you’ card.
“You wait where you are while I say goodbye to her.”
She came back in and sat beside me. “You want me to send him away?”
“I don’t think he’d go. But thanks, Kat. I appreciate your help.”
We hugged. Over her shoulder, I saw Spencer walk in, and a pang of longing went through me. He looked about as happy as I felt.
“Call me if you need me, okay?”
With that, Kat was gone, leaving me alone with the man I couldn’t call my Dom.
Spencer
Alex looked wary as I stepped towards her. She didn’t know why I was here and obviously wasn’t sure if it was a good thing.
“I’m sorry.” It hadn’t taken Kat’s admonishment—or even Callum’s angry phone call—to make me realise I needed to say it. She was floundering in the dark, had no idea of what had happened with Kristin, and she was probably subdropping too.
I’d been a bad Dom by trying not to be a Dom at all. I should have made amends with her before she’d walked out, but my own emotions had gotten in the way.
“Forgive me?”
She held out for a moment, but then walked into my arms and held on tightly. I pulled her close, inhaling her vanilla scent. Vanilla—now there was irony.
We sat down on the couch together.
She nodded. “Either that or he’s still asleep, but I think he probably slept out at his boyfriend’s place last night.”
At least nothing we said would be overheard. “I should have handled earlier better.”
She shrugged. “So should I, I guess. I just don’t know how to put last night in the past when it was so monumental for me. I’m struggling.”
I could understand that. I’d put something in front of her, let her taste it, then yanked it away. It hadn’t been exactly fair of me, even if I’d been trying to get past my issues last night.
And I’d been selfish. I’d wanted to scene with her, no matter the cost.
“Any way I can make it easier?”
She tensed, and I could sense her running through and discarding different responses. Most of them probably included the suggestion of more scenes, but she knew that was out of the question. “I guess we just have to get back to the way things were. Want to watch a movie later?”
“Sure. Here or at my place?”
She hesitated, then said, “Here.”
It was probably for the best, without a dungeon nearby, taunting us with its far from empty presence.
“Can I see your bruises?” Now I was thinking clearly, a powerful need to check the hurts I’d inflicted on her last night—the physical ones—had taken over.
She didn’t question why, but did insist we go upstairs in case Tobias returned and interrupted us. Once we were closed in the sanctuary of her bedroom, the cool blues and greens of her decor calming and familiar, she took off her shirt and bra first, then sat on the edge of the bed. “Not too bad up here.”
I couldn’t resist. “I’d definitely have to agree.”
She tried and failed to keep a straight face, looking away as she grinned.
I cupped one of her breasts in my hands, pushing away the image of the way she’d offered them to me the night before. Of how good she’d looked in clamps. “Feel bruised?”
“Just a little.” She watched me examine the sensual handful, her face analytical. “I’m okay. Really.”
I took the arnica out of my jacket pocket anyway, then tossed the garment aside.
As I smoothed some of the ointment on the very slight bruising around her nipples, she shivered lightly. “Cold?” I asked.
“No.”
I tilted her head towards mine and kissed her, hoping she’d feel how much I loved her, needed her in my life. She smiled as we parted. “Get a little sidetracked there, Spencer?”
“I’m only human.” I turned my attention to the other nipple, massaging the ointment into her skin.
“I’m not sure it’s fair you get to wear a shirt while I have to strip off,” she said, as I pondered whether the taste of the ointment would be bearable enough to suck her nipple into my mouth. Remembering Alex’s disgusted face the night before, I decided against it.
I offered her the hem of my shirt before realising I’d done the same thing to Kristin—giving her the task of undressing me as a Dom to a sub. Kristin had loved it, and Alex showed no less enthusiasm as she pulled the shirt up and over my head.
“Let me check your thighs next,” I told her quietly, trying not to dwell on it.
Alex ran her fingers down my chest and over my abs before she obeyed, as though she couldn’t help herself. Part of me wanted to reprimand her for not following my order immediately, but I choked it down and waited, watching the way the sunlight from the crack in the curtains fell over her skin.
She wriggled out of her jeans and sat back down on the bed. I pulled her farther up so her head rested on the pillows and her legs were stretched out, then ran my hands over her.
Her ribs, stomach and abs were unmarked, her skin the same as it always had been. I kissed it, glad to still have the privilege of doing so after the way this morning had gone. Alex sighed, then giggled as I nuzzled her navel. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but my thighs are a little lower than where you seem to be heading.”
“Thanks for the anatomy lesson,” I teased—and skipped straight over the area her panties covered to run my hands over her thighs.
“Why did I say anything?” she asked the ceiling despairingly.
I put the knowledge of my growing hard-on to the back of my mind and concentrated on the bruises. Last night this skin had been reddened with belt stripes. Only one of them had actually been hard enough to bruise, and not all that severely—just a light purple already fading into green.
I applied the arnica carefully, then tapped her knee. “Turn over.”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Seriously?”
I raised an eyebrow and waited.
She flipped over with a little mutter.
I just barely stopped myself from slapping her bruised ass as a reprimand for that, and instead I ran my hand over the area. “Happy with your bruises?” I asked, running my fingers gently across the marked skin of her upper thighs.
“Yes, Sir. They’re beautiful.”
I wasn’t even sure if she realised what she’d called me, and it wasn’t worth the fight when we’d just gotten comfortable with each other again. I squeezed some ointment out and applied it to the backs of her legs where I’d given her a pretty hard belting.
Alex, being a typical masochist, enjoyed every moment of me pressing and massaging her bruises, though to her credit she tried not to let me see it. It was impossible to ignore, and I tugged her panties down over her hips, more of my blood racing south when I realised just how wet she’d become.
Her ass had some impressive purplish-blue marks too, and I took a moment to congratulate myself on my handiwork before applying the arnica. Again, she tried not to let on how much my touch was affecting her, but we both knew I knew, which made the atmosphere a little apprehensive.
I finished up by capping the tube, then cleaned the excess from my hands with the inside of my shirt. Then I did what I’d been struggling not to do all along, and slid my hand between her legs.
She moaned softly and pushed against my touch, against the mattress, seeking more friction. I kissed her tailbone gently and carried on teasing her, coaxing her clit into hardness with fingertips slick from her juices.
“That’s it, brave girl. Enjoy yourself.”
She clutched her pillow with one hand, grabbed a handful of the bedspread with the other, and a quick, light orgasm ran through her within a minute. Not enough to satisfy her—or me.
“Turn over.”
She spun onto her back a lot quicker than she’d followed the opposite order earlier, her expression lustful. “I think you should take your pants off and get over here.”
I had to remind myself I wasn’t her Dom in this situation, couldn’t punish her for ordering me around. I stripped down fast and slid my body over hers, remembering just in time not to use my tongue on her ointment-covered breasts and moving farther up to claim her lips.
She kissed me hard, rocked against me, her urgency contagious. Before I could reach down and guide my cock inside her, she beat me to it, stroking me for a couple of torturous seconds before angling her hips up to take me in.
“Mmmm,” she hummed in my ear as I pressed deeper. “Fuck me hard.”
Vaguely I realised that she wanted me to agitate her bruises, craved the pain that a deep, hard fuck would cause her injured skin. That only made me more turned on, and I couldn’t help myself. I gave in and fucked her into the mattress, grabbing her ass, her hips, angling her upward so I could take her deeper. Alex whimpered with hedonistic delight and encouraged me the whole way, shuddering into a second climax within only a couple of minutes.
I kissed her back to me, stroking back her hair with my hand. She nipped my bottom lip, then tried to overturn me, to straddle and ride me. I resisted for only a moment before letting her do it, wanting to watch her move.
She was high on pleasure and pain, so fucking hot it was a struggle to hold myself back from coming right then. She took me with quick,
controlled movements, using me for her own ends, and I grabbed her by her bruised thighs and let her work herself right up to her third climax.
She probably could have gone for more, but I was at my limit. I came hard, dragging her down on top of me as the orgasm flooded my body with pleasure.
Alex wound her arms around my neck and panted against my ear. When I remembered to release my grip on her ass, her tight cunt squeezed around me again, though whether it was a separate orgasm or part of the last, I didn’t know.
She kissed me breathlessly, then rolled off me and lay half spread-eagled on the bed, recovering.
We exchanged a glance, but it was hard for me to interpret what I saw in her face. I thought part of it might have been guilt that she’d goaded me into hurting her again, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t even know whether I felt guilty or elated.
I closed my eyes, and when I opened them briefly, she’d shut hers too. It wouldn’t hurt to nap for a while.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alex
It had been almost a week since Spencer and I had scened in the dungeon, and my bruises had healed completely, much to my disappointment. Those few days of rougher vanilla sex had kept my new craving for pain sated, but now the contusions were gone. Would we still have the same chemistry, the same connection, if he wasn’t hurting me, dominating me?
I wasn’t sure how tonight would go down, but I missed the Dom part of him. The slight but noticeable distance he’d put between us since Saturday made me ache. It reminded me of the first few days of our acquaintance, before we’d gotten together. I’d been so confused by his behaviour back then. The way he was now was more subtle, but just as hard to bear—if not worse, because I knew where the bomb was but not how close I could get before accidentally detonating it.
I decided to make the best of it and impress him with my favourite lingerie. The sex between us had always been hot as hell—there was no reason to think it would be any less so now.
