Page 50 of Over the Line
“Now I spend time chasing my dreams.” She swept her hand wide. “It’s not any different from you owning half the state. We’ve made different choices. Mine are right for me. And I don’t have any hoofed pets.”
Michael resisted her attempts to divert the subject away from herself. “Who hurt you, Sydney?”
She exhaled.
Five minutes ago, she’d come apart in his arms. And now she was a totally different woman.
“You’re not going to quit until you get your answers.”
She was one hundred percent right. “Your earlier comment is an important one. That being submissive means someone is beneath you.”
Her jaw tightened, which told him all he needed to know. “I’m hoping you’ll trust me enough to continue the conversation. I want to understand you.”
The water caused goose bumps to rise on her skin. Either that, or it was a result of her emotional vulnerability.
“Lewis. That was his name.”
While she sorted through her thoughts, he waited.
“He collared me.” She scoffed. “I was young. Naive enough to believe in love and happily ever after. He was my first experience with BDSM.” She shrugged. “It was new. An adrenaline rush. As you can guess, I enjoyed it, and I went along with everything he said.”
“Because you didn’t know anything different.”
“And what happened?”
“Exactly.”
“After a few months, I got tired of being a doormat, of making him dinner so he could come home whenever the hell he wanted while I waited on my knees. And he didn’t want me working outside the house.”
Lewis wasn’t a Dom. He was an asshole who wanted total control.
Forcing himself to remain silent, Michael waited for her to speak again.
“Once, he locked me in our bedroom in that position for hours. He had a camera on me to ensure I didn’t move. I thought it would only be for a few minutes. But it wasn’t. Of course I got restless, so I shifted, then a couple of times I stood so I could stretch. I wasn’t allowed dinner, and he thrashed me for my disobedience.” She hesitated. “The bruises were still there almost two weeks later.”
Bastard.
“Then…” After trailing off, she gulped as if steadying her nerves. “The final thing that made me end it…”
Even after that, you stayed?
“He had a party one night at our place—his guy friends came over to play poker. He expected me to be their cocktail waitress, short dress, high heels. I was uncomfortable with the whole thing—I mean, they were vanilla friends, you know? I’d met their wives and girlfriends. It was humiliating.”
This time, her pause lasted a full thirty seconds, maybe more.
“Anyway, I accidentally spilled some whiskey, and Lewis snatched the bottle from me, then he grabbed my collar and yanked me over his lap.” As if trying to banish the memory, she rubbed her forearms. “He flipped my dress up then he started a horrible spanking. When his hand got tired, he told one of his friends to grab a big wooden spoon from the kitchen. I was screaming the entire time. That only made him madder.”
What in the actual fuck?
“So then he’s blistering my ass and my legs relentlessly, and I’m reaching back, trying to protect myself, and he’s catching my hands, my wrist bones, telling me he knows how much I liked it.”
Michael scowled. “Anything without your consent is abuse, Sydney.”
“Well, then his friends wanted to see him do it on my bare ass. So one of his friends yanked my panties down and then took out his dick to fuck me. I was frantic.” Her breaths came in frantic bursts. “We’d never discussed him sharing me, and I didn’t want this guy inside me. When I refused, Lewis was furious, shouting that I was his sub and had to do what he said. On some level, I realized he and his friends had planned this in advance. I kicked backward as hard as I could, catching that guy in the nuts. That caused enough of a commotion for me to get away.”
He curled his hands into fists. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
“It was a long time ago.”