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“Yes. Please.”
He reaches around me and grabs me by the scruff of my neck. That grip is becoming familiar. And hot. His touch alone fills me with hope that I might soon be forgiven after all.
“Then let’s deal with it,” he says, pulling me to the camp, to the very center of the gazebo. Jason is nearby, but not interfering. This is between Soren and me, and I am sensing an intensity that has not been there before. I pushed him too far this time. I made him too angry. I wish I knew how to make men not angry, but my talents lie entirely in the other direction.
“What you did yesterday was reckless, dangerous, and borderline suicidal,” he says. Lectures, really? I know I deserve this, but it is so hard to take. “We thought you were dead.”
“But I wasn’t. You should be pleased. Not furious.”
“You’re a bad little girl,” he growls. “An absolute spoiled brat with no conscience and no consideration for anybody who cares about you.”
He’s really fucking mad. It’s not that he’s angry out of professional concern. He’s, like, personally angry. I have pissed him the fuck off with this little stunt, and he’s probably more convinced than ever that I have a drinking problem. So I do what I always do when I’m in the wrong: I get defensive.
“What do you care? I’m a client. You hardly know me, and I don’t owe you obedience. I thought I made that clear from the outset.”
“You did. Now it’s time for me to make something very clear. You do owe me obedience, because I just clambered up a mountain in the dark searching for you, hoping not to find you with your neck broken. You owe me because I’ve pledged to keep you safe.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do? Spank me? Fuck my ass? What sexual perversion are you going to indulge in to make up for my naughty behavior, sir…?”
I throw the sir in with an extra lilt. He seemed to like that the first time I said it.
Soren’s eyes flare with anger. “You could have died. Don’t you understand? You put yourself in lethal danger just to get a drink. You’re not this stupid, are you?”
“I might be this stupid, you don’t know.”
It’s not the best comeback. I am feeling guilty. Really fucking guilty. I already knew I’d done something very stupid when the trees went away. It’s a bad sign when even trees don’t want to go where you’re going. But I kept on because I’m not a quitter, and because the wilderness gave me some sense of peace.
“You’re a very bad little girl,” he growls again. “And no, I’m not going to spank you right now, or fuck your ass. You don’t deserve to have any of your holes fucked.” God. He’s being crude. Is there anything hotter than a straitlaced guy finally getting filthy?
“I’m going to ground you. You’re not going anywhere. Understand? You’re going to stay in my sight at all times, and you are going to do as you are told without question. If you disobey me, you’ll be punished. Hard.”
Crude and paternalistic at the same time. I don’t know what to do with those two things. I’m scared, turned on, and of course offended, but there’s no point getting offended. Everything about the way they treat me is offensive and patriarchal. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I need it.
Soren grabs me again and puts me on my knees. That’s where he likes me when I am being lectured. That’s probably how he wants me all the time. On my knees, looking up at him, mouth at cock height, vulnerable, obedient, submissive.
“Stay.”
He snaps the order at me like I’m a dog.
“What is this…”
I feel him looping something around my neck, a smooth circle of leather that buckles at the back. A collar.
“What do we do with bad little pups who can’t be trusted not to run away?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
“We chain them,” he says. “You’re not leaving this area.”
I didn’t even notice the chain. I mean, I did, but I didn’t notice it was actually attached to me. It’s linked to the D ring at the rear of the collar, and it gives him extra leverage over me and my faithless little neck.
I could just take the collar off, if I wanted. Something in Soren’s eye tells me that would be a mistake. It’s like I triggered something in him, pushed aside the bookcase of propriety hiding his inner secret passage of all kinds of fucked up.
I’m curious. I shouldn’t be, but I am. I wonder how far he’s going to go with this chain thing, and what else lurks behind those suddenly dark blue eyes.
He might be angry with me, but it’s not the kind of angry that makes people turn away. It’s the kind that shows the obsession that’s been lurking inside him since we met. Soren wants me, and now he’s going to take me.
