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“Good,” Kyler replied with a hard voice.
In her peripheral vision, she noticed Porter leaving, then a finger tucked under her chin. Kyler’s gaze wasn’t what she’d expected. Softness lay in the depths of his eyes. “All cooled off?”
She nodded, quivering. “Freezing cold.”
He reached for the blanket on the couch and then patted his lap. “Come sit.” Once she straddled his waist, her knees pressing against the couch, and he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “Tell me why I made you kneel next to me for so long.”
“As a punishment for letting the girls touch me,” she offered.
He shook his head. “No, Ella. Communication is all in this lifestyle. And when you have been paddled until your ass is bright red, your mind will be hazy. We need to talk. I couldn’t talk to you in the state you were in.”
Oh! “I understand.”
He watched her closely with that long stare that melted her and touched the depths of her soul. Yet she couldn’t quite read his expression; too much emotion shone there for her to gauge his thoughts.
Tucking the blanket tight around her, he said, “I know you want me to let go and hold no restraint when it comes to you.” He gripped her chin with a firm hold, locking her gaze onto him. “But you know what I need for that to happen. You want this D/s relationship, and seeing that you were determined tonight to prove you are ready, then that means you are ready to talk to me … openly and honestly. It’s that simple, Ella.”
She swallowed past the swell of emotion, knowing that keeping him out wasn’t an option anymore. She wanted this. Wanted him. All of him. With his soft gaze on hers and the sensation of safety he instilled, she found herself no longer able to run. Trust. Communication. Acceptance. She wanted all of that with Kyler. For once, she wanted to face something that embarrassed her instead of running from it.
She wanted to be free.
He gave her the safe place to do that.
Shutting her eyes, she drew on the strength inside. Every conversation they’d had seemed to pull more information out of her. All her walls to protect herself he’d broken down. And to the heart of it, he’d slowly but surely woven a spell of trust over her, leaving no doubt in her mind that if she opened to him he would be there to hold her.
She opened her eyes, unable to fight off the tears. “One night, I came home after work and Rory was drunk. He’d been drinking all day and there were beer bottles everywhere.” Tears welled in her eyes, yet Kyler stayed statue still, so she continued. “Rory accused me of cheating on him. Of course, I wasn’t. But he wouldn’t listen. He kept accusing me and got really mad.”
Dropped into the memory, she shivered against the ice filling her veins. She’d never seen anyone that enraged before. She had never lived in that type of anger. She’d always been surrounded by love.
Blowing out a long breath, she allowed the horrific memory to envelop her, and she went back to that time she’d been constantly ignoring. “I was so tired of it all and I told him I was leaving, then he exploded.” Her voice hitched as Rory’s angry words almost seemed to shout in her ears. “I’ve never seen someone act like that—he was crazed, not even a person anymore but like something evil had overtaken him. Before I knew it, he pushed me forward and I stumbled … the table was there … and there was so much blood.”
She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes, but when warm hands brushed across her arms, she opened them. Kyler’s gaze was fixated on her, holding hers in that watchful way he did.
“In that moment you fell, what did you feel?” he asked gently.
“Scared. Shocked. Sad,” she barely whispered. Then she shook her head, realizing that wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t being deep enough. “Actually, no, it was more than that. I felt the world break around me. I felt like life had failed me. I felt worthless and that I had somehow done something to deserve it.”
He cupped her face, bringing his mouth so close to hers. “And?”
Hot tears covered her face. “In the seconds after it, I cursed fate for taking everyone I loved away from me. And somehow I wondered what I’d done to cause the world to be so against me.” Her voice hitched on a sob, something dead and cold inside breaking. Something she refused to face for so long overwhelming her. “More than anything, it seemed like I was alone in a very big, scary world.”
Wiping her tears off his face, he asked, “And now, Ella? How do you feel?”
Her mind raced with all the feelings she’d experienced with Kyler. From the intense passion she’d had when they first met, leaving her unable to refuse him, to the slow-building trust he’d encouraged between them. To even now; where it was only him and her, as if nothing else existe
d.
“I feel safe with you, Kyler,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I feel like finally fate has given me a bright moment in a dark world. I feel like, for once, there is meaning behind it all.”
Holding her gaze, he whispered, “What meaning?”
“If none of my past happened, I never would have found the strength to leave Savannah.” Though tears flooded her face, she didn’t wipe them away. She’d no longer hid from him. “I never would have found you.”
His eyes shut, and when they opened they were filled with heady emotion. “This is where you belong, yes?”
She smiled through blurry eyes. “Yes.”
Warmth and tenderness filled his gaze. “That feeling, Ella, is all that I care about. It’s not the fall. It’s not the abuse. It’s never been about that—it’s the acknowledgment of how you felt then and what you feel now. I need to know that you see me differently. That you know I would never hurt you. And that the trust between us is strong enough for you to bare your pain to me.”
