Dare to Submit (NY Dares 2)

“You’re right. I know it in here.” She tapped her head. “It’s harder to feel it in here.” She placed her palm over her heart.

He covered it with his own. “The only one you have to please is yourself.” He paused. “And me.”

“Yeah, trust the dom in you to say that.” Despite everything, she grinned.

“Enough stalling,” he said in his best dom voice.

She drew a deep breath. “Do you really want the whole pathetic story?”

He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “I really do.”

“Fine, but remember, you asked.”

Just like she’d asked her grandmother why her mom was so mean. Amanda remembered her childhood clearly. Back then, she’d been thirteen, and her grandma had tried to play off her daughter’s behavior.

“I was eighteen when I heard the story from my grandmother.” God, this was embarrassing. She was wrung out and just wanted it over with. “I’d had my first … sexual experience with a guy. It was over before it started, if you know what I mean. He wasn’t even in me when he came. He blamed me. He said once he saw me naked, he just wanted it over with.” She pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks.

“What an asshole,” Decklan said, his hands all over her as she spoke. He slid one palm over her hair, another down her arm, always touching her, reassuring her, telling her without words that he wanted her.

“Yeah. Well, I can look back now and see he was probably mortified and needed to lash out. But then?” She shook her head, hating that particular memory along with so many others. “Anyway, when I got home, my mother wanted to know why I was crying. The story came out even though I knew better than to tell her. And of course, she agreed with him and started in again on all that was wrong with me.”

Beneath her, Decklan stiffened. She appreciated his anger on her behalf, but she just wanted to get through the telling. And move on.

“My grandmother was staying over at the time, and when Mom went to bed, she told me how wrong Mom was—and why she was so superficial and bitter.”

He waited patiently and she went on.

“When my mother was in middle school, my grandfather lost his job and Grandma began cleaning homes for wealthier families. My mother went to school with some of those kids. After a while, she had to wear hand-me-down clothes, and the kids at school made fun of her for it. She was angry, hurt, and turned it on the world. She blamed her parents, treated them horribly, and was determined to do better.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for her,” he muttered.

She grinned at that. “My mother got a scholarship to college, but she had to work part time too. But she was determined to marry well and, as Scarlett O’Hara would have said, never wear hand-me-downs or be hungry again. Unfortunately for her, when the guy she set her sights on brought her home, his family didn’t accept her. They had plans for their son, and he was going to marry within his own social class.”

“Ouch. Although, I’m thinking considering she didn’t learn from how she was treated, she got what she deserved.”

Amanda nodded. “She never did meet her wealthy prince. She married my dad, a nice guy from back home, who sold insurance. But she was bitter. And she couldn’t see the good in life or the fact that her husband provided well. He put a roof over her head and clothes on her back.”

“But not designer duds,” Decklan said.

Amanda shook her head. “Nope. Not until she began to max out his credit cards. And when she had a daughter, she transferred all those unfulfilled expectations to me.”

“Ahh, baby, I’m sorry. You got a raw deal with her.”

“There’s more.” She rested her head on his chest for a moment, gathering her courage to reveal the rest. “Umm … when I was younger, I was bulimic.”

His arms squeezed her tighter, telling her without words he was listening. He was here. And it helped that she didn’t have to see his face as she revealed her deepest personal secrets.

“It started so simply I didn’t realize what was happening. My mother kept pushing me. Nothing I did was good enough. I needed better grades, better friends, I needed to lose weight, eat right. So when I was around her, I did as she asked. And then at night, I’d sneak food I bought at school because there wasn’t any junk in the house. When my friends and I started to drive, it got even easier to buy and eat away from home or sneak the food into my room. I’d binge at night and throw the garbage away at school the next day. No one at home knew. Except I was gaining weight.”

“Which didn’t make your mother happy.”

She shook her head. “She came down even harder on me because she was also frustrated, and I felt pressure to lose the weight but … I couldn’t not eat. So I started to … purge. And it became a vicious cycle.”

“God.” His voice sounded low and raw.

Like he was hurting, for her. The thought amazed her.

“How did you stop?” he asked.