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“Are you on birth control?”
Brilliant time to ask.
“My tubes are tied.”
He sat up, startled. “Why?”
“Why not? I don’t want babies.”
“Good.”
She knew he was thinking about Trish.
A few minutes later he got up and left the room. She waited, but when he didn’t return she went to his room. When she opened the door, he stopped her.
“Sleep in your room. My room is for good sluts that know their place.”
“You’re really mean.”
“Give me one week, Ronnie. One week without resistance, doing anything I ask without question or begging or name calling and yelling. One week without fighting me. You might be surprised by how kind I can be, but my favor must be earned.”
Veronica didn’t reply. She just stomped off to her room and slammed the door. Once in bed, she tossed and turned, Luke’sGive me one week, Ronnie, bumping up against Joe’sGive me anything, Ronniefrom the day she’d lost her job.
Everything inside her rebelled at the thought of submitting completely to Luke. It would be admitting he’d broken her, or giving him permission to do horrible things to her just because it turned her body on. But what if? Hadn’t he already shown her glimmers of kindness? Wouldn’t it be better if she had more of that, instead of the belt and the brand?
Would he have branded her if she hadn’t said what she’d said about Trish?
6
Veronica woke with a pleasant soreness between her legs, and a less pleasant soreness on her hip. The previous day’s emotional and physical roller coaster came crashing back to her like a bad hangover. The last words Luke spoke to her the night before still hung in the air.
She couldn’t stop thinkingPlease be kind to me. Please help me survive this.Like a mantra over and over in her head, as if he could hear her if she thought it enough. As if he might care.
He couldn’t let her go now, not with plausible deniability. She struggled to find a way to give in to him, to erase her mind and just be her body, which seemed to know instinctively how to please him and submit.
She thought back to the day before, lying in the grass after he’d branded her, the feeling of bliss like everything was right with the world. Everything and everyone was in its place. Everything was as it should be. Life was a rich, interwoven tapestry of which she and Luke were only tiny threads. Nothing was a big enough deal to fight over. When you became everything and everything became you, what was there to dispute? Everything just was. She wanted to go back to that moment and live there.
As she showered and made breakfast, she tried to find that quiet space inside herself that didn’t cling and claw and fight and scream, that just drifted and merged with the clouds. That just ate and breathed and slept and fucked and everything in between any of that was just noise.
At breakfast, she was still trying to find this place when Luke said her name.
“Ronnie, come here.”
She looked up, the flood of fear she’d pushed away coming back in full force. It wasn’t what he said. It was the way he said it. That voice. It was ruthless and unrelenting. Anything said with that voice would bring her the greatest pleasure, the greatest pain, or the greatest humiliation. Most likely all three. She wanted to run from that voice and never look back. The only problem was that while she was running, she was likely to circle back and run toward it again—his inexplicable pull on her was that strong.
She scooted her chair back and went to him. His hand, ran over her bottom through the sundress she’d put on.
“Are you wearing panties?”
The men stopped eating, forks clanging against plates as they fell. They looked at her, waiting. It didn’t appear odd to them that the question was being asked. They just wanted to hear the answer.
“Yes, Sir,” she said, finally killing the stutter. It could still come back. It was early yet.
“That disappoints me. Take them off.”
What was the point? Nothing she did would ever be good enough. She’d never be Trish, even if she followed his orders to the letter every moment for the rest of her life.
Where had that come from? She pushed past the urge to fight him on the panty issue and turned to go inside.
