Desired (Club Sin 3)

“You, Ella”—his emotion-filled gaze held hers—“are one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”

She rolled her eyes. “You hardly know me.”

“I know all I need to.” He cupped her face, the warmth of his hands spreading across her skin. “I know that you’re a fighter who goes after a better life for herself, even though you’ve come from a hard past. I know that you’re a person who craves to be happy and accepts strange challenges to make it happen. I don’t need to know anything else but that to see the strength that resides inside you.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but she fought them. “You’re not trying to make me cry, are you?”

“No, just voicing what I think.” He shook his head, stroking her cheek. “And those tears in your eyes tell me that you needed to hear it.”

She snuggled into him and he wrapped his arms around her. There, she felt so safe. So understood. So accepted. Why had she been fighting this with him? He’d proven, time and time again, that he simply wanted to care for her.

All of her.

Part of her regretted the distance she’d kept. The other part was so damn tired about feeling bad about things. He wanted her with him. She wanted to stay. Knowing he craved closeness and wanting that, too, she asked, “Want to hear my most embarrassing moment?”

He tucked her finger under her chin. His gaze became focused. “Please share.”

While Rory was all types of embarrassing and painful, she didn’t want to go there. She wanted to stay in this happy present, not return to a painful past. But she owed Kyler truths.

A lot of them.

She stared out to the submissive getting flogged whose head was tossed back as moans of ecstasy poured from her mouth. “The very worst painful memory is actually one of my most embarrassing ones, too.”

He stayed silent.

She moved off him and leaned her head against the couch, wrapping the blanket tighter around her shoulder. “When I was told my parents had died in the plane accident, the police thought it’d be a good idea to tell me when I was at school. Which, I’m sure you can imagine, it wasn’t.” Slight coldness shivered through her as she went on. “I ran out of the office and the bell had just rung, so the hallways where packed with students. Halfway down the hallway, reality set in, and before I knew it, I had dropped to my knees and threw up all over the floor.”

Kyler frowned. “I’d hardly call that embarrassing, more so an understandable reaction.”

“Tell that to a little girl,” she retorted. “I never wanted to go back to school. And luckily for me, my grandparents lived in another state, so I didn’t have to.”

He brushed his fingers down her arm over the top of the blanket, regarding her with a long look. “You never went back there? Never faced any of those kids again?”

“Nope.” Hell to the no. “No way could I face that humiliation. Being known as the girl who barfed in the hallway.”

“People are more understanding than you think. When I had that incident at school, sure, I got razzed a bit, but for the most part it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would’ve been. Kids moved on to someone else who did something stupid and joked about that.”

She snorted. “I’d rather just push the memory far from my mind and not remember it.”

“Ah, but Ella,” he said slowly, with a knowing twinkle in his eye, “stuff like that always has a way of coming back to us. You can’t run from those experiences. They are what define you.”

“Me, puking on the floor defines me?” she scoffed.

“You picking yourself up off the ground and moving forward is what defines you. Being sick just means you loved deeply, and there is nothing wrong with that.”

There is that.

Funny how she’d never looked it at that way, but with her life full of hard times, if she could avoid any more, she would. That simple.

He stayed silent, clearly content with what she shared, so she turned to a paddling scene in her line of vision. The Dom had a woman locked into the stocks and smacked her bottom with a black paddle, turning her skin a bright shade of red. Not that Ella would complain about her scene with Kyler, it was incredible, but it also wasn’t what she’d seen anyone else in Club Sin do.

Treated differently …

Nah, I don’t want that.

Turning to Kyler, she asked, “Why won’t you do that to me?”

His gaze drifted to the scene before returning to her. Hardness creased the corners of his eyes. “You’re not ready, Ella.”