Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“What happened then?” she asks, eyes burning.
A laugh forces its way out of my throat, sharp and empty. “Nothing. My father took care of it, of course. He paid the guy off after he recovered. Buried the records. And I barely cared. I was such a selfish little shit. I didn’t feel a thing.”
“Until what?” she challenges. “What changed?”
My mouth opens—and nothing comes out.
Because this is the part I never say. The part I never let myself think.
“My mom,” I finally force out, voice thick. “She’d died a couple of years before.” I exhale hard, willing the words to keep coming, to cut me open like I deserve. “But my father always told me she was just another gold-digging whore. That she never wanted me. That he was the one who wanted an heir, and she just used the pregnancy to trap him.”
Moira stays silent, but I can feel her watching me.
I don’t look at her. I can’t.
I focus on her knees. The candlelight flickering against the floor. Anything but her eyes.
“I believed him.” My lips twist, bitter. “Because why wouldn’t I? He said she’d signed me away without a second thought. That she never fought for me. And then one day… I was looking for something in my father’s office.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
Say it.
“I found proof. Court papers. She never stopped fighting for custody until the day she died of cancer. She was still filing for visitation rights even when I was sixteen.”
Moira exhales sharply.
My jaw locks. “My father fucking stole her from me. He wanted a trophy for a son. An heir of his own creation. But my mother, she just wanted me. All that time. She’d wanted me. And I—I just believed him and never fought for her.”
I hate myself for how easily I let him shape me. How desperate I was for every ounce of his approval.
How pathetic I was, playing along with his game. Trying to be him.
I drop back to my knees.
And I look up at her.
I beg.
“Kick me again. But this time for real. I can take it. Please. Humiliate me. Hurt me.”
Her mouth presses into a tight line. Then, slow and deliberate, she points to the ground.
“Face to the floor.”
I don’t hesitate. I drop.
And pray for once in my life to feel the weight of my sins pressing in on me.
I hear her hop off the altar and watch, my cheek cemented to the cold wood. Her bare feet walk out of my sight and she pauses, maybe to get something from a pew? Then she comes back toward me.
“Shove your pants down.”
I obey immediately, lifting my ass enough to unbuckle and shove my pants down. Whatever she’s about to do, I just pray she makes it hurt.
Almost as soon as I’ve got my pants down, she smacks my butt with something thuddy that’s barely more than a gentle massage. I should know. I used it on her once.
A Bible.
Cute, but I’m selfishly furious at her gentle treatment.
How does she not get it yet? I am not a good man. I deserve all the punishment she has to heap on me. Real punishment. Not the gentle kind I’ve given her during training.
So I disobey, jumping up to my knees again.
The devil in me will goad her if that’s what it takes.
“You showed up on my doorstep that first night, bruised, and I never tracked down the motherfucker who did it to you. Fucking hit me for being a cowardly motherfucker because I should have ended him by now!”
She drops the Bible and slaps me.
It sends a rush straight to my dick.
Goddamn her. She slapped me correctly. In the BDSM world, there is a correct way to slap if one is trained. And Moira’s obviously been trained.
I’m being the biggest bratty asshole bastard right now, as much as I ever was in my youth, and she’s seeing me at my childish worst.
But she’s the one staying in control.
Which means, for once, I can let all my tightly wound restraint completely fucking unravel.
Holy shit. I really have met someone I can give my trust to completely.
It is possible.
“Again,” I beg.
She slaps me again.
My cock goes hard as fucking stone.
“I love you,” I gasp.
She slaps me again, this time on my other cheek, and I can’t stop the rest of my confessions from pouring out.
“I’ve been obsessed with you since the day we met. I stalked you night after night at the club and watched from the shadows to see when you’d come and go. I wanted you. Your body. I wanted to lose myself worshipping your cunt. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every hour of every day. You’re the only person in the whole world who wants the real me. Maybe you won’t now, now that you know everything, but I love you—”