Once the ropes fall away, Eli massages my limbs gently. His touch is vastly different to the way he just fucked me. As if he’s now closed off the side of him that’s volatile, the anger and rage hidden behind the gentleman that’s caring for me. I’ve never felt such an intensity as I do with him.

“Are you okay?” he questions in a low, calm tone. Caramel eyes meet mine, causing me to smile. Emotion is evident in his gaze. It warms me, as if he’s trying to hold me with a single glance. Keeping me safe from all I fear.

“Yes.” My own response is whispered as he helps me off the bench. A wobble in my knees makes him wrap his arms around my waist, tugging me against his warm skin. Lifting my gaze, I meet his. There’s a tenderness in his expression that steals my breath. The way he’s looking at me is not the way I expected him to. There’s too many emotions swirling around us, and even though I’ve known him for half my life, he doesn’t know me. At least, he doesn’t recognize me. I’m no longer a girl. I’m grown. A woman. A toy.

“This… I don’t…” he starts, but shakes his head. Lifting me easily in his strong arms, he sets me down on a plush leather sofa. The man is torn, I see it in the depths of his shimmering eyes. He’s warring with himself and I’m not sure how I can fix him. Or even if I want to. I like the broken man. His pieces fit with mine. It’s always been like that. I want to tell him. In this moment, right here, I think about confessing who I am. But when he turns his back to me, I feel it, that niggling in my gut. Fear. Anxiety. They grip me. Gnawing at my insecurities, at my addiction for him. This isn’t love. I’m stupid to think it is.

All we had was lust.

Voracious. Hungry. Dangerous.

The problem is, I fell. A long time ago. I fell in love with the man before me. And now I want more. I need more. “Eli—”

“I’m wrong for you on so many fucking levels, Giana. The darkness inside me, it’s… I want to hurt you. I want to make you cry.” He pivots on his heel, pinning me with a glare. “I want to fucking break you.” The words are hissed in a feral growl. But it’s when he drops to his knees before me, gripping my thighs as if I’m the one who can save him, that I realize he wants me more than I bargained for. I thought I would have to play a game with him. To make him want me. But I don’t. He holds onto me, his fingers pressing painfully into my flesh.

“I’m already broken, Elijah. Can you not see my fragments? They’re in your hands. Just look closer. See me,” I plead, the words unbidden, yet true, falling from my lips. I want him to see the girl he left. The one that gave him her heart and body. Our gazes are locked in a standoff. There’s no going back. I can never take back what I’ve just said.

He stares at me for such a long time, I wonder if he’s ever going to respond. I hold my breath, hoping for a miracle. Praying to a god that never gave me anything, that I don’t believe in, to just this once, show me this is real. “Who hurt you?” he asks again. The question he voiced earlier brings the bile from my stomach up to my throat, burning with the truths I want to tell him, but I don’t. Instead, I push his hands from my legs and stand.

I wish he wouldn’t ask me questions that I can’t give him the answers to. If he knew, there’d be no way he would keep me. I want him to keep me. To own me.

“Giana, you can trust me. I need to know what you’re hiding.”

“I don’t trust anyone, Eli. It’s nothing personal, but my life, my past, isn’t something I like to talk about. All you need to know is that I’m here, if you want me.”

His hand on my shoulder stills me, and the warmth of his breath fans over my cheek. “Look at me,” he orders.

Turning to face him, I try to lift my gaze. My lips quirk into a wry smile, one to offer some indication that I do trust him, but I can’t give him more than I am right now.

“I want you. Be mine. Let me own both your mind and your body. I’m not asking for your heart because I can’t give you mine. When you walk in here, you’ll be my toy. But there is one cardinal rule I have that you cannot break.”

The earnestness in his voice is enough to have my heart stuttering. It wants to leap into his hands and beg for ownership, but like he said, it’s not what he wants.

Need overrides my fears. “What is the rule?” I ask.

“Never lie to me, you need to tell me the truth. Everything. Or I will find out on my own.”

The demand in his words are clear. If I don’t tell him, he will use his own sources to find out why I’m so fucked up. Why my life took the turn it did. And he’ll also find out who I really am. What I’ve been through with William, the man who owned me, is something I’d rather not have anyone find out. The vile things, the disgusting agony I endured with him, is something I want buried. Only, I know that secrets don’t stay six-feet under for long. Skeletons always escape their closets that we hide them in.

I was forced into the life I led for so long. Made to hurt. Made to crave the pain and the chaos that turned me into the addict I am. The pain he bestows on me makes me ill and it turns me on. My mind is warped, convincing me that sex is bad, but it feels good. Being spanked, whipped, and caned makes me wet and turns me on. Although, right now, there’s only one man who can do that to me, and he’s standing before me waiting for me to give him an answer. Shaking my head, I turn away once again. I can’t meet his inquisitive stare right now.

“Giana—”

“No, I can’t tell you right now. I need time.” I can’t believe I’m thinking of telling him the truth. About telling him what happened to me the day after he walked out. The day he left me there, in that hell. How my mind is shattered into a million pieces and I have no control of my actions. Since being owned by a monster, I’ve found a way to hide the urge to hurt myself and that’s how my love of pain has made me who I am today. I have control.

He tugs me from the sofa, pulling me over to the wall opposite the wooden table where he had me bound and helpless only moments ago. “Bend over and hold the railing.” His raspy, gruff command drips anger, frustration, and desire. The silver pole that adorns the cabinet before me beckons with a shiny glint. I reach for it, bending at the waist. I’m too aware that we’re both still naked. We’re both still trembling with need. The air is thick with yearning and lust. It’s heavy, like a weight hanging over us, making sure we’re slaves to it.

“What are you doing?” My question goes unanswered and the anticipation that sizzles through me is enough to have my legs weakening. I’m in for a punishment, I don’t know what it is, but god knows I need it. My clit throbs, my pussy is soaked with a mixture of our release, and my inner thighs are sticky with Eli’s cum staining my flesh.

“You are going to answer me. With each unanswered question, I’ll whip you. This cane,” he murmurs as he trails the thin wooden stick over my bare ass, “is going to lick your skin the way I would. Only, it’s going to hurt a hell of a lot more.” Without warning, he brings the bite of pain down on my flesh, which has me raising up onto my toes and yelping into the candlelit room.

“Eli—”

“Tell me who hurt you, Giana,” he orders. With another swat on my ass, I bite down on my lower lip so hard I draw blood. The metallic taste is enough to have the memories flooding back. Images slam into me; behind my shut eyes, I see clearly. Each sordid picture is pure agony. More so than the wooden cane burning into my ass each time he whips me.

“I can’t.”

“Toy, you are to obey me,” he grunts angrily.

There’s no choice in the answer because if I don’t tell him, I’d be breaking a rule. An unspoken one, but one nonetheless. I hear the whoosh in the air of the cane. I feel the sting again and again.

I lose count of how many times he brings it down onto the cheeks of my ass. The burn, the beautiful sting, is intense. And my brain, my exquisitely sick mind, revels in it. My pussy aches, throbs, and pulses. I’m soaked from the smarting.

I think it was twenty when he bites out through clenched teeth. “I’m not going to—”

I don’t let him finish as the confession falls from my lips. “My uncle!” I cry out. I let out the acknowledgment that I’m tainted. I’m not the sweet girl everyone thinks I am. The tears that I was holding onto for so long spill. Dropping my voice to a mere whisper, I repeat the words I never told anyone. Not the doctors, not my parents, and not even my best friend.

The harsh echo of the wood dropping to the floor surrounds me. But it’s not that sound that allows me solace, it’s when Eli thrusts his hard cock into my pussy so deep I feel him in my stomach. “Your cunt is mine. Do you hear me, Giana? Every fucking inch of your body is now mine. I’m going to fuck all those memories from you. I’m going to take your mind and salvage what I can, and then I’m going to rebuild you into something more.”

His vow is more than I can handle. My sobs are loud, echoing around us. As the emotions drip steadily down my cheeks, I remember the moment I became different to my friends. The memory expunges itself from me. I was no longer innocent. I was a broken girl, worthless and tainted. The fat tears also allow the pain from the Master who tortured me to dissipate in that moment. It’s not the pain of his whip or cane, but of my past that relinquishes me of my sick history.

I want Eli to save me. I need him to give me more, and he does. His body slams mine against the cabinet. His hands are gripping my hips painfully. Strong fingers bite into the flesh, pinning me in place. We’re no longer two people, but one as our bodies fit together like they were meant to.

The sounds of sex—slapping skin, grunts, and moans—swirl in the room, surrounding us in pleasure. And as Eli ploughs into me, I let go of everything. Sadness and relief runs in salty tears down my cheeks. He grips my hair, tugs me back against his chest and my lips find his. The kiss is brutal, it’s all consuming, he’s stealing every breath and giving me his instead. We’re one. Connected. Molded into one sweaty being, made of lust and desire. Of darkness and the filth of my past. His cock hits a spot inside me, and I see stars.

“Come for me, Toy. Come on my dick because I fucking own you now.”

And I do. My body obeys him and my mind… it’s convinced. This man will be my undoing. And I’ll be his.