Page 84 of At Her Pleasure

Yes. No. Stop. Think. He’s not in control. You are.

She stared at him, but she was remembering his metamorphosis on the patio. When he’d looked hit by a truck, then, like a freaking cyborg, he’d reset all the broken parts, restored the pleasant party planner façade.

But that look in his eyes…he couldn’t fully banish it. Just dress it up with smiles, charm, sexual charisma.

She’d wanted to tear him down and open him up tonight, and she had. It was her particular skill. Usually when she found the most vulnerable corner of a sub’s soul, she quietly closed the door and moved away. She wanted him to offer it to her, but she didn’t take it once he did. She’d never wanted to establish a trust that deep, and accept everything that went with it.

Could she close that door after he’d made it so personal? Her mind turned it over. She breathed. She thought. She considered.

Then she picked up the knife she’d used to cut the corset.

No one moment solved everything, but the sparring with Matt had reminded her of something vital. As did the presence of Ros and the others in the distant audience.

She knew who she was. She knew who she’d been. And she knew who Mick was. Even if he had lost himself.

She knew what he was really seeking. And needing.

Back in Jersey, he’d germinated the seeds of her present self. She’d found a place to plant and nourish the traits she valued. She’d pruned back the ones that wouldn’t serve her, even as they’d always be part of her.

So here she was. Mature and grown up. At last.

She advanced on the cross. Considered her actions as she looked at the canvas of his back. Among the scars already there and the newer marks she’d put upon him, it was time to add to the picture.

Wherever they went from here, he would remember it as belonging to this pivotal moment, another significant fork in the road they traveled.

“You never should have done this,” she said quietly. “You can’t make me doubt you. Or myself. How dare you even fucking try.”

She was faintly aware of the gasps as her arm came up, the blade sweeping in front of her.

She cut him from shoulder blade to hip, then went the other way, creating an X where the two lines crossed dead center between shoulder blades and the small of his back.

The blood spilled out, like from a brush loaded up with too much red paint and slapped against a wall. As before, the sharpness of the blade, the swiftness of her strike, meant pain came in the aftermath. His spine went concave, head snapping back, his breath a harsh gasp. When he looked her way, his gaze was drowning in fire, like Elle said in the song.

Yet aching for more. Demanding it. Screaming for it.

“No,” she said softly. “No, Mick.”

He’d made her care. He’d used her for this, to take her to this place. She wasn’t sure she could forgive him for that.

She stepped back.

The Mistress with her too-loud question was at the bar with Rae. No surprise there. The audience probably wondered if she was out of control, but just the opposite was true. She’d never felt so calm.

Cyn moved to the edge of the Pit, knowing a touch-base with Olivia was warranted. She could tell nothing from the DM’s flat expression, but before either woman could speak, Mick did. “Leave her alone.”

Mick leaned heavily against the cross, and his voice was hoarse, but those dangerous eyes were flashing at Olivia as if he thought she was ready to go after Cyn. “I didn’t safeword. Don’t. I wanted this. Leave her the fuck alone. It’s not that deep.”

He was shuddering. The ointment’s effect would last for some time, in his rectum, in the abraded skin, everywhere she’d marked, but especially in those two cuts.

Cyn turned back to Olivia. “He’s correct. I didn’t cut past the skin layers, so he won’t require stitches, and he has no problem with scars. But I can stitch them up if that’s what he wants.”

Though the idea of doing it, like she had that night in the cemetery, didn’t appeal to her. Intimate déjà vu wasn’t something she wanted to experience right now.

“Would you like me to address the Mistress’s concerns?” Cyn asked. Even to her own ears, her tone was eerily polite.

“No.” Olivia’s eyes flickered with mild alarm. “I’ll handle that. Is the scene over?”

Mick hadn’t used a safeword, but that was a sub’s safety net. If a Mistress knew it needed to be called before then, because the sub needed it, she needed it, or she just wanted to call it done, that was what happened.