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“I know, that every single thing you did, I asked for. The lie wasn’t what I wanted. I do need some of those more extreme things. If I’ve had a shitty week at work, I’ll come here and beg somebody to cane me.
“And when we first got together, I had you firmly classified in my mind as a Dom. A master. And let’s be honest, though we never formalized anything, we were in a pretty committed Dom-sub relationship.”
He raised his head, met her gaze. “You’re right. And we should have formalized it. I should have collared you.”
Mal touched her throat, looking away.
When she didn’t keep going, Benson took over. There were things he’d never planned to say out loud, but what Mal just confessed changed everything.
“When we talked about the lifestyle, and kink, and planned scenes, you were doing it with your master. And when that’s who you were talking to, and scening with, it all worked.”
Mal looked shocked. “Exactly.”
Benson took a sip, needing a moment to steel his courage. Before he could, Mal kept going.
“It’s hard not to feel absolutely worthless when the man you love is not only willing to, but enthusiastic about, tying you to a table, completely naked, and then leaving you there so any random person can come by and put their hands on you and use you.”
She pulled her hair forward over her shoulder and twisted it into a long tail. She was nervous or worried. “Just to be clear,” she said. “That scenario is incredibly hot, and it makes all my submissive bits tingle. I’ve had multiple different tops put me in that same, or a similar, situation and it was both enjoyable and emotionally fulfilling to be used.”
She looked over. “The night you did it, I cried myself to sleep. And the night I panicked, it had just all been too much. The knife play wasn’t even that interesting, but you walked into the room and your expression… It looked like you didn’t care. And you were holding a knife. It hit me all at once, but it had nothing to do with you. It was all me.”
Benson rubbed his fingers with his lips. “And tonight…”
“I guess the prostitution scene brought up all those feelings. When you left me with Carter—”
“I never left you. Not tonight. Not that night in the dining room.”
She froze. “I didn’t see you.”
“Well, I had tied you to a table, so you didn’t exactly have a panoramic view. And tonight I was here. Right there.” He pointed vaguely. “I made sure you couldn’t see me, but I could still see you. Leaving you with the stranger that paid to fuck you felt necessary in a prostitution scene, so I made sure that’s how it looked. But, Mal… I never left you.”
Her eyes closed, and she pressed one hand to her mouth. They sat in silence, but it was neither awkward nor heavy.
It was the silence of waiting and of possibility.
She loved him. At least she had. It had taken this long for what she’d said to sink in. Now that it had…
Mal didn’t know that by confessing her feelings for him, she’d opened the door for him to reciprocate with his own confession.
“I never left…because, Mal? You’re mine. You’ve been mine since the first time I touched you, and if it were up to me, you’d be mine, and only mine, forever.”
* * *
Mal’s heart pounded against her ribs as shock warred with treacherous hope.
She’d expected an awkward interlude when she confessed. Benson was a good man, so she knew he wouldn’t make fun of her, or laugh at her. As expected, he’d listened and hadn’t laughed at her or tried to minimize her feelings by saying it was probably just a reaction to their power exchange relationship.
What she’d never expected was for him to issue his own declaration.
“I’m…” She stared at him.
“You’re mine,” he repeated.
Mal finished her scotch just to give her hands something to do.
“In my head you’ve always been ‘my Mal.’”
Those words had fresh tears filling her eyes.
