She’d recognized early that she had a dark side but had never considered that she could go as far as Savage was taking her. She also knew it wasn’t nearly as far as they needed to go, and she was scared. She was afraid of herself, and she was afraid of him. She had reason to be. She had been slowly building up to this moment, terrified of what was inside her, trying to work it out but unable to reconcile who she thought she should be with who she was becoming.
Tears ran down her face, but she tried to be very quiet, to keep the fact that she was crying from him. He carried her straight through the house to their bed, and instead of putting her down, he sank onto the bed, holding her in his lap.
“Look at me, baby.”
She shook her head. “I can’t, Savage. Not yet.”
“We’re in this together, remember?” He kissed her neck and then the shell of her ear. “We can do this if we’re together. We can figure anything out. You never put judgment on me. I don’t put it on you. Look at me, Seychelle. Please.”
A little of the tension eased out of her body, and one of her hands, the one in her lap, curled over his biceps. Her fingers shook a little, but at least she reached out to him. Her head turned, and he was looking into her liquid eyes.
“You’re so fuckin’ brave, woman. I know this scares you, baby, and yet you still hang in there with me.” He brushed several gentle kisses on her lips. Asking nothing from her. Giving comfort. Needing her to relax into him. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I mean every single word I say to you. I love you with everything in me. Just as you are. Exactly as you are. I’m taking you down this path, baby, but you don’t have to go any further. We’re good right here. Or we can back the hell up to where you’re more comfortable. I’ll be fine with that.”
She frowned and shook her head. “Savage.” A little protest. Weak. Resisting him but not really.
He had no idea what he was going to do when the bad times came, but he wasn’t going to have his woman ashamed or hating herself. He knew what that was like. He loved her and wanted her happy. Being confused was one thing, ashamed was something altogether different.
“I’m a fuckin’ sexual sadist, baby. That’s what I am. I’m always going to be that, so I’m always going to look for the next level. A little pain turns you on, and that’s a good thing for us, but this is my thing, not yours. We both know that.”
He brushed his lips over hers several times more and then took the tears from her face, his belly in knots. He wanted her tears, but not from shame. Not from humiliation. Not unless she wanted that kind of thrill, which Seychelle wasn’t into, and quite frankly it didn’t do a damn thing for him, but he’d give her whatever the hell she wanted if it brought her pleasure.
“I think pain is my thing, Savage, and it scares me. It really does. I don’t understand it at all. How could I like it? It hurt like hell at first. It was pure agony. Excruciating. I wanted to stay still so I could do it for you. I really love taking the pain for you. Seeing you get excited. It makes me feel …” She broke off. “But then suddenly something else happened. I suddenly was so turned on it was sick.”
“Babe, I was manipulating you. Using my voice, my hands. That’s what I do. I’m training you to like what I do to you, to confuse your body so you associate pain and pleasure together. You reacted exactly the way you were supposed to react.”
She nestled into him. “I was already slick and feeling desperate for you.”
She made the confession in a low voice, but she didn’t look away from him. That was good. Her trust in him was back. He held her close to him, brushing soothing kisses along her cheek and shoulder.
“Because you were taking the cane for me. You could see how hard you made me, Seychelle. I made certain you knew you were pleasing me. You need to please me. That’s part of your personality. A good part of it. Don’t you think I know that? That I take advantage of that when I’m training you?”
“I wanted you to cane me. With each strike the craving got worse and I became even more frantic for you to fuck me. I thought I might die if you didn’t. But it doesn’t make sense when there was so much pain involved.”