Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
“Baby?” he called.
“What if you can’t fix it?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“Please don’t say that. Don’t fucking say that.” His voice was strangled-sounding. “I wanna make love to you. I need to make you feel good. Tell me what I can do to make you whimper for me and put your arms around me because you want to, not because I’ve told you to. Let me show you how much I love you.”
Goosebumps rose on my skin and my throat was so dry. But, I didn’t want to feel good. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t know if there was anything he could do to fix things. How could there be? I wanted to sleep and forget everything I’d seen tonight. Forget everything that had happened last night. Sleep it away, all of it.
His palm swept up from my shoulder to my face until his fingers weaved into my hair near my ear.
“Tia, baby?”
I reached up and fingered his dangling necklace without touching him. He kissed the tip of my nose.
We needed to talk things out and figure this out if we were going to have a future that wasn’t just me pretending to be okay. But I wasn’t ready to talk; I was still processing. I didn’t know if talking would do anything at all, anyway. He was in control. He made the rules. I was just a participant. Willing or not. I didn’t know if I could ever be okay with it. With any of it. But, he was waiting for an answer.
“Just…” My voice caught.
His eyes widened fractionally as he urged me, with his expression, to continue.
“Vanilla,” I whispered, feeling totally and utterly defeated.
He kissed me slow and sweet, exploring my mouth with his tongue and letting his hands drift up and down my body, sending shivers up my spine. He started to undo the tuxedo shirt I was wearing, tonguing an exposed nipple as he exposed the other one.
“Touch me, babe. Please,” he whispered against my skin.
I put my hands on his back and rubbed up and down. His back was so strong. I put my hands on his shoulders. They were big and muscular. He had a lot of muscle. Enough muscle to crush me without even really trying.
My mind drifted to that couple on the stage, about how she, the tiny little woman, wielded power to control a man who could crush her even more easily than Tommy could crush me. In a physical sense, anyway. Tommy could crush me, had crushed me, in other ways just through words and actions. But the tiny blonde had looked at that big, muscled man so lovingly because he gave her what she needed. She controlled him but he controlled her too, through giving her what she needed. And that big strong guy seemed like he wanted to be dominated by her, too; you could see it in his eyes. His face had gone to a state of bliss when she whipped him. It was a quid pro quo thing for them.
Tommy needed this from me, my submission to him. Sometimes he needed it rough and sometimes he gave it to me sweet. I knew I’d wanted rough that day at the farm. I couldn’t forget the release it gave me that day he tied me to the headboard and took my control away so I wouldn’t have to fight anymore. I didn’t know if I could ever crave that again. And if I did crave it, after what’d happened last night, did that mean I had gone over to the dark side, that I was irrevocably broken?
His mouth was on my breast, his tongue toying with my nipple. My hands continued to roam up and down his arms, his back. I thought back to us at the farm and how sweet he was after my playing that hide and seek game with him, because I was giving him what he needed. He’d seemed so happy and carefree that night. And I remembered how exciting it was to run and be caught and how insane it’d driven me when he talked dirty to me during the game. I also thought about when I wanted it to be rough and he wouldn’t be rough with me. He was a control freak. Plain and simple.
Right now, he was trying to be sweet but we both knew my heart wasn’t in it. My hands rose to his hair as he continued to kiss and tongue my breasts and I felt the chain around his neck touch my skin. I sucked my lower lip in and had a thought.
I needed to change the tone of this situation. I couldn’t handle this sweet business right now. The only way I could get through this right now was if it were just a game. A game where I could get release, release from the prison I felt like my brain was in. Would it help?