Page 106 of If I Were Yours

“Clara, are you sure you want this?”

When I don’t respond with anything but whimpers, he continues.

“It’s going to hurt. This is what it will take to be mine—your pain. I need it to see that you are truly in this.”

Uncertainty is wracking my system. All I can see is the prospect of unbearable pain. So I shake my head and lift my shoulders. Because I don’t know anything at this moment—at least not until Grigory says the next words.

“I can call Markus. It’s not too late to get him to turn around. He’ll take you back.”

My head shaking becomes frantic again. But certain this time. “Please don’t. I want to be yours. It’s all I truly want.” Tears seep from my eyes, soaking the blindfold, and I heave shallow breaths between the words, trying to get air past the weight bearing down on my chest.

“I want it so bad it hurts,” I continue. “It hurts so fucking much.” The weight intensifies until it’s like I’m breathing through a straw. I start tugging at the ropes, needing to get down, needing to breathe. “It always has. Ever since you punished me in Markus’s music room. You hit something so deep inside me that night—something so fundamental that I became yours.” The words just tumble out of me, straightforward and cathartic. Words I haven’t even dared to form in the dark recesses of my mind.

Silence stretches, so I keep going, needing to get it all out.

“I’ve been trying to go against my instincts ever since that night, trying to deny the most basic truth. That I’m yours. Have you any idea how hard that is?”

“I do, Clara. I do.”

The sincerity in his voice takes me aback, halting my tears.

“You’re not the only one who’s been fighting yourself.” Grigory presses his hand to my back, bathing my nervous skin in heat. For a moment, it sharpens the pain—the longing.

“I know,” I say, my head falling forward in defeat as I remember all the times he didn’t kiss me, his wistful words—if you were mine—and the hurt in his eyes when I left him.

“I’ll take away the pain,” he says. “I’ll give you another one that will tether you to me. For good. You’ll be mine, Clara. Through and through, with no way out.”

His words should terrify me. Instead, they seep into my soul, filling me with hope and mending my shattered resolve.

“Okay,” I say, lifting my head and straightening my spine.

Grigory steps back, and I flinch at the sound of the whip swishing through the air. But when it strikes my back, it’s only a soft caress. It keeps going like this, back and forth in a steady rhythm, grazing my skin with a prickling sensation.

“I’ll let you know when we get to the hard part,” Grigory assures. “First, I need to warm you up, or you won’t last long.”

I close my eyes and breathe through the fear. The thought of the whip biting into my skin terrifies me, but I know I need the pain to cement this new dynamic—to feel his possession branded into me as a deep-seated truth. So I give in to the gentle flow.

When the whip finally comes to a rest, I’m deep in a trance, calm and drowsy throughout my body and mind.

“Are you ready to be mine?” Grigory asks. “To take the pain I give you.”

Clutching the ropes, I nod. “I’m ready.”

Grigory inhales deeply as if relishing in the surge of power he must feel at my readiness to submit. I can almost see his dilating pupils and the command shining in his eyes.

His shoes click against the wooden floor as he takes a step back.

I sense him lift the whip behind me, and just before it strikes, I let out a, “Thank you.”

My words morph into a scream as the leather strikes with searing force. I buck in the ropes, squeezing my eyes shut as I try to process the horrible burn on my back. But even as the pain is about to split my mind in two, the gratitude lingers deep inside me, making me repeat the words with deep-felt emotion. “Thank you.”

“Goddammit, Clara. You’re perfect,” Grigory rasps, stepping closer to brush his fingertips across my burning skin. “I knew it the first time I saw you—the moment you cast your eyes down. It wasn’t just shyness. It was submission of the purest, most beautiful kind. And now it’s all mine.”

“It’s all yours,” I say, breathing hard as emotions fill my chest. “Only yours.”

“Show me,” he growls. “Show me who you belong to.”

“You,” I say hoarsely. “I belong to you.” I drag in a hard, long breath, flooding my lungs with too much oxygen as the truth of the words becomes my entire world. My sole reason for existing. “Please,” I beg, not knowing what I’m asking for. A release from all the emotions?

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