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I’ve gone inside her.
“Shit. Shit, shit,shit!”
I yank my hand away and hold both hands up in a surrender motion, but it’s too late.
A strangled scream gets stuck in her throat as she scrambles off my lap and curls into a tiny ball on the far edge of the mattress. She’s shaking.
Fuck.Fuck!I want to kick my own ass. I knew this would happen. Fuckingknewit. I let down my guard and ended up hurting her. Because she’s too small for me. Too delicate. Too broken. I should have stuck to my rule. No touching. Now it’s all gone to hell.
“I’ll go get one of the others.” I say as I jam my feet into my boots.
“Don’t go.” Her voice is small and watery.
I’m standing beside the bed wringing my cap in my too-clumsy, too-bold hands. “I have to go. I—I fucked up. I’m…so sorry…Cora.” The ship has sailed on Ben and Petal. We’re Brawn and Cora again. Not lovers. Strangers who happened to survive the same shitty virus that killed most everybody else. That’s all we can ever be.
“This was a mistake,” I say. “I’m getting Jud.” He might kick me out of the settlement for this. I hope he does. I deserve it.
I duck out of the room, but Cora stops me with a snort of…laughter? I frown at her. She’s shaking on the bed, but this time, it’s not because she’s terrified. She’s fuckinglaughing.
Rolling to face me, she laughs even harder. There are tears on her cheeks, and I don’t know if they’re from the hurt I caused her or the laughter. When she recovers, she wipes her face with both hands and says, “If you think I want Jud when I’m upset, you’re out of your mind.” And she laughs some more.
“Then who? Who do you want to spend the night with? I’ll get whoever you want.”
“I want you, Ben.”
God. I love when she says my name. But I’m too pissed at myself to let her woo me back into her bed.
“Too bad.” I make my voice hard. “You can’t have me. I’m a fuck-up. I can’t do this. I’ll get Doc.”
I turn to go, but she stops me with this: “You’re not going anywhere, boy.”
I freeze and half turn, gaping at her.
“Get back in here. Now.”
Her tone of command turns the dread in my stomach to lava. She’s not pissed. She’s not broken. I just traumatized her by forgetting her boundary, and she’s fuckinghandlingit. Jesus, this girl.
“I can’t.” But despite my protest, my feet carry me back into her bedroom. “I broke the rule. The only rule. I proved I can’t be trusted.”
“No, Ben. You proved you’re human.”
“That’s not how it works with D/s. I broke the rule. The scene’s over. Cora.” I emphasize her name. She’s not Petal anymore.
“You’re forgetting, Ben. I’m the one in charge. The scene’s not over ’til I say so.” I start to argue again that I broke the goddamn rules, but she cuts me off. “And I’m also the one who punishes my boy when a rule is broken.”
My dick takes notice when she calls me boy…and mentions punishment. “How will you punish me?” my mouth says before I can stop it.
“I haven’t decided yet.” She smirks. “But I’ll figure it out while you finish what you started.” She pushes her sweats down her hips and kicks them off the bed. She’s sitting there in a T-shirt and nothing else.
I can’t take my eyes off the hem of that damn T-shirt. It’s covering her pussy, and I want nothing more than to nudge it up with my nose and start feasting on her. But I’ve proven I can’t be trusted anywhere near her sexy center. Despite knowing that, I kick off my boots and stand at the edge of the bed.
“What if I fuck up again?”
She knee-crawls to me and lays a lily-cool hand on my cheek. “We all mess up sometimes, Ben. Please.” She turns back the blankets. “Come back to bed. Nothing has to happen, if you don’t want. But I would love it if you touched me again, like before.” She breaks her domme character and speaks to me gently. That’s what does it—what makes me slide out of my shirt and climb into bed beside her. It’s thepleaseand theBenand the reassurance that she doesn’t demand perfection.
“My jeans stay on,” I gripe as she tosses the blankets over me.
She kisses my cheek. “Fine.” She curls up next to me. “And Ben?”
