“Were you going to fuck someone else?” I accused.
He didn’t look at me as he traced his fingers around the edge of my nipple. “Get on the table.”
“No,” I said, but it was weak.
“You’re supposed to do as you’re told,” he answered flatly.
“And what are you supposed to do? Come here whenever you want even though you’re married to me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is this the first time, or has it happened before?” I pressed. “Is this where you’ve been when you told me you were working on Emmanuel’s case?”
His eyes snapped up to mine, and they were scarier than I’d ever seen them. “Get on the fucking table!”
I took a step back from him, but he caught me around the wrist before I could really move. I didn’t want to fight with him—that was the last thing I wanted—so I didn’t resist when he led me to the table and scooped me up with his arms, spreading me out like I was his next meal.
“Lucian,” I tried again to find some calm in my voice as he disappeared behind me where I couldn’t see. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He didn’t tell me. Instead, he came back and looked right at me, eyes empty as he latched a leather cuff around my wrists and secured them above my head. My chest rose and fell at an accelerated rate, and I tried to calm myself with reassurances.
I trusted him. He wouldn’t hurt me. This was Lucian. I had no reason to be afraid.
But maybe that meant I had more of a reason to be afraid. Because the truth was, I hadn’t really known this side of him. The part of him he kept hidden away. The sadist filled with quiet rage.
The last time he’d brought me here, he told me repeatedly that I was safe in his care, and I believed him. He told me that I could say stop at any point, and he would listen.
“Lucian,” I tried again, but he worked noiselessly, attempting to secure my feet next.
“Stop.” I tried to jerk my foot away, but it was an empty action that served no purpose. His grip was unyielding, and my words weren’t even getting through to him anymore. He strapped down both of my legs, and I already felt like I couldn’t breathe as I strained against the confinements.
“Please,” I begged.
Still nothing. I barely saw a glimpse of his face when he returned before he secured the blindfold around my eyes. This was the worst thing he could possibly do to me, and he knew it. He knew it intimately, and what I couldn’t figure out was why he wanted to punish me.
“Lucian—”
I felt the leather edge of a crop as it trailed over my skin before his breath filled the shell of my ear. “I should whip you black and blue.”
I began to thrash against the table, fear driving me to overreact. It was a primal instinct. An instinct that made me realize I could never escape my past. It would always be a part of me, and no matter how much I thought I trusted this man, he was still capable of hurting me.
The thick edge of the leather smacked my left breast, and I sucked in air. It wasn’t hard enough to leave a mark, and it was nothing like what he did to the other girl when I watched, but I was terrified it might turn into that. I was terrified he was going to hurt me, and it was something we could never recover from.
“Lucian.” Tears poured down my cheeks as I shook my head back and forth. “Stop.”
He smacked me again, this time on the other breast. “But I’m only just getting started. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You wanted to be what I need? That’s why you came here, pet. Admit it. After all this time, you’re still trying to prove yourself.”
He smacked my thigh, and it made me jump. His words hurt. They hurt because they were so true.
“You can’t fucking prove yourself,” he snarled viciously. “Don’t you get it? This is the way the world works, pet, and you need to understand that. No matter what you do, no matter how much you want something, the universe will find a way to fuck you over. That’s what you need to learn.”
Whack.
I cringed at the sound of the leather in the air. It didn’t hit my skin, and I wanted to believe he was just using it to scare me, but I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
He continued his rant, making short choppy statements that expressed his fresh rage. A rage that seemed to bloom out of nowhere, something I couldn’t identify, and something I had no idea how to fix. There was only one way to get through to him, and I would hate myself for it.