Jesus. What should she do? Could she just leave?
She inched back, but Julian was striding toward her with Morgan right behind him.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled.
“Can’t I fucking go shopping?” Lucinda snapped back. She shouldn’t antagonize him, but she’d given up her whole life because of his threats.
“No, Lucinda. You cannot. Not when my Morgan is here. Not when I’m here.”
“Jesus, Julian, I’m fucking sorry already. Can’t you just let it go? It was a goddamn mistake, and I haven’t done anything but make up for it since the minute you left my apartment.”
“Which is how it should be. You compromised Morgan’s career. You threatened me. You almost put all those kids at the Loft in the position of losing the one thing that actually means something to them. So pardon me if I’m not crying about your hard life.”
Lucinda felt like she’d been punched. Jesus. Her jealousy over what Julian and Morgan had made her into the worst sort of person. She hated herself. Hated what she’d done to them. She deserved his anger and his disgust.
“I’m sorry, Julian,” she said, in a low whisper.
“Daddy,” Morgan said from behind him. “Let this go. It’s over. In our past. Things are so much better now. Leave her.”
Morgan’s pity was almost worse. Lucinda didn’t deserve it. She deserved to be punished. A sob caught in her throat. Julian gripped her wrist hard. “Stay away from us.”
Lucinda nodded and turned to shuffle out, her newly acquired purchases banging against her leg. I don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t deserve Theo.
∙•∙
Lucinda wasn’t answering her phone. It could be nothing, but alarm bells were going off in Theo’s mind, and he hadn’t gotten as far as he had as a securities broker by ignoring his instinct. He tried texting—“I need you to check in, brat”—but she didn’t respond. Was this a new game of hers?
He couldn’t concentrate on Camille’s monologue about the things on his plate that needed to be addressed. He was too worried about Lucinda. What the hell was going on?
“You’ll need to excuse me, Camille. Email me the top-line essentials of what I need to handle, and everything else will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m going to do the rest of this from home.”
But of course, he didn’t go home. He fought the temptation to go straight to Lucinda’s apartment, knowing he was too angry to face her.
Instead he beelined for the dojo to blow off some steam first.
His sensei looked up with one brow lifted when he entered.
Theo nodded and headed for the locker room without saying a word. Minutes later he emerged with his hakama on, still tying the belt of his wrap-around jacket. When he made eye contact with his sensei, the man nodded toward a mat on the right side of the room where a tall, slender man stood waiting. Theo had practiced with him before and was grateful someone was available to train with him. The concentration needed to run through the forms of Aikido would help calm Theo and center him.
Sure enough, an hour and a half later, he felt much more relaxed and able to face Lucinda.
He went directly to her apartment and knocked on the door. There was only a dim light from beneath the doorjamb, but he heard muffled noises inside.
His calm disintegrated when she ignored him. So much for hoping the techniques of Aikido would help his evening run smoother.
He pounded harder the second time. “Goddammit, brat, let me the fuck in before I tear down your flimsy-ass door and scare the neighbors.”
Moments later the lock clicked, and he swooped inside. She lay in a heap next to the door, and he immediately dropped to his knees. “What the hell happened?”
“You should go, Theo. I’m not worth it. I can’t be a good girl. I’m horrible, and you deserve so much better than me.”
He gathered her in his arms, but her body was tense. He scooted the door closed and sat with his back to it, curling her into his chest. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened. I’m worthless. I’m no good for you.”
“Stop.” Her breath caught, and he tipped her head up and looked into the saddest fucking eyes he’d ever seen. “Tell me what brought on this bout of self-loathing.”
This was new territory for him. Since the moment he’d met her, she’d been fire and arrogance. He didn’t know what to do with this helpless Lucinda. She shook her head, and new tears formed on her lashes. “I can’t.”
He didn’t know what to do. If he threatened to leave if she didn’t tell him, she’d probably let him and they’d be over. But he clearly wasn’t going to get anywhere asking her questions. Something was very wrong, and he needed to get her to a place where she could tell him. He shifted her off his lap and stood.
“Where are your toys?”
She looked at him with giant tear-filled eyes and shook her head. “You don’t want me like this. I’m not…”
“Stop. I decide what I want. Where are your toys?”
She stood on shaky legs and walked toward her bedroom. She still shook as she opened her dresser, pulling out the bottom drawer. Theo glanced at the collection and almost joked about it, but knew it wasn’t the time. He grabbed a hank of nylon rope and a black scarf.
“Clothes off. Get on the bed.”
“Theo…”
“I told you that you were to call me Master, brat. Now get naked and get on the fucking bed.”
Her eyes flashed at the harshness in his voice, and he knew he was on the right track. She quickly disrobed and got on the bed, opening her body into a perfect X. He wanted to drive into her perfect pussy. Experience the way she milked his cock. But he needed answers first. Without touching any other part of her body, he tied each of her limbs to the posts of her queen-size bed. He pressed the scarf over her eyes and tied it tight.
“Safe word.”
Her breath came in short pants as she said, “Degas.”
“Good. Now do you trust me?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good. Wait for me. Don’t move. Don’t say anything.” He walked into her bathroom and opened the cabinet in search of hydrogen peroxide. He found alcohol and pulled out the Swiss Army knife he always kept in his pocket. He took a deep breath and steadied his hands as he poured the alcohol over the blade. After locating a pile of cotton balls, he returned to the bed with the alcohol to find her panting had increased.
He sat next to her on the bed and held her arm. “I’m going to hurt you now, and you’re going to tell me what happened. I’m not hurting you because you deserve to be hurt, I’m hurting you because you want that. You crave it, and I’m giving it to you because I would fucking give anything to you.”
She choked out a sob as he coated a cotton ball with alcohol and rubbed the inside of her arm. Before she could consider what he had in mind, he slashed the inside of her arm with a shallow thin line from the knife. Tiny balls of blood welled up along the small cut. Her sob turned into a moan. “It’s a knife? Oh God, Theo.”
He stilled. “Do you not want that?”
“I don’t deserve it. I like it too much, and I don’t deserve you giving me something I like. I should suffer.”
He cut a second thin line next to the first, and her hips thrust up. “You deserve everything, love. You’re so incredibly special.”
“I’m not,” she choked out. “I’ve done horrible things.”
He cut another line and then drew his mouth toward her cheeks to lick the tears that had leaked from the blindfold. “Tell me.”
“Julian and Morgan,” she breathed, and he stilled. “I can’t… Oh fuck, it doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t deserve you to think I’m special. I’m not special. I’m horrible. I sabotaged them.”
“What?”
He pressed his palm over the blood on her arm and squeezed. Her hips thrust up again. He’d never known anything like this woman.
“I wanted Julian to be my Dom. I mean, I watched him one night at th
is club. It was a few years ago when he and Morgan were still playing with other people too. He came in and fucked a girl’s ass so hard she bled. When I saw that…”
“You wanted it,” he finished for her. Of course she did. She didn’t even flinch when Theo got too rough with her ass and made her bleed. “Julian is a very punishing Dom.”
Theo had seen Julian in action. The two of them were very much alike, though Julian’s dominance always seemed a little more unleashed. Like it came from a dark place he didn’t want to admit to having. Theo could have gone that way if he hadn’t learned the discipline of Aikido. If he hadn’t had a sensei who showed him how to take his desires and rein them into something powerful and controlled.
“I wanted that,” she whispered. “And I did a horrible thing to try and get it.”
He released his hand on her wounds and moved toward the plane of her stomach, kneeling beside her. With a new cotton ball, he swabbed a large area.
She squirmed. “Oh, God.”
“Stay very still, brat.” Two quick slashes and she moaned. He pressed the fingers of his free hand into her pussy and found her sopping. Jesus. This girl. Her body started to shake. “More. Theo. Please.”
He set the knife across her belly and doused another cotton ball to rub it across her hip. When he grabbed the knife up again, he pressed the tip of it to a spot along her hip. “Tell me the rest.” She was so unbelievably sexy with the small cut on her belly and her body throbbing with need.
“I messed with the financial statements at the Loft. I found a tape of her and Julian doing a scene and sent it to their biggest funder. I implied that they were doing porn on the premises. I wanted to ruin Morgan. I wanted him to walk away from her, and I thought…”
He lifted the knife off her skin, and she cried out. “Oh Jesus, Lucinda. What were you thinking?”
“I know,” she choked out. “It was stupid. It was like I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted him so much. And I wanted him to want me. To do those things to me. But he didn’t. It was her, and I was just this stupid woman who was trying to ruin them.”
He brushed the tears away from her cheek. His broken girl who was so desperate to be loved, to be taken care of. He didn’t know what to do with her. So he did the only thing he could think of. He cut a line along her hip and then set the knife on her bedside table and stabbed two fingers into her pussy over and over until she screamed in orgasm. Before he could say anything, she passed out.
Chapter Twelve
Lucinda woke up in bed alone. Her entire body hurt, but she was no longer tied, and there were soft bandages over the places he’d cut her. When had he done that? Her memory was completely fuzzy after the cut on her hip. She’d been in subspace before, but she usually had a general memory of the events that happened as she was coming down from it. This time? Nothing.
She sat up and stretched. The ache in her limbs was bone deep, but it was nothing in comparison to the pain in her heart. Where was Theo? She rolled her neck and pushed her shoulders back. If he was going to throw her over for what she’d done, she needed some coffee and some clothes. She stood and found a pair of soft yoga pants and a large T-shirt folded at the end of the bed. A quick scan of her bedroom showed the clothes she’d been wearing—including her bra and panties—had been removed from the room. In fact, her room was spotless. It was never this clean. She knew she had left clothes from earlier in the day on the floor. And probably yesterday too. The beige carpet was visible in every corner. She glanced at her furniture. The black lacquered dresser and bedside table that matched the bed had all the drawers pushed in with nothing sticking out. She blew out a breath as she slipped the pants and T-shirt on and went into the bathroom to clean herself up.
The bathroom was tidier than normal also. The counter, which would have been covered with her makeup, was cleared off. Where the hell had he put things? She opened the long drawer under the white laminate surface and had her answer. Geez.
Emerging from the bathroom, she found Theo leaning against the doorjamb with nothing but a low-slung pair of jeans on and a cup of coffee in his hand. She couldn’t decide which she wanted to devour more, his massive chest or the delicious smelling dark roast.
Coffee.
“Is that for me?”
He nodded and held the cup out. She approached nervously. He was quiet, and she wasn’t sure quite what to say. She took a deep gulp of the coffee and let her achy muscles relax.
Still uncertain, she blurted out, “Where did you sleep?”
A smile lit up his face, and warmth seeped into her body. “There’s my brat. I knew she’d show up eventually. Welcome back, sweetheart.”
Lucinda flushed. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t ask nicely.”
She stared at his impassive expression, but he didn’t offer any signs. Nerves and shame overwhelmed her again. “Is it because you don’t think I’m good enough for you to sleep with?”
He tipped her chin up and stroked her lips with his thumb. “No, sweetheart. You’re good enough. My presence is a reward for you. You earned it last night with your honesty, but I was too worried about waking you after you passed out. I didn’t want you to wake disoriented. I slept on your couch. It’s not very comfortable, by the way.”
“Really?” Hope fluttered through her stomach, a tiny wisp like a feather in the wind.
“Yes. Really. I want to talk about Julian and Morgan some more.”
And just like that, the hope died. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can. My fearless girl who comes as I’m cutting her. You can do anything. And you need to deal with that if we’re going to have any kind of future together.”
Hope flared again. “You think we have a future together?”
“What I think is irrelevant. It’s what you do that matters.” He pulled her into the room and sat her next to him on the bed. “I’m wondering about you, Lucy.”
That name again. She smiled and dipped her head. She liked it from him. A lot. “What are you wondering?”
“I’m wondering if what you do, how much you crave, is because of some misguided notion that you need to be punished.”
She blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”
He took the coffee cup from her and set it on the side table, clasping both her hands in his. “I’m wondering if we work through this, if you start to believe that you don’t deserve punishment, then maybe you’ll stop wanting it. Stop wanting the pain. I’ll always be honest with you, Lucy. I can help you with this. But in the end, you might not want what I can give you anymore.”
She shook her head. “I don’t… I mean, no one has ever done that for me. What you did for me last night. What you’ve been doing for me from the start. I want it.”
He squeezed her hands harder. “I know you do. You want it now. But when we’re done. When you let go completely and understand how valuable you are, you may also realize that you don’t need the pain. It may become too much.”
She couldn’t wrap her head around what he was saying. She’d always wanted it. She couldn’t imagine her life without the pleasure of pain. Even as a kid, she’d worn rubber bands around her wrist and snapped them throughout the day just to feel the bite of pain.
“It won’t be. I’ll take whatever you give me. I promise, Master.”
∙•∙
She didn’t understand, of course. She didn’t understand that she’d been carrying a desire for pain around a long time because she thought she’d earned it. Punishing herself for not being a good enough daughter. And now punishing herself for what she’d done to Julian and Morgan. It was all wrapped together in an intricate tangle of knots, and Theo knew he was capable of untying her, but he also didn’t know what he’d find on the other side.
Masochists frequently craved pain because of the crippling self-doubt and unworthiness they felt. But Theo couldn’t be sure if giving her back true confidence would lead her to a place where she wasn’t the right submissive
for him anymore. If his brand of dominance would start to frighten her.
“Let me take a look at your cuts,” he said, drawing her from the bed into the bathroom.
She let herself be led, and he wondered if she was still working through his words. He removed the T-shirt and pants, but stopped himself from touching her, though she was nearly impossible to resist with all his marks on her gorgeous skin. He peeled the tape on her arm bandage back and smoothed more Neosporin over the cuts. He hadn’t gone deep, but still he didn’t want to risk infection.
“I don’t think Julian and Morgan will ever forgive me,” she said in a near-whisper.
He shrugged. “Maybe not. They seem to be doing fine.”
“Not because of me, though.”
He studied her face. “You’re right. It was a reckless thing to do. But we’re done with that now. You’ve paid for it. I cut it out of you. Do you understand?”
She nodded, eyes slightly glazed. “Yes, Master.”
“Good.” He would talk to Julian. Get his take on what had happened. Lucinda was wrong and clearly felt awful for it. But it’s not like Theo hadn’t done his share of stupid stuff when he was a teenager, before he met his sensei and started going to the dojo.
“I need to go to work soon. I told Camille I’d be in late, but I need to take care of a few things. Are you working?”
She shook her head. “No classes today.”
“I’d like to give you a series of tasks to do today. Would you agree to that?”
“Yes, Master,” she said. He ripped the tape on her hip off, and she shivered, her nipples pebbling. He reached his hand up and pinched her right nipple as he slathered more ointment on the cut at her hip. She released a breathy sigh, and he tugged and pinched harder. Her legs shifted open and he chuckled.
“I don’t have time to address your needy cunt this morning, brat. But I promise when I return, I’ll give you what you need. Can you wait?”
“You’re asking me?”
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