His Battered Submissive (Restrained Fantasies Book 3)

by Brandi Evans

  He carried her to bed, got the meds down her, and, heaven help him, managed to get her into her nightgown without devolving into a primitive caveman.

  As soon as he got her situated under the covers, he patted the spot beside her. "Come on, Sarge. You know you want up here as much as she wants you here."

  Sarge jumped onto the mattress, did his obligatory turn, and then settled beside Kat, his head coming to rest on her thigh.

  Maddox sat beside her and rubbed flyaway hairs from her forehead. She was so pale and so quiet. She looked sick, which she technically was, but her sickness wasn't physical. Her soul was sick.

  "This was not how I imagined you'd take me to bed tonight," she murmured.

  "That makes two of us."

  "I'm sorry I'm such a—"

  "Shh." He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then her lips. "I like you just fine the way you are, Katlyn Matthews, so don't go changing on my account."

  Her lips tilted up, but her eyes closed. "Kiss me again."

  He did.

  "Will you stay with me until I'm asleep?" she asked.

  "Of course."

  He remained at her side long after her breathing turned rhythmic and he was sure sleep had claimed her. Even then, he didn't leave. He loved her and would protect her at all costs. He would crawl through the fires of hell to keep her safe, but there was one place where he couldn't protect her, one place he feared she'd need protection from tonight.

  Her dreams.

  Katlyn shivered, chained to the mattress like a dog, trapped in the room in Montana. Jeff's latest beating had left her in unbearable pain. She didn't want to cry; the sobs made her sound like something subhuman, which was precisely how Jeff saw her.

  "Please," she begged into the darkness. "Please help me."

  "I'm looking for you, Kat. Just hold tight, okay. I'm coming to get you."

  "Maddox?" Kat lifted her head, but darkness saturated the room. "Where are you? I can't see anything."

  "Close. I'm coming for you."

  "Not that it will matter," Jeff interrupted. "I'll just find her again and take her back. I always do."

  She curled deeper into a ball and covered her head with her chained arms. "Go away and leave me alone."

  "Never!" said Jeff. "You belong to me."

  "No. I'm with Maddox. He saved me." She curled tighter into the fetal position. "Maddox, where are you?"

  "I'm right here, Kat," Maddox answered.

  "Take me away again, please. I want to be back in your apartment with you and Sarge."

  "Then come to me," said Maddox.

  "How?" She held her arms up in the darkness. "I'm chained."

  "All you have to do is think of me, Kat. Think of me fondly and come to me."

  "How?"

  But he didn't answer.

  "Maddox?"

  "He left you." Jeff's laugh was as maniacal as he. "It's just us now, bitch."

  "No."

  She covered her ears to block Jeff out, but how did she block a voice in her head?

  Maddox's words came back to her. All you have to do is think of me, Kat. Think of me fondly and come to me.

  She repeated Maddox's name, picturing his face with every repetition, and an image formed in her mind's eye. But it wasn't of Maddox. It was of him.

  "There you are, kitten. I've been waiting for you."

  She opened her eyes and found herself standing in Maddox's apartment. The dinner she'd made was still uneaten on the table, everything how it was the moment before they'd kissed the first time—only it wasn't Maddox standing before her; it was her first Dom. He looked exactly as he had the night they'd met: white Phantom of the Opera mask, black leather pants, black cape, naked torso.

  The same jolt of lust threatened to bring Katlyn to her knees. He still had the body of a gangly, just-barely-twenty-something, but god, she wanted to lick every ridge of his abs.

  Again.

  She touched the cheek not covered by the mask. "What are you doing here? I'm trying to find Maddox."

  "Oh, kitten, you have found me."

  "Stop it." Laughing, she pushed close and stole a quick kiss. "Mmm, I wish I could stay here with you, but I have to find Maddox. Or, no, he's trying to find me. I can't remember. Jeff did something bad. I'm having trouble remembering."

  She closed her eyes and focused on the words. All you have to do is think of me, Kat, Maddox had said, but even as the words formed, they transformed to music—a song from Phantom of the Opera.

  The vocalist asks her young lover to think of her fondly when they'd parted ways, that there would never be a day she wouldn't remember him, just as Katlyn had never forgotten her first Dom.

  She opened her eyes as her first Dom shimmered into Maddox—and for Jeff to appear behind him and slice a knife across Maddox's throat.

  Chapter 12

  Maddox shot fully awake with an elbow to the gut and another to the face. His eyes watered. For being so tiny, Kat could hit, which simultaneously impressed and terrified him. If she was fighting with this much ferocity, the monsters in her nightmare, literal or figurative, must be formidable.

  "Kat!"

  He leaped from the mattress and studied her. Tears streamed over a face contorted in panic. She thrashed madly, kicked. She swung out with both arms.

  "Kat, sweetheart, wake up. It's a nightmare. Wake up."

  Beside the bed, Sarge barked frantically, he, too, trying to help.

  "Kat!"

  "Maddox!" She shrieked his name, but she wasn't awake, the fear still too potent on her face. If he couldn't break her free with his words, he'd have to fight fire with fire.

  He took two seconds to determine his best course of action and then pounced on her. He cursed when her knee connected with his thigh—he would feel that later—but he didn't roll away. The physical pain would recede quickly enough, but he couldn't stand another second of her terrified screams.

  He burrowed his face into her chest, protecting his head, as he simultaneously locked his legs over hers and reached out to find her arms. When he found her elbows, he pressed himself up and levered himself over her so that they were cheek to cheek.

  "Kat, baby, it's okay," he said, using his cheek to press her head down, effectively immobilizing her. "Kat, wake up." Slowly, methodically, he inched his hands up her arms until he could lace their fingers. "Come back to me, baby. Come back."

  He wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually, her thrashing stopped, and she went lax. He wanted to release her hands, but he also didn't want to get kicked again. He did, however, chance bodily harm and lifted his head to look at her. Her eyes remained closed, but her face had softened. A fatigued fear had replaced absolute terror.

  "Kat?"

  "He killed you again," she said softly. "He slit your throat right in front of me, and then, he turned his knife on me. He stabbed me over and over and over. I can still feel his knife plunging into me. It hurt so badly. I still hurt."

  "It was just a dream, baby," he murmured. "Just a dream."

  "I know that, but it was also real. He was killing me. I feel dead."

  "No. No." And because he could, he pressed his lips to her forehead, her temple, her cheek, and then finally, her lips. "You're still very much alive, sweetheart. You're so very alive. Let me show you just how much…"

  Her eyelids fluttered open, the usual blue-green hues dark and tempestuous. She gripped his hands tightly. Oh, she knew exactly how he meant to show her.

  "Yes," she whispered finally. "Please, show me."

  He cupped her face between both his hands and kissed her again. This time, the kiss wasn't quick or chaste. He poured every ounce of himself into her, everything he felt for her, everything he wanted to give her, everything he wanted from her.

  She brought her arms around his middle and pressed her palms up his back until they came to rest at his shoulder blades. She pulled him harder, more firmly against her, but when she tried to wrap her legs around him, she cursed under her breath.
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br />   "Blankets." She said the word against his lips. "I want to feel you against me, skin to skin."

  She would get no argument from him.

  He pushed back, ripped the blankets back, and went instantly, painfully hard. The strap of her nightgown had fallen from one shoulder and caught at her elbow, showing off the upper curve of one breast. The gown's hem pooled in blue wrinkles around her waist.

  "You are so beautiful." He hadn't planned to say it, but he didn't regret it. She was beautiful, and given everything she'd been through, he vowed then and there to tell her—and often.

  "No, I'm not, but when you look at me like that, I feel beautiful. And wanted and desired. I haven't felt any of those things in a long, long time."

  Coming onto all fours, he positioned himself over her. "You are all those things, Kat."

  She reached a hand toward him and cupped his cheek with fingers no longer cold. "You're all those things to me, too."

  Needing no more words, he sat back on his haunches and ripped his T-shirt over his head. Then, his gaze never leaving hers, he dragged her nightgown over her head so that she lay before him in nothing but her panties.

  "So beautiful," he repeated.

  With both arms crooked at the elbow above her head, she had the distinct look of a sub with her arms bound. Beautiful was an understatement.

  When she started to move, he placed his fingertips gently on her biceps. He didn't force her to hold the position, only encouraged. "Don't. I want to just look at you a moment."

  She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and did precisely as instructed. No more fear played over her features. Only desire. Seeing her like this, he could too easily picture her bound open to him in the intricate rope-work he preferred.

  Rope bondage wasn't a skill for the impatient Dom. He'd always found the act therapeutic as well as arousing. The act of wrap, wrap, wrapping his subs calmed him after a hard day at work and helped him leave his cop half behind so his inner Dom could come out and play. Kat would, no doubt, look spectacular in ropes. As he trailed his fingers along her collarbones, he wondered if the act would be as soothing to her. One day, he hoped to find out.

  "I'm going to make you come." It wasn't a question, but he hesitated nonetheless, giving her another chance to say no, just in case.

  "I liked the last orgasm you gave me." She still hadn't moved her arms. Even without knowing it or meaning to, she was such a good little sub.

  "I could tell." He teased his fingertips through the valley between her breasts before climbing the peaks and pinching both nipples between thumb and forefinger.

  She gasped. Something that sounded an awful lot like Sir escaped her lips, but that was his imagination, an auditory trick born out of his desire for it to be true.

  Keeping his eyes on hers until the last possible second, he lowered his head and captured one of her nipples between his teeth. Nipping the bud and then soothing the sting with his tongue, he tormented her until she was squirming beneath him.

  "God…" She bowed up to create more contact. "Please. I want you inside me."

  "Soon."

  He switched to her other nipple and repeated the process before setting off on a trek south. He drew hot, open-mouth kisses over her ribcage before detouring to swirl his tongue into her bellybutton.

  She said his name on a gasp, and it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.

  He nipped his way along her hip bone, to the crease where torso met leg. Her breath jumped from between parted lips, each growing faster, shallower than the last, but she seemed to stop breathing altogether when he gripped her inner thighs and pressed her legs wide for him.

  He took a long breath, drawing in her musky, feminine scent and holding it in his lungs.

  God.

  When he couldn't deny either of them a second longer, he dipped his tongue between her labia and feasted.

  Katlyn came the moment his tongue slid over her clit.

  She dug her fingers into the pillow and arched her back as the climax took her. Sir's mouth was magical, but dear god, when he pressed his fingers into her sex, she fucking came apart. She was soaring, flying, her lungs unable to process oxygen. The world blurred, everything beyond their bubble of bliss ceasing to exist. The only thing that would have made the moment more perfect was if he were inside her.

  She drew her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from calling him Sir again. This wasn't the time for conversation. Clearer heads were needed, and there was nothing clear right now except the need to take him into her.

  "Inside me." She'd barely managed the two words when he shot from the bed like a cannonball from a muzzle.

  What the hell?

  She lifted her head. She'd just brought the room into focus when he stepped from the bathroom—tall, lean, and gloriously naked—rolling a condom onto his thick cock. Anticipation made her tremble.

  He fell back into bed and rolled her atop him. "Ride me," he ordered.

  Yes, Sir. The words jumped to the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back. Clearer heads, she reminded herself.

  She didn't keep either of them waiting; they'd both waited long enough. She climbed on top of him, reached between their bodies and took hold of his erection. When she ran his tip through her folds, he went taut. His fingers dug into her hips, but he made no move to thrust up. If he wanted this as much as she did and if he were the Dom Carrie had described, then why was he holding back?

  The answer came with a clarity that made her fall just that much more in love. Like before their kiss, he was letting her make the first move, waiting on absolute consent.

  She sat back slowly, taking him inside her. She reveled in the feel of his cock as he stretched her, enjoyed the way she had to soften to accommodate his girth, his length, as he filled her to near bursting, physically but, mostly, emotionally.

  When his cock was fully sheathed inside her, she released a long sigh. She took his hands from where they were digging into her waist and brought them to her breasts. Then, with her hands covering his where he held her, she rode him.

  Too wild for finesse, she ground against him with the wild abandon she'd only ever felt with one other Dom, but she didn't want to think about her first Dom now, not with Maddox beneath her. She wanted desperately to please him as he'd pleased her, to find pleasure with him even as she gave pleasure. Not out of a sense of debt for what he'd done for her, but out of love.

  Her second orgasm unfurled slowly, a long, lazy burn that urged her to rock her hips faster, harder. She was suspended in the milliseconds before pleasure, in the raw, beautiful moment they'd created together.

  Without warning, he thrust his hips up hard, and suddenly, she was on her back. He drove into her sex without mercy, the thrusting of a man succumbing to his own need. She'd done this to him, she realized, as the exquisite ferocity of their lovemaking shot her back into the stratosphere.

  He called out her name as he joined her in orgasm. His body a comforting weight on top of hers, they lay locked together for a long time after. She wasn't in a hurry to let the moment drift into the past. She wanted to hold onto this feeling and to him forever.

  He turned his head and nipped at her ear. "Mmm, I love the way your body responds to me."

  She giggled like a schoolgirl and wrapped her entire body around him. "Well, that makes two of us, Sir."

  The muscles beneath her hands went rigid, and she realized a moment too late what she'd done. She'd called him Sir again. Damn it, damn it, damn it. This wasn't how she'd planned to talk to him about this, but as timing went, it was better than five minutes ago.

  He pulled back and stared at her. She couldn't read every nuance of his expression, but shock and disbelief were front and center. And just maybe, hope had snuck in, too.

  "You called me Sir." His voice was tight, hesitant, as if one part of his mind refused to believe what the other part accepted.

  She touched his cheek. "Yes, I did."

  His eyes widened and then narrowed. "Yo
u called me Sir," he repeated.

  "I'm a sub, Maddox," she said softly. "This wasn't how I'd planned to tell you, but I'm glad you know. It saves me from having to figure out a way to tell you."

  "The candles last night, the romantic dinner, dressing up… you were going to tell me you were, were, were—fuck, I can't get my mind around this."

  He rocketed to his feet, scrubbed his hands over his face, and paced the room. He was gorgeous in the early morning light, all lean and naked, so she did the only thing she could do. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and watched him.

  Sarge jumped up from his bed by the window and padded along beside Maddox.

  "I was a sub before I met Jeff if you're worried about that, so I know the difference between abuse and consensual power exchange."

  He stilled and turned to look at her. "Before?"

  She nodded. "Once upon a time, I loved the freedom of submission. I can't exactly tell you when consensual changed to abuse with Jeff—the line's so blurred in my memories—but I can still remember with absolute clarity what it's supposed to be like between a Dom and a sub. And I'd like to experience it again."

  When he didn't speak, she pushed to her feet and went to him. She pressed her naked body to his even as she pressed a hand to his cheek.

  "I want to remember what it's like between a good Dom and a submissive, Maddox, and I want to remember it with you."

  "Kat…" He kissed their foreheads together and wrapped her close. "It's not that I don't want that with you because I do. You have no clue how much, but if I hurt you, if I pushed you too far, I'd never be able to forgive myself."

  "I know that, which is why I know you'll never hurt me. I trust you, Maddox. I'm safe with you in ways I've never been."

  He shook his head, desire blooming and darkening his eyes. "I'm not sure…"

  Oh, but he was sure. He was just fighting himself. She knew this because he was tightening his arms around her, drawing her closer.

  "You saved my physical life, Maddox, and now, I'm asking you to help me save my sexual life." She drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. "Please, Sir, will you be my Dom?"