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‘If it makes you feel any better, Lily, I’m fighting even harder than you.’
‘Liar,’ I whispered.
‘Liar? I want that wet cunt so much right now it hurts. While I may be owning you at the moment? Ultimately, you have imprisoned me. And I love – I mean, I like that about you. At the same time, I hate it about you. Why won’t you ever tell me to stop? I will keep pushing. You’ll reach your limit, some time. And you will break harder than you could imagine. And I will watch it happen, and hate myself, and …’ He halted.
I remained frozen, my eyes watering.
‘Why?’ I whispered.
‘You know the answer by now, Lily.’
‘My answer scares me.’
‘So breathe slowly, Lily Dewitt. Deep breaths. I’m going to walk you to the barre, and you’re going to hang on to it until I allow you to let go. Then, with your permission, I’m going to hold you captive here, and have my way with you as we both intended. Isn’t that what you wish?’
No idea.
But yes, I wished for nothing more. At the time.
‘Permission granted, Mr Holder.’
‘I beg you to make me wait, Mr Holder,’ he corrected me. ‘Ms Dewitt, please remind me what you want, the way you know I want to hear it.’
‘I beg you to make me wait,’ I repeated, entranced.
‘When you come back to fuck me, Mr Holder, I will be crying because I want your cock so badly.’ Dorian pulled his hand away and smacked me hard on the ass. ‘Is that what you mean to say?’
‘When you come back and fuck me, sir, I’ll cry how bad I want that cock shoved deep in my pussy,’ I babbled, since the renewed aching in my clit, and the wetness already beginning to trickle down my thighs, made his words sound so very far away.
‘Close enough. Lovely, in fact. I’m going to go shower up and start jerking off, picturing you out here, writhing and squirming. Maybe I’ll go ahead and come myself, leaving you alone to suffer as long as I like. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll come back and ravish you like you deserve.’ He tugged my hair. ‘Do you hear me, do you understand, and is this what you want?’
‘Understood.’ I coughed as he yanked my hair harder. ‘I hear.’
‘And?’ He bit my earlobe, hard enough that I yelped.
‘I want.’ I winced. ‘Yes, please, Mr Holder.’
When he pinched my nipples again, I yelped, my head turned, and my reverie was broken further. Because it was then that I saw the shattered panel. One of the mirrors was smashed, shattered, spread, resembling a giant spiderweb.
Dorian followed my gaze, and frowned. ‘Oh, that.’
Breaking all the unspoken rules, I pulled away, ran my fingers through my hair and watched the reflection of his face, a tragic mosaic of a broken man.
‘What happened, Dorian?’
He shoved me away, walked over to the mirror and looked at the silvery shattered glass in disgust. ‘I got angry the other night.’
‘At me? When I sent you away?’ Goosebumps cropped up on my arms. If he did this to the wall when he was having a rough night, what would he have done to me if I had been there?
‘There was far more to it than that. No, Lily. It wasn’t you at all.’ He looked askance. ‘Sometimes … I just have a very bad temper.’
When I was silent, he prompted, ‘Go ahead, say something.’
‘And so then you take it out on me? When we fuck.’ My voice was flat.
‘God, no, Lily. You are where I find my peace of mind, my centre. My version of normal. And I hope you find that in me, because if not …’ He reached forward toward his fragmented image, then drew his hand back. ‘I take it out on myself, Lily. Then my business minions, then my sycophants, and then the rest of as much of the world as I can fucking touch, my stupid—’
‘I understand,’ I said. Interrupting him was not my M.O., but it seemed like the kind thing to do. Plus, I wasn’t ready to hear anything more. If Dorian showed me further vulnerability, any weakness? Whatever we were could come to an end, since feeling in control and powerful was, I believed, the glue holding us together. I couldn’t risk that happening. I wouldn’t let it.
Not yet.
‘So just fucking run, Lily.’ He looked at me, and I prayed that my poker-face was on. But I never played poker, not once in my life.
‘Dorian—’
‘Go downstairs, Lily, to your little apartment, and play house. Go dance around like it means something. Go – just go.’ He was shaking. ‘And if you ever want to see me again, you’ll leave. Now.’
I want to see you cry. I want to see you beg. His words from the other night echoed in my ears, and I began to understand. For a moment, I considered doing what my master told me, but no. Because, right now, he was no longer my master. He was just a man, a damaged, beautiful man; surrounded by everything, owning anything, but left with nothing.
Except for me, Lily Dewitt.
For now, I could be his Goddess, and I would call the shots. While I honoured Dorian’s pain, while the sweeter part of me ached to comfort him, he had given me the same heartbreak, and I knew damn well he would do it again. And again, and again. Once he mentioned that he was open to losing control, and letting himself be dominated.
Maybe I should have obeyed orders and run. Perhaps I could have been kinder to Dorian, when he needed me to either be his lover or leave. If I had chosen to follow my heart, I’d have run to him, embraced him, kissed him, told him Mr Holder, go to bed. Let’s just lie down and hurt together.
Which, in my unexpected five seconds of clarity, I did not.
Instead, I walked over to him, reached up and stroked his cheek. He started, surprised at my audacity. Cupping his chin, I turned his head so he was forced to look into my eyes.
‘Make me,’ I said.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_ec86ced7-0502-55b0-965c-3758de8a4c46)
The Weighting Game (#ulink_ec86ced7-0502-55b0-965c-3758de8a4c46)
‘As you wish.’ He turned from the sparkling mosaic of himself, reached into a large velvet bag on the floor, pulled out my handcuffs from the other night, two bungee cords and two carabiners. The bag still bulged with mysterious items, but I knew better than to ask what was inside.
‘Where’d you get all this stuff?’
‘More samples from those companies who heard about troubles at poor Apollyon. And other assorted items, which I may or may not share with you. How do you feel, Lily?’ He wandered around the room, the machinery, the dangling ropes, metal tubes, weights, kicked at an exercise ball, and laughed mirthlessly. ‘Name your poison.’
‘I can’t quite—’
‘You liked the climbing wall, didn’t you, you dirty little thing. Oh, that yoga swing? Pushing the antigravity effect, perfect, while the prices are still up and people are buying. Your idea, and a good one. Expect to be fucked fifty different ways, forwards, backwards, sideways, and upside-down. You’ll be mine.’ He grabbed a fistful of the red swing’s cloth, and spun it. ‘Are you in?’
‘Yes, Mr Holder.’
‘Lovely.’ Dorian strode closer to the mirror, while I continued to squeeze the bar, and he gripped my bicep. ‘Does this hurt?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. You see that scared, hurting girl? Does she want her man to remind her who owns this space?’
I stared at my worried face, nodding, but ‘Does she want her man’ echoed in my head. Her man? Had to be a slip-up. He must’ve meant, ‘Does she want her master . . .’
‘Good.’ Without further ado, Dorian shackled me to the bar. ‘Kneel, bitch.’
Master it was.
I dropped to my knees, while Dorian grasped two fifty-pound dumbbells as though they weighed nothing. With a few deft moves he placed them on the floor and strapped them to my ankles, using the bungee cords as bindings, and the metal carabiners to keep me from escaping.
Like I would have tried.
‘Can you move, Lily?’
I shook my head.
‘Didn’t hear that. Can you move, Lily?’
‘No, Mr Holder.’
‘Perfect.’ Dorian Holder stepped back, taking in the vision of me, weighted and frozen in place. ‘Stay. Don’t move a muscle.’
‘I can’t. I mean, I won’t.’
‘Excellent. Promise to wait.’
‘Do I have a choice, Mr Holder?’
‘No,’ he replied, and stepped back, admiring the spectacle he created. ‘At this point in our relationship, Lily, I’d say you have no choice about anything whatsoever. But if it makes you feel any better, neither do I.’
I was silent.
Dorian let out a breath. ‘Here’s another moment where you can say “Mercy”, if that’s what you need to do.’
‘Here’s another moment where I don’t say anything, Mr Holder.’ My voice sounded far away. ‘This is another moment where I do as my Master says, and thank him when he’s through with me.’
There was a pause.
‘That is exactly what Mr Holder likes to hear.’ Our eyes met in the mirror again, and he raised his left brow.
‘Aiming to please you always, Mr Holder.’ Though I meant for sarcasm to enter my tone, there was none. I did want to please him.
And to please myself.
And it seemed that both things were possible, and that we should at least try. And yet something was dreadfully wrong here, wronger than the wrongness of the whole situation to which we had committed, though neither of us understood this at the time.
We thought all along that we had been talking things through. It always goes that way, I guess.
Come to find out we were both wrong.
And right, in some ways. Perfect moments were just that.
Perfect.
Moments.
So when Dorian turned to leave the room, I cried out, ‘Are you really leaving me here?’
‘Oh, Lily.’ He stopped in his tracks, and looked over his shoulder, stone-faced yet again. ‘You should know by now that our games have only just begun.’
So I closed my eyes and began my yoga breathing. I wriggled my wrists and tried to move my ankles, but Dorian had effectively immobilised me. My only choice was complete surrender. If I wanted, I could yell ‘Mercy’ at the top of my lungs, and my Master would have to come running to my aid, according to our agreement. But I’ve never been one to give up easily. And I was beyond curious to see just how he would take me this time. So there I was, on my knees, shackled and bound.
But what if he didn’t come running? I wondered. Should I test him? What if he couldn’t hear me shouting over the sounds of the shower? What if he never came back? Suppose he left me here and did not return?
I did not know Dorian Holder after all. We had had a turbulent, erotic week of mind games, sex games and thrilling power struggles. Did I ever come out on top? Other than that time in the hot tub, I mean. Even then, he shaved me, regained control.
Or so you think. Glancing over at the shattered mirror panel, I wondered just how much in control of himself he was. Was his domination of me truly a land of escape, of make-believe, of bonding over binding? Or was he deep-down dangerous?
You’re the one in control, Lily. You’re stronger than you think. You can stop at any time.
But wasn’t that the mantra of an addict?
Empty your mind, I reminded myself. Or go back to a memory, lose yourself in history, recall how and why there’s nothing more exciting than this journey I had taken many times before with lesser men.
But now my heart had gone and gotten involved with Dorian as well. What about him? Beyond his not-so-humble request to have me as his ready, willing servant, after he went back to his everyday life of … whatever his real life was.
Face it, Lily. You don’t even know him. How can you love what you don’t know?
I thought about God, in Whom I still believed, despite utter lack of evidence. Just because we can’t see something, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Dorian had a heart, and somewhere along his own journey it had been broken. By whom? By what?
The silvery slivers of glass on the floor by the cracked mirror caught my eye. Glittered like diamonds in the rough.
Then there was music. ‘Playground Love’.
Try not to overthink it, Lily. It’s just Air.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_fceb9b77-c70b-5d4e-81bd-bea4e766a10f)
The Iron Horse (#ulink_fceb9b77-c70b-5d4e-81bd-bea4e766a10f)
A loud slam of the door broke my reverie. Dorian had returned sooner than I’d expected. He wore the same loose, black drawstring trousers he’d had on the other night at the hotel, and I wish to God it hadn’t occurred to me that they were total sexy yogi-ninja-man-pants, because it’s hard to take your Master seriously when you wonder if he secretly has a collection of nunchucks or ninja stars stashed somewhere.
‘Something funny?’ His voice was cold. ‘Wipe that smirk off your face, or I’ll wipe it off for you.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Very good.’ He crouched down, reached into the bag and pulled out a flogger.
