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“Mina… did I lose you?” Lindsay urged her back to the present. “Yes or no on intercourse? I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me, or this won’t work.”
“I mean, Icando intercourse. It’s not like I’m broken.” But wasn’t she?
“I’m marking,no. This isn’t about what you can try to cope with without becoming catatonic. We’re talking ideal situations. Let me see what I can find for you. At that point we can decide if any concessions need to be made.”
Of course concessions would be made. Why was he pretending to give her the option to opt out of the one sexual act that even vanilla society had deemed mandatory or it wasn’treal sex?
This wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t trust that Lindsay had the power to stop her from being hurt by whatever random pervert he hooked her up with. And she didn’t buy that he had access to such a man in the first place.
She took a deep breath and laid out clearly and succinctly what she wanted. “No penetration. No physical pain. Everything else is okay.” She was sure any theoretical master would ask what else could there possibly be if all of that was off the table?
She expected Lindsay to laugh at her. These things didn’t exist. Anywhere. Maybe if she built a robot, she could program him to her exact weird specifications.
“Okay. Are you serious about this? If I find someone who meets these needs for you, will you do it?”
Mina waited for the punchline, but it didn’t seem to be coming.
“I’m asking for impossible things, and… I’ve got these scars. Even if you could find some completely bizarre man who would go along with all of this, he wouldn’t want me once he saw the scars.” And he probably wouldn’t be able to deal with the drama of her emotional scars, either.
“May I see them?” Lindsay asked.
“I-I’d have to take off my shirt.”
He raised a brow and leaned back in his seat. It was a challenge. It was a dare. And a small part of her buzzed with excitement, because it was also a show. God, what the fuck was wrong with her? Even now, after everything, she was so fucked in the head.
Mina stood and turned around. She unbuttoned the silk top and let it slide off her shoulders. She’d never shown anyone her scars in full light—at least not anyone who wasn’t beating or fucking her. She’d worried that if things progressed with Tony, she’d have to insist on sex with the lights off.
He’d think she was a prude or insecure, but it would be better than him seeing what had been done to her and maybe getting sadistic ideas of his own.
Circular marks from cigarettes ran down the backs of her arms and her legs. There were whip scars and knife scars on her back. Most of it had healed enough that she didn’t look like a total monster, but the scars were definitely distracting. Mina couldn’t imagine how they wouldn’t be.
She jumped when a warm finger traced one of them.
A whimper left her throat.
“Yes, you definitely need a proper master. I don’t think this will be a problem. You’d be surprised the number of men who have a hero complex and wouldn’t mind at all. You can put your shirt back on.”
Mina’s fingers shook as she struggled to get the buttons back in their holes. When she sat, the doctor pressed a cup of tea into her hands.
“It’s camomile. It’ll soothe you.”
She took a sip and gathered the courage to say what she’d wanted to say since she’d stepped into his office. “Do you have somebody? A pet or slave or sub or whatever?”
Lindsay shook his head. “Between my work here and… my other work… I don’t feel I have the time or energy to devote to someone like that.”
“Oh.”
He was letting her down easy.
She stared into the cup, trying not to notice as he moved closer to her and leaned against the desk, his leg a mere inches from hers. All one of them would have to do is shift the barest amount to be touching the other.
She flinched when his hand brushed her cheek.
“Mina, look at me.”
She looked up, wishing she could bury all the vulnerability she’d allowed this man to see, wishing he wanted her because if there was a single person on the planet who could give her faith that this could work and that she could be happy, it was Lindsay.
“It’s not that I’m not attracted. I really don’t have time. I can’t give you what you need outside this office.”
