Liana

 

 

 

“Joseph, please-”

“Don’t call me that!” he yells, pointing at me from afar. “It was a mistake to ever tell you my name. I never should have done that. All of this. All of this was a huge fucking mistake!”

His voice is so loud and filled with pain that I can feel it rumbling in my own heavy chest.

“Please-”

I’m interrupted by him punching the wall next to the dresser. The sheer brutality of his fist ramming into the wall makes me jump to my feet and hurry away from him, clutching the towel around my body.

He’s hyperventilating, his fist flying into the wall again and again, with so much force that plaster is falling down around him. But the biggest damage is what he’s inflicting on himself. His knuckles are leaving bloody prints on the white wall as he keeps punching it in a furious rampage. He’s growling with every punch, but it’s not the pain of the impact that tortures him.

His agony runs deeper than that.

“Stop it!” I yell at him from afar. “Jose-”

I stop and correct myself. “Master! Stop it! You’re hurting yourself!”

He keeps going, his bloody fist slamming into the wall again and again. Each impact feels like a dagger to my heart. Seeing him hurt himself over something I did to him is too much to bear. I’m choking, my heart racing in panic, as I watch helplessly.

I can’t let this happen. I need to stop him.

“Master!” I yell again, this time running toward him. His destructive frenzy scares the hell out of me, but my worry for him overpowers any sense of fear I might have for my own safety.

“Master,” I say again, trying to calm my voice to a soothing tone, as I let go of the towel and wrap my arms around him from behind, evading his vicious fist. My embrace is fueled with trust and empathy running stronger than fright. My only concern is for him, his safety, his sanity.

His body is hard and tense when I first force my touch on him, but I can feel him relax instantly. The towel falls to the floor, leaving me naked and exposed as I press myself against his strong and rough body.

His fist comes to a halt, pressed against the wall while his breathing settles to a calmer rhythm.

“Master,” I whisper. “Please, don’t do this to yourself. You’re hurting me more than you hurt yourself.”

He’s shaking, slowly moving his fist away from the wall, while his other hand finds mine, grasping it in a tight grip. I flinch in surprise when he turns around in a sudden motion, pulling me toward him in a close embrace. I know he doesn’t want me to see it, but I notice the threat of tears shimmering in his eyes before he pulls me in for a kiss, taking my face between both his hands while our tongues entwine in desperate need for each other.

I can smell the blood on his knuckles as it gets smeared across my cheek, mixing with the tears that are running down my face.

He breaks our kiss, staring into my teary eyes with a gaze of dark significance.

“You have to leave,” he whispers.

I gasp in shock.

“No,” I object. “I don’t want to leave.”

But he shakes his head.

“You have to leave, now,” he insists. “I’ll pay you whatever you ask for, but you cannot stay here. Not after what has happened.”

“What?” I breathe. “You can’t be serious.”

I place my hands on his, wincing as I touch the blood on his right knuckles.

“Master, I don’t want to leave,” I say, my lips trembling as I suppress the urge to cry. “I want to stay here. I lo-”

“No,” he interrupts, shaking me. “You betrayed me. You made me a criminal. You knew, and you didn’t tell me. This was supposed to be my game, my rules, under my control. You took all of that away from me and made the game yours.”

I try to shake my head at his accusations, but I can’t because he still holds me in a tight grip.

He pauses, adding a hysteric laugh between his ranting.

“I gave you a fucking collar,” he adds. “A fucking collar.”

I choke up under another rush of tears that takes away my ability to speak.

“You may not be a whore, but you can’t be trusted,” he hisses. “You bewitched me like a fucking succubus. You made me lose myself, and play fucking boyfriend and girlfriend with you. I fell for your fucking tricks. You made me believe things that weren’t there.”

“That’s not true!” I disagree. “I never tricked you. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I never played you. Everything has been honest and real. Everything we did was true-”

“No!” he barks. “It was all based on a lie, an imbalance of knowledge that put you in power. You fucking witch!”

I’m sobbing in his hold, simultaneously glaring up at him with determination. He’s angry, but I can tell that he’s not really angry at me. He’s angry at himself.

“The only person who fell for anything was me,” I say through compressed lips. “I fell for you. I may not be the woman you ordered, but I want to be yours.”

I halt for a moment, trying to regain my composure.

“I’m proud to wear your collar,” I say in a suppressed whisper. “I don’t do it because you pay me to.”

Despite the ferocity of a hurt beast still apparent in his gaze, I can see him softening to my words. He has every reason to feel betrayed, and he’s told me enough about himself and his past to enable me to make sense of this outburst.

He’s all about control, a safe setting, an agreed upon arrangement, set in a safe and consensual setting. His mistake and my knowledge about it turned all of this upside down.

He needs to know that he’s not to blame, and that I had to intention of playing him.

“You might have made a mistake,” I breathe, fixating on his tormented gaze. “You didn’t take the woman you ordered, but you did take the right woman.”

His eyes flicker with confusion.

“This was meant to happen,” I add. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”