From his vantage point Tyler could see her night drawer. A portion of the black scarf she normally would have used under the belt was not tucked all the way in, goading him further. Though he recognized it as the same type of anger a wolf would show toward his mate for endangering herself, he did not deny the animal drive to it.

When he’d seen the mark on her neck, he’d known she’d deliberately defied him. She’d thrown down the gauntlet, perhaps not knowing why herself. Within Marguerite the woman, the abused child still sought answers and peace. He wanted to give her both.

Give her everything. And paddle her until she cried for scaring him so badly. And fuck her until she couldn’t imagine any day without him.

As he slid his fingers in her tight rear passage he spoke, commanding the answer he’d not gotten from her earlier. “Did you climax when you did it?”

“I… Yes.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“You.” Her head was pressed to her forearms now. Reaching forward, he caught her hair in his hand, tugged it back so he could see her face. The desperate arousal, the need. And it was that which gentled his touch at last, made him ease his hold into a stroke.

“I won’t do this rough.” Pressing her head back down to her arms, he let his fingertips drift along the nape of her neck, back over the scars and her reddened cheeks.

Welts were already rising on the pale, delicate skin. She wouldn’t sit easily for a week.

While that gave him lustful satisfaction, the idea of rubbing healing salve into them stirred him as well.

He straightened, guided himself into the lubricated passage and went deep as the muscle released, letting him in. She moaned as he dropped to all fours over her, covering her. Her cheek pressed against his forearm, her lips to his hand. “Everywhere he’s been, I’m there now, driving him out. I won’t let him come back. I’m inside you, in every part of you.” He started to move his hips, slow, incremental friction that made his cock even harder and thicker, made his desire to thrust more violently grow.

“This is still a punishment, so I’m not going to let you come. You’re just going to have to walk around all day today with your ass too sore to sit, your cunt swollen and wet, your nipples hard and pressed against your dress, knowing that tonight, I’ll come back to your bed. I’ll make you come then, hard and often, until you’re so exhausted you’ll beg me to stop, but I won’t. Not until you call me Master over and over and I know you’ll never forget it.”

When she shuddered, he kissed her between her shoulder blades. Pressed his hard thighs against the back of her lovely ones and the rise of her pale buttocks to drive into her more deeply. Balancing his weight with one arm, he collared her throat, lifted her so her back was against his chest, her head against his shoulder. “By my hand only. By my cock and mouth only, unless I command otherwise. Say it and mean it.”

“By your hand only,” she whispered hoarsely around the pressure of that grip. “By your cock and mouth only, unless you command it. Master. I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, pressed his temple to hers and began to thrust home. Harder, as she needed, as he needed. Holding her throat, her life pulsing strong under his touch, he accepted responsibility for it. She was so strong the only thing that could shatter her was the thing she’d never been offered, that had never nourished her long enough to count.

Love.

He felt his testicles draw up, snarled low in her ear and let himself go, flooding her, feeling the slap of their bodies together, his thighs against her striped buttocks, his cock stroking that tight passage over and over. He didn’t want to stop, groaning his release hard and fierce as she whispered his name in frantic arousal.

Oh, hell. He couldn’t bear to make her wait. His hand moved down between that perfect meshing of their hips and found her clit. It was as much for him as for her. He wanted to hear her full-throated cries as she came at his touch. Two, maybe three adamant manipulations and she went over, rolling hard against him, her head turning into his shoulder, even with the collaring of his hand. He used the movement to dip his head and fasten his teeth in her flesh, holding her as he continued to smack against her ass with his body, play with her swollen folds, feeling her juices in his palm, her cunt against his fingers.

His.

They shuddered into quiet, becoming aware of the turn of her ceiling fan, the dim light of her room with the sheer panels at the windows. The world outside continued going by, oblivious to their struggle, their passion, the moment of fulfillment and change.

He eased out of her as she remained still, obeying his Will by staying in the same position, her ass raised high in the air. It made his drained cock stir, telling him she could well nigh kill him with lust. He eased her to her side so he could lean over her, stroke the hair from her face.

“Where is it, Marguerite?”

He knew, but he wanted her to actively participate. Shifting her head, she looked toward the nightstand. He reached across the mattress, pulled open the drawer and removed the dark scarf, the ropes, the belt itself. His hand traced the smooth interior of the strap. A long blonde hair was caught in the buckle. “Have you ever lost consciousness from doing this?”

Her answer was slow in coming and he shifted his gaze back to her. “Once,” she said. “Only once.”

He nodded. “It was this week, wasn’t it?”

She began to rise from the bed.

“You leave that bed and I won’t hesitate to beat your ass ten times worse than I just did.”

She froze in the act of sitting up, but after a moment, she nodded. “Yes. I was angry.

I wasn’t careful. I didn’t use the scarf. I thought I was trying to drive you out of my head and I tugged harder than I intended.” Her eyes shifted away. “When I woke, I was off the bed. It broke free because I guess I hadn’t hooked it around the post as securely as usual. When I lost consciousness my body weight went left, pulled it loose, I think.

Tumbled me to the floor.”

He rose, his expression such that Marguerite wanted to sink her backside a little lower into the mattress to protect her more recently aching parts. The man had an arm, and she was sure he’d held back. She’d seen him put a mugger through auto glass, after all.

“And how did you feel when you woke up?”

She swallowed. Trust him to dig right to the most difficult point. “I was… I can’t.” Unexpectedly, his tone softened. “Tell me, angel. I need to hear it, because you’re destroying me here.”

Her gaze snapped up to him, to the harsh planes of his face, the tautly held mouth, the belt clutched in his hand with her scarf. Pain lanced through her heart at what she felt from him. She moved toward him on her knees, to the edge of the bed where he stood, staring at her. She bowed her head.

“I was ashamed,” she whispered. “And afraid. Afraid that if I’d died you would have been hurt beyond what you could bear. Because I told you I’m not her.”

“No, you’re not. You have a strength she never had, a strength so terrifying you have no regard for your own life. And you’re right.” He dropped the belt, turned toward the window, turned his back to her. “If I lost you, I don’t know if I’d ever find myself again. Please…”

She raised her lashes, astounded to see his head bow to his own breast. “Promise me you’ll never hate me that much.”

“Oh, Tyler.” A thousand punishments with his belt could not have struck her harder than those few words. She stumbled off the bed, went to him and wrapped herself against his back. Held him so that her fingers dug into the skin across his bare chest. “No…please.” She kissed the nape of his neck, moving along his shoulder, across his spine, holding him closer, tighter, her heart breaking as he stayed motionless.

“My wife stood on a chair en pointe until she tired and hung herself. That’s how she committed suicide.”

Cold gripped her vitals as he turned toward her, stepped back out of her embrace.

“Tyler, you never said…oh my God, I’m so sorry. I was so angry with you, I just…”

“Didn’t think?” He snapped it out like a whip and she flinched. “Didn’t think about your life, about its value? I didn’t tell you that to feel worried or guilty about me, damn it. Her manager found her. He’s been in love with her for years, worshipped her. Her personal assistant of fifteen years saw her too. Something they’d found so beautiful and precious, hanging there, face black, bowels expressed, stinking up the room like a cesspool. Do you want that for Gen and Chloe? If you’re going to take yourself out, do it with flame. Burn it all away, so there’s nothing left but ashes, so we can still imagine everything we valued and loved…”

He swung before she anticipated him. His fist went through her sheetrock as if it wasn’t there, shattering paint and substance. He followed it with the other, a hole right next to it. She realized he was venting fury he could not take out physically on her. The pain from him radiated onto her. Before she knew it she was sitting on her knees on the floor, her arms wrapped around his legs, whispering to him, pleading.

“Forgive me. Please. Please. Please, forgive me. I’m so sorry, Tyler. I’m so sorry.” She was crying. Bending down, he caught her face in his hands to lift her up, make her stand on her knees. The strength in his hands could crush her skull and she wondered a moment if he would do just that but he didn’t. He just held her there, made her face the blazing rage in his eyes like the fires of hell. It was a heat that burned her soul and made her see in full light the terrible darkness he kept in himself, a violence not so very different from her own.

“You’ll promise me. And you’ll never betray that promise, or I swear to God it will kill me. Do you understand that? Do you know how much you mean to me? Even if you don’t want me, you have to give me this.”

“I promise. I promise.” She reached up, gathered him to her. He came inch by resisting inch until his face was against her neck. Suddenly he gave, dropping to his knees, his arms surrounding her so they were pressed against each other thigh to thigh, heart to heart. He pulled her in so tightly against him she couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t matter. Suddenly the world was about more than herself, more than about her pain and it was easier to let go of it to hold him in her arms, to give him comfort.