Not Your Damn Dom (Denial Book 2)

by Amy Valenti

  I shook my head slowly, unable to shake the memory of Kristin curled up in a ball on the opposite side of the room, threatening to scream or call the cops if I took even a step towards her. She’d ceased to be the Kristin I recognised that night.

  “I still love you.” Alex was speaking softly against my shoulder. “I don’t know if you can even process that right now, but I still love you and trust you and I want you to be my Dom.”

  Be her Dom? With the past so close to the forefront of my mind, just the thought of it made me nauseous. Imagining Alex cringing back from my touch was physically painful as well as mentally.

  “I can’t talk about that right now. Just give me some time.”

  She nodded. “Is it okay for me to keep holding you?”

  I gathered her into my lap, pulling her close and burying my face in her neck. I never wanted to let go. Her quiet support made me feel like less of a monster. Her warmth against my body chased the chill of guilt from my bones.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered, and if she noticed I was silently crying, hoping she wouldn’t catch on, she didn’t say anything.

  Alex

  I held Spencer for a long time, my heart aching for him. God, it was a horrible situation he’d been through. I couldn’t even imagine.

  Everything I’d said to him was true. I didn’t know what reliving a suppressed memory was like, but I hoped that if it had been me in Kristin’s shoes, I’d have been able to put things with Spencer in context better than she had. To throw away six years of love and trust because something you’d requested had gone wrong, and to blame the man you loved for it, when it was clear he was completely broken up about the situation…

  At least now everything made more sense. Of course Spencer was determined to never have a submissive again, to commit on that deep a level. If it had been me in his shoes, I would have felt horribly responsible. Guilty that I hadn’t noticed something was wrong, too.

  But it was a rape scene. As far as I understood it, things were supposed to seem like they were wrong. Right?

  It didn’t affect the way I saw him. His need to avoid roleplay made sense now, and I was entirely willing to go along with that limit. He was a careful, responsible, loving Dom—it was so obvious, and I’d barely even scened with him.

  I ached to be the submissive who could get him through this terrible emotional wound, to show him that he was worthy of my trust and love.

  God, he was so broken right now. He was silently crying, and he wouldn’t want me to know, so I kept quiet, hoping my own tears wouldn’t turn to sobs that would clue him in.

  After a painful eternity, Spencer drew me off his lap and reached for his pants. “I’m gonna go take a shower. I need a little time alone, okay?”

  I tried not to see it as a rejection. “Okay.”

  “Thanks.” He went into the bathroom before I could say anything else.

  Alone, I curled up in the middle of the bed and sighed. Had that done anything to help us through this? I wasn’t sure. Spencer was likely to throw up even higher walls around himself after this, and to insist that he shouldn’t be a Dom. How was I going to convince him that he was wrong?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alex

  I met Giselle for a picnic lunch in the park midway through the week. We sat down with our miniature feast far away from anyone who might eavesdrop on our conversation.

  Giselle listened sympathetically as I told her what had happened after our big scene, keeping his revelation about Kristin to myself. “God, I can’t believe he’s still pushing you away. Stupid guy!”

  I shrugged and took a bite of apple. “He has his reasons, I guess.”

  She pointed a breadstick covered with dip at me. “You know what you need to do? Give him a shock. Shake him up. Make him stop taking for granted that you’ll always put his needs first.”

  I stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She smiled. “Offer your submission again, and if he rejects it, go find someone platonic to play with at Scene One. Or at least pretend that’s what you’re gonna do.”

  I looked down at my slowly browning apple slices uneasily. “I dunno, Giselle. I might lose him that way.”

  “Why?” she asked, as if her solution was the most logical thing in the world. “You need to submit. You need pain. He won’t give those things to you, but he’s fine with everything else in your relationship. I know tons of people who have arrangements with their partners like this. They go out and get whipped or whatever, then go home nice and horny, and their partner does the rest.”

  I already knew Spencer would despise the idea of some other Dom whipping me into a frenzy and then releasing me in his general direction. “I’m pretty sure he’d hate that. A lot.”

  “Duh,” Giselle said. “That’s the whole point. He’ll get all possessive and territorial and forbid you to do it, and drag you into his dungeon and collar you on the spot.”

  The idea of that was hot…but…

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  She shrugged. “You go to Scene One and find a Dom to do something platonic with, then take care of yourself with a vibrator afterwards. And maybe think about whether he’s worth all this angst.”

  I sighed. “He’s worth it, okay?”

  “Maybe I’m just bitter because I’ve been single too long,” she confessed. “I’m not the trusting type, so all my submissive encounters are skin-deep at best. I’ve never really had that total surrender thing you and Kat do.”

  I tried not to think about how much I wanted ‘that total surrender thing’.

  “Just think about it. Just because his last relationship ended badly, that doesn’t mean you should have to suffer forever.”

  On the way to a promotional event twenty minutes later, I sat quietly in the back of the seven-seater while my co-stars joked around. Something had to change, that much was clear. Though our relationship was still loving in every other way, we hadn’t had sex since our conversation about vanilla leaving us wanting something. If we didn’t repair it somehow, and soon, I wasn’t sure if we had a future together.

  “Hey, Alex. Don’t forget your game face.” James could tell something was on my mind. In his usual style, he didn’t push, just squeezed my shoulder before he followed the others out of the limo.

  I plastered my celebrity face on and followed, doing my best to feel as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I was acting.

  * * * *

  Spencer

  As soon as Alex appeared in the doorway, I knew we were gonna end up fighting. She had that look on her face—the one that begged me to understand her need to submit.

  “Hey.” She sat down on the couch beside me. “How was your day?”

  I let her drop a quick kiss on my lips, but my guard was up and she knew it.

  “Not bad,” I answered. “How about you?”

  She took a breath and plunged in. “I met up with Giselle at lunch. She said there are lots of couples where only one of them is into BDSM, and they agree that the partner who wants to do it can get what they need platonically. With someone else.”

  Instantly my possessive streak, my Dom streak, flared. “Hell, no.”

  Defensively, she said, “I haven’t even asked you anything yet!”

  “You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what the question is, Alex. No way. No fuckin’ way am I letting any other guy get his hands on my girl.”

  “I said platonically,” she gritted out, fire in her eyes to match my own temper. “It wouldn’t be any different than acting out a sex scene on a movie set. Less intimate, because there wouldn’t even be kissing.”

  Bullshit! I got up and paced across the room, anger and nervous energy fuelling me. “I’ve seen your reaction to pain without any intimate stimulation at all. You’d be halfway to an orgasm from just a spanking, and you know it.”

  She blushed, her hands clenched into fists in her lap, her head bowed as she tried to formulate an argument.
<
br />   “No.” And that was final.

  Getting up off the couch, she stood in the middle of the room, then deliberately lowered herself to her knees, her eyes on my face. “If I belong to you, then prove it. Sir.”

  I turned my back on her tempting form, my cock twitching. “I can’t.”

  “You don’t trust me. That’s our whole problem.” Her voice shook with emotion, killing my arousal as quickly as it had stirred. I knew she was on the verge of tears.

  “What?” I turned to stare at her. I trusted her completely. It was myself I didn’t trust.

  “You won’t let me in. Since our scene you’ve locked away part of yourself and it’s not fair. What’s even going on here? Is it Kristin? Are you still too in love with the memory of you guys together, before the bad stuff, that nothing between us could ever be as good?”

  Where the hell was she pulling this from? I was doing this for her. For us.

  Before I could speak, she carried on, “Or do you think I’m weak? Like I can’t handle what you can dish out?”

  I stared at her, wondering what the hell else was going on in her head. She was so off-base that I honestly didn’t even know how to respond.

  “Or maybe you’re just still punishing yourself for what happened back then. It wasn’t even your fault. And by punishing yourself, you’re punishing me, and you will for the rest of our time together.”

  She stood up to go. “I had you, Spencer. For a few days you opened up completely and I thought nothing would come between us again. But then you snatched yourself away from me. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of you. I just thought you’d trust me enough to keep being your full self, and let me be mine.”

  I moved forward, reaching for her, but she stepped back immediately, tears on her cheeks.

  “I need some time alone,” she said, and left the room.

  I sank back down onto the couch once her footsteps had receded down the stairs and the door that led out into the gym had swung closed with a thud.

  “Fuck.” I covered my face with my hands as if that would stop her misery from permeating my brain.

  Now she’d gone I could run back over what she’d said, pick it apart. She thought she might be to blame for me holding back? That she wasn’t sub enough for me, or that I was still hung up on Kristin?

  The one thing I was certain of was that we loved each other. I’d have to be completely senseless to not realise it. But she’d been trying to pretend she could do vanilla and it was weighing on her, just as it was weighing on me. If she was trying to find ways to be with me and still live out her masochistic, submissive impulses—not with someone else, never with some other fucking Dom—she was almost at the end of her rope.

  She was right. I was punishing us both by refusing to acknowledge my dominant urges, and it was worse because she’d seen how much I loved to hurt her and to subjugate her to my will. Even worse because we both loved it equally.

  I groaned and pondered my options, but couldn’t get past the melancholy expression on her face. She was out there now, hurting because of me, and I hadn’t even had to touch her.

  I grabbed my phone and speed-dialled Callum. He answered after a couple of rings. “You okay, bud?”

  Somehow he’d known before I’d even told him. “Goddamn it, how do you already know we had a fight? Did she call you?”

  “Tonight? No. But I’ve been expecting this for the last couple of weeks. I’ll bring the Scotch.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Spencer

  Callum found me pacing the gym. Somehow it didn’t seem right to be taking this out on my punching bag, though I wasn’t quite sure what was holding me back.

  He told me to unlock my dungeon and that we’d drink in there. I was far from enthusiastic, but I did as he said. He was the man with the whiskey, and if I couldn’t stop myself from fucking up with my woman, I might as well get mashed.

  “Come on, Spence. Will you think about this logically? Of course she wants to submit and be hit. She’s a subbie masochist and she knows you’re hiding a Dominant sadist somewhere in there.” Callum passed me the booze.

  I took a big swallow of Scotch and relished the burn. “I just want to keep her safe.”

  “From you?” he asked, taking the bottle back.

  I nodded, walking over to the rack and running my hand over the cushioned bench of it.

  “That’s not what she wants, is it? Or what she needs.”

  “I’m fuckin’ scared,” I admitted. “And I’ll kill you if you tell anyone that.”

  Callum sighed. “We’ve been over this a million times, Spence, and it never sinks into that thick skull you have. Kristin’s breakdown wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t her fault either. It was just bad luck that she had repressed memories that came out during a scene she wanted. You won’t hurt Alex the same way.”

  My jaw was so tight that it ached. I went back over to Callum and held my hand out for the Scotch.

  “I’m gonna call her.”

  I scowled. “Don’t. She needs some time to herself. She said that. Gimme the bottle.”

  “Not Alex. Kristin.”

  I stared at him, my whole body going taut. “You know how to reach her? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Kat found her. Earlier in the week.”

  “What?” I exploded. “Did you put her up to it? Does Alex know? What the fuck is this, Callum?”

  I didn’t realise I had a hand on him until he was pinned to the wall. He just stared at me, one alpha male to another. I was stronger than him, could wipe the floor with him and we both knew it. He also seemed to be confident I wouldn’t do it, which was pretty fucking optimistic of him.

  I released him because I didn’t want to break the bottle he was still holding and stepped away. “Talk.”

  “She did it on her own after I sent her round to give aftercare to your submissive. It’s pretty clear your past is making you think irrationally, and she didn’t want to see Alex or you hurting. She talked to Giselle, who talked to someone else, and someone eventually on the sub grapevine was still in touch with Kristin. She’s in LA right now.”

  That was like cold water in the face. I couldn’t even process it. “She’s here.”

  “Yup.”

  “In Los Angeles.”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m gonna murder your sub—”

  Pain blossomed in my jaw and my head whipped back. It took me a moment to realise Callum had socked me one. When I looked at him again, his eyes were ice, his entire body rigid. “You don’t fuck with Kat. Ever. Am I clear?”

  I sank down on the top of the spanking bench, touching my jaw gingerly. “I didn’t mean it, Cal.”

  “I know.” He held the bottle out to me, his expression softening. “That’s why I didn’t rip your balls off.”

  We both grinned at that, and I took another long swig of Scotch.

  “Have you seen her?”

  “No. Didn’t wanna lose my temper and scare her off before you guys had the chance to talk.”

  I made a face. “Thought you said it wasn’t her fault?”

  “I said what happened during your scene wasn’t her fault. Her treating you like a criminal afterwards was entirely her fault.” He shook his head. “As I’ve said to you over and over again. Don’t you listen to me when I talk?”

  “Depends how full the bottle is.”

  “Hmm. Speaking of which, if you want to be in any state to make amends with Alex tomorrow, you’ve had enough.” He reached out for the Scotch.

  I took one more swig just to prove I could, then handed it over.

  “I don’t know what I’m gonna say to her.”

  “Kristin, or Alex?”

  “Both.” I looked over at him. “And I’m guessing it’d be relationship suicide to go see Kristin without telling Alex first.”

  Callum winced. “Yeah. Even if your intentions are pure, women hate that shit. Then again, if Kat went to see some old flame without telling me, I’d be pretty fu
cked off too.”

  I sighed. “God knows what I’m gonna say to Alex. I mean, I’m just trying to protect her but she’s making it all about her, like she’s not good enough as a sub or something.”

  Callum rolled his eyes. “Meanwhile, over here, you’re making it all about you.”

  I took a moment to process that, then growled, “Who made you fuckin’ Doctor Laura all of a sudden?”

  “Trust me, it’s easier to see when you’re on the outside, bud.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Just be honest, okay? And let me know when you’re ready to see Kristin.”

  I still couldn’t process that I was gonna see her after all this time. Where the fuck had she been hiding? Was she here to twist the knife a few more times?

  “Need me to stay for a bit, old man? Maybe help you up the stairs?” he ribbed gently.

  “Go the fuck home to your perfect fucking relationship and let me sleep this off.” Maybe I was a little bitter.

  “Just promise me you won’t run off to the cabin and stay away for nearly two goddamn years this time.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off. “As if I could drive.”

  “Bye, Spence.”

  Alone, I stretched out on the floor of the dungeon, too apathetic to move for the moment. Kristin was here. After three years of nothing, she was here. Was she herself again, or still the stranger she’d become after our last scene had gone wrong?

  If she asked me to take her back, would I?

  At one time, it had been all I’d ever wanted. There had been a time I’d thought we’d be together forever, and after she’d left I’d mourned that future we’d lost like crazy.

  Alex, though… Since she’d come into my life she’d made me realise things with Kristin hadn’t always been ideal. And things with Alex might be complicated, but she made me feel like the centre of her universe and her equal at the same time. She was foul-mouthed and dirty-minded and made me laugh when I was determined not to, and I couldn’t live without her.