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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 tow
ard 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.
His charm and arrogance were his shields, such that she’d not comprehended until this moment the depth to which she could hurt him. She’d been frightened, thinking she’d crossed a line where she couldn’t survive without him anymore. It had never occurred to her that his feelings would be a mirror of hers.
Only the strength of a Master like Tyler could reassure her, could force her to believe in his love by reinforcing the same lessons over and over. She wanted the Master in him, needed it. But she realized she also loved the man himself beyond comprehension.
When he started to rise, rather than letting him draw her up with him she stayed down, rubbed her head over his right hand held in both of hers and pressed her lips to his bare hip, his thigh. Holding her cheek to his leg, she spoke against the coarse hair and muscle. “I… It’s only been me, for a long time. I’ve never had to answer to anyone else. Be responsible or a part of someone else’s happiness. And I don’t know how to handle any of it. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you over and over, until I drive you away.
And that would kill me. ”
His hands clasped her upper arms. He brought her to her feet, tilted her chin to look at him, his expression full of emotion.
