And all of a sudden, I felt panicked. Wait, wait, this wasn’t just fun and games anymore. Of course I’d known in the back of my head this was where it would end up. Not just fingers and teasing touches and groping.
They’d want to fuck me. More than one of them, likely.
Maybe they’d all want to fuck me, one after the other. Did they do that to Mom? How did she feel when she’d been in this same position?
The collars were a tradition and since she hadn’t been chosen as a belle, she would have been at a party like this in a white collar. All the other women here were in white collars. I didn’t know about the other belle, I couldn’t see her. All I could imagine was my mom. Men touching her, hands and fingers and cocks all around her.
Had she welcomed their touch, or shuddered at it like I did now? Had she wanted to scream about how unfair it was? Or did she feel power in commanding their pleasure, in bringing them to their knees as she dominated them and led them around by their cocks even if only for a few moments here and there?
Was it simply about pleasure? Because the man still exploring at my pussy had found my clitoris and he knew what to do with it. Did Mom just get addicted to men who could bring her pleasure in a world full of pain and disappointment? Was this the one place she could come, throw her body to these ravenous men, get her brains fucked out, and forget in the ecstasy of pleasure for a few hours every couple of weeks?
Would I ever know or understand?
Because the second I felt the head of a bare cock brushing against my ass, I knew the answer for myself: NO.
No, for me it was a big fat NO.
I didn’t want to be fucked up the ass by a stranger. I looked to the throne, to where Rafe had stood only moments before.
But he wasn’t there anymore.
For a second I felt bereft.
He’d left. Again.
It was too much for him. Although I couldn’t say this time I hadn’t driven him away.
It was a hurricane in my head: what did I do? Let myself get fucked? Cling so hard to what I claimed I wanted—autonomy—that I allowed myself to be used like this?
It was just a body, I tried to argue back. Who cared what happened to it or how I used it? If this was what it took to get what was owed me—
But when the cock moved against my ass, closer to my anus, my instinctual response was again so strong:
NO.
Not like this.
Whatever I did, however I succeeded or failed in life, it wouldn’t be by allowing this strange man to fuck me in this moment.
I started to yank away, twisting my pelvis away from the seeking cock. But right before I could open my mouth to say the words that would free me from this Trial, from my entire time at the Oleander, suddenly the man at my back disappeared.
My mouth dropped open in surprise as I turned to look behind me. I didn’t have long to register that it was Rafe pulling all the men away from me, because a second later, he was sweeping me up into his arms and carrying me out of the ballroom and back up the stairs, away from all the prying eyes and intrusive hands.
Goddamn him, he’d rescued me after all.
And I let him.
But before I could say a word to him, to thank him, to tell him I was sorry for yanking the stupid white collar out of the box, he was slamming the door behind us in the bedroom and then dropping me onto my feet.
“Rafe, I—”
He pushed me back against the wall, pressing his body against mine and caging me in. “You drive me insane, you know that? What the fuck was that, Fallon? Did you like all those men touching you? Did you like fucking torturing me like that?”
My whole body sparked to life. From his words, yes, but also from the feeling of his body pressed up against mine.
Because I was furious, but I also felt safe, and turned on, and all of that made me even more furious, even though I couldn’t even begin to untangle all the things I was feeling and whether any of them were reasonable or not.
“Maybe not everything in this fucking world is about you, Rafe Jackson,” I spit back.
“It is when it comes to you,” he countered.
I scoffed and the color high on his sharp cheekbones went bright again.
“Goddamn you, Fallon,” he said, but then he kissed me.
I kissed him back, hard, punishing his mouth, devouring and biting. I was so furious with him. I grabbed the lapels of his suitcoat and then slipped my hands inside so I could yank his stupid jacket off. Then my fingers fumbled at the goddamned little buttons on his white dress shirt. All the while licking and biting and kissing his lips.