A Dominant Man (17 page)

“I’m fine. Please, tell me.”

He leans back into his chair and runs his skilled fingers along hi
s stubble. He rises with a sigh and swaggers about his desk to meet me. He’s dressed in a white V-neck tee, worn-out loose jeans with shreds in the knees and upper thigh, dragging a little around his bare feet.

Oh, shit! He’s too fucking much.

“She’s furious with me.”

“Who gives a shit what she is
or isn’t? Why are we any concern of hers?”

“I do, and we aren’t. Let’s get you dressed.”

“No! Why do you care?”

“I don’t want her to take it out on you. She isn’t someone to mess with.”

“Neither am I. I can take care of her if need be and myself.”

“I’m sure you can. Look, we need to get you covered up, no
t only for your health, but for my sanity. It’s almost impossible to function when you’re soaking wet and naked as sin.”

“Ok,” I murmur.

I spin around and stride out of his study. He follows close behind. I sit on the bed, picturesque San Francisco glittering behind me. Hunt fluidly struts into his closet, and I take a moment to scan his bedroom.

I’m sitting on a
modern, Queen-sized bed, decked out in charcoal gray, Egyptian cotton sheets and a white comforter. It has a tufted, wingback headboard, upholstered in a black satin fabric. It lies on an enormous, scarlet rug covering a decent portion of the dark wood floor.

The furniture is an
elaborate assortment of modern, black-stain wood pieces. The walls are gray with the black and white erotic photos strategically hung about the room. My innocent photo seems out of place amongst them, and I feel shy all of sudden.

He reappears with clothes in hand, which he tosses on the bed.

“Let me get a towel.”

He goes into the bathroom and turns off everything I’d forgotten. He comes out with a couple towels in hand.

“Stand up,” Hunt orders.

I stand, and he dries off my hair.

“Bend over.”

I give him a raised brow, and h
e casts a shy smile that makes my heart pound out of my chest and my knees turn to jelly. They buckle under me, and I start to go down.

“Fuck!” he hollers, catching me in his
arms before I drop too far, holding me tightly to his chest. I hear his heart thumping and his irregular breathing. I feel the softness of his worn-out clothes on my bare skin. It’s arousing. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, weak ankles.”

“Weak ankles? Right, well, as long as you’re fine.”

“I’m better than fine
.”

“Bend over,” he breathes.

I do as he says, and he wraps my hair in the fluffy towel. I straighten up, and he soothingly wipes the moisture off my skin, carefully running the towel along my aching body.

“Put on the clothes.”

He’s crouching in front of me. I grab the black tee and loose sweatpants and throw them on, but they’re too big. I pull the drawstring as tight as they’ll go, but they hang low on my hips. He shifts the shirt and kisses along the edge of the pants just above my sweet V.

“Do you have anything else you want to talk about?”

“How else do you need control?”

“I need to control all things. I haven’t become
who I am without controlling every aspect of my life. I also have a profound understanding of the parts you can’t, which only gives me a greater need to control what I can.”

His confessions always stun me, probably because I don’t expect him to give anything when I haven’t. I wonder what he wasn’t able to con
trol and why it made him such a dominant man. I know he isn’t going to tell me without time and trust. I don’t know why, but I’m compelled to tell him everything, to let him inside my tortured past. I want him to know the darkest part of me.

“I was in a long term relationship with a boy I started dating my senior year of high school. I knew him since I was a preteen…”

I won’t look at him. I stare straight ahead at that angelic photo, trying to focus on the innocence of it. I can feel his intense green eyes drilling into me.

“Everything was excellent for the first six months, but then it went terribly wrong…”

Here goes nothing.

“The first time he attacked me was at senior prom
, when I danced with Chase. He took me up to the suite he reserved for an after prom party and my first time. He slapped me across the cheek and called me a whore. He told me I deserved to be fucked like one. That’s when he pushed me down on the floor and…raped me.

“It got worse from there. He beat and took sex from me frequently. He was really into choking and pain during sex. He used to cut the inside of my thigh and lick the blood off. He was a sadist. He enjoyed inflicting anguish and suffering…I was leaving for college up near Seattle, and I think he was scared of losing control of what I did. He had taken control of every aspect of my life, whom I saw, where I went, and how I dressed. I couldn’t understand what happened to the boy I once known…loved”

The words stumble out of me, burning as they come up like acidy vomit, tears well up in my eyes as I fight back the lump in my throat. The tears break free and stream down my cheeks, dripping onto Damian still knelt before me. I refuse to look at him. I can’t bear to see his face and the horror that likely wrenches it.

“When
Chase and I left for college, I thought things were going to get better, but they didn’t. He called constantly and filled my inbox with emails. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except class and such. The truth is I was terrified of and cared for him at the same time. I was his prisoner, and I didn’t know how to break free.

“He would visit me up at school and beat me for anything I’d done when he wasn’t around. Even when I hadn’t done anything, he would thrash me and tell me it was for things he didn’t know about. He took advantage of me more often with his demented games. This went on for about a year and a half.

“One weekend he beat and raped me so severely I ended up in the hospital. Chase found me lying on the living room floor of our apartment, bloody, beaten, and unconscious. When Chase figured out who had done it, he went to his hotel and kicked the living shit out of him. That was the end, and I didn’t see him after that.”

Tears soak my shirt, my eyes sting, and my throat feels clammed up. When I finally glance down at him, my tears liberally dot his horrified face, but when I take a closer look, his eyes are red and glazed over. Our tears mingle together on his beautifully pained face. Hunt’s jaw is clenched, brows furrowed, and eyes filled with hurt.

He rises quickly, scoops me up into his arms, and sits us on the bed, cradling me in his lap.

“My beautiful, broken angel. I’m so sorry you went through that.
” he purrs, swaying me in his arms, gently stroking my cheek. His eyes change from sorrowful, pale green pools to two blazing emeralds, burning with fury. “I’m going to track him down and fucking kill him. Did you press charges? Tell me you pressed charges.”

“No,
I refused and threatened Chase not to say anything. I couldn’t go through all that. It was too painful. The guilt and hurt manifested into acting out sexually, amongst other things. You probably found the articles on my wild college days. Now you understand why.”

I wrap my arms around his neck,
nuzzling my head into his chest, and he stiffens, letting out a low, pained moan. I let go and wrap my arms around his waist instead.

“
Chase helped me through it…After some time, we ended up together. We had what we thought was a foolish one night stand, but it turned into more.”

“Is that how it happened?”

“Yeah, he said he realized I deserved more, and we dated through the rest of college.”

“
You deserve everything. That’s something Chase and I agree on.” He scoops his fingers under my chin, tilting my face up to his. “Who was he?”

“I can’t tell you, not now
anyway.”

“You must hate me.”

I gawk up at him. “Why would I hate you?”

He avoids eye contact.

“Gabrielle, everything you went through, minus the rape, is an extremely demented level of what I do.”

“I
don’t hate you, the opposite in fact.” His green eyes shoot to mine. “What you do is different simply because it’s consensual. You aren’t doing it to bring down another human being like him. You don’t receive pleasure in torturing women. He was a fucking Sadist.”

“I can’t believe you would
ever
consider partaking in BDSM with me. I’m baffled that you didn’t go running out screaming when I told you what I wanted.”

“What you
want
. Damian, don’t you understand I don’t see him when I look at you. You’re the first person, besides my therapist, I’ve spoken to about this. You’re the only man I’ve felt
compelled
to tell. I guess I can sense you’re broken, too. I agreed to make an effort because I want to please you, and I think it could give me myself back.”

“You still want to try?”

His face is a mix of horror, disgust, and confusion.

“Yes. I’m the same person from five minutes ago, the only difference
is you have a better understanding of that girl.”

“I feel horrible about the proposition, how I treated you, all of those slaps on…”

I place my hand over his lips.

“Don’t, don’t do that. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been amazing, nothing like I ex
pected. I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t want things to change or for you to feel differently than before. I’m still the girl you had to have, and you’re still the man I can’t get enough of.”

“I had no idea this was the reason you don’t trust men. I thought it was because they would screw you and leave.”

“I trust
you
. It was more than a fuck-n-flee. I’ve had my share of those, but I wanted it. Hell, I’ve done it. I told you I wasn’t innocent. Do you believe I can handle you now?”

He has pity in his eyes, and his face is still tense.

“Don’t you dare pity me. I don’t want it from you. I want you to look at me with urgent hunger.”

“
Fuck-n-flee?”

“Fuck-n-flee, bang-n-bolt, screw-n-sp
rint. I have many names for it. Now, please, stop trying to change the subject.”

His face softens, but his eyes burn.

“Yes, I do believe you can handle me, and I
do
hunger for you. I don’t want anyone or thing more than you. When I thought you were done with me, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t work or concentrate on anything. Every time the phone rang, I hoped it was you. I couldn’t sleep or eat.

“
I would sit outside your building at night and watch your window while I thought of how I hurt you…”

“You did? Awww, that’s sweet and a bit creepy,” I gently tease, and he chuckles.

“
What do you expect? You pushed me away. I wasn’t allowed in your life. I needed to be near you, Gabrielle. I was dying inside.” He pauses and takes a deep breath, as if he were trying to stop himself from saying too much. “The reason I love that portrait of you is because it was the only thing I had of you.”

My heart is full of emotion for him, I’m not sure there’s room for anyone else. “That’s not true. I was with you every second we were apart, both my heart and mind. I was completely yours from the first night we met. I cried every night over the loss of someone I didn’t know was mine to lose.”

“Oh, my sweet Gabrielle, I’m so sorry for my behavior the past few weeks. I was yours from the beginning, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I wanted you more than I could comprehend. I struggled with myself when I first pursued you. I thought you couldn’t handle me, and I wasn’t good for you. I didn’t want to ruin the relationship between your father and I. I was your boss, and I didn’t think it would be appropriate. However, there was one thing out weighing it all; I need you more than a heartbeat. We hardly know one another, obviously, but I know what I want, and it’s you. I want you.”

He kisses me with a yearning more impassioned than any before. I thought I knew how desperate for me he was, but I was wrong, very wrong.

His hands clasp at me everywhere as if he doesn’t know where he wants to touch me more, and my hands follow suit. We graze and pet each other with our lips.

I
drag myself away from his eager lips and ask softly, “Can we go back to bed now?” My eyes heavy as the sexual fog takes over everything.

“
Will we ever get enough of each other?”

“
I don’t know about you, but I could drink you all day and still be thirsty.”

“Mmmm, same.
Nevertheless, I really need to get work done. Now that you’re back, I can finally focus on pressing matters.” I tilt my head to the side, my lips curved down at the corners. “Oh no, please, not the pout. Gabrielle, I need to get it done, or I’ll have to do it tomorrow, and I would rather spend it with you.”