Breathe (25 page)

When she looked up into Elijah’s eyes again, he most certainly did not look pleased.

“What happens to subs who don’t do as they’re told?” His eyes darkened, as did his expression, and Samantha involuntarily sucked in a breath.

When he looked at her like that, she wanted to melt and give in to him. But Beth’s phone call had left her edgy, not in full control of her emotions. So even though she wanted to look down, to submit, instead she found angry words slipping from her lips.

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” She cringed as she spoke, well aware of how bratty she sounded, well aware that he could turn and walk away at any moment. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else.

“Don’t dare your Dom, little one.” Elijah stepped closer to her and threaded his hand in her hair, tugging until her scalp prickled. “You won’t like the results.”

Her breath shuddering in and out of her lungs, she looked him right in the eyes, defiant and upset. She expected to find only displeasure, to see disappointment. And that was there, certainly.

But so was understanding. When she saw that empathy, a tremor passed over her and the anger drained out through her.

Dropping her stare to the ground, she sank stiffly onto her knees, wanting nothing more than to make it up to him, though she still didn’t see how she could force herself to share this part of her past with him.

Damn it, why couldn’t he just let the past stay in the past?

Then he cupped her chin, forcing her to look up into his eyes, and she forgot everything except the need to please him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and contrition was a tight band around her heart. She was so damn mad at herself.

She’d finally found what she wanted—
who
she wanted—and she couldn’t let go of the past long enough to grab hold of it with both hands.

“It’s too late for sorry, Samantha.”

Her heart pounded as her gaze zeroed in on him.
What—? Was he saying—?

“Since openness and honesty continue to be an issue with you, and verbal warnings haven’t worked, let’s try something else.” Elijah began to slowly undo his belt buckle, and Samantha watched intently as her stomach did a slow roll.

He meant to punish her, right here, right on the rooftop of this hotel with Ted not twenty feet away. He would order her to suck his cock, or to use her hands . . .
something
.

Along with the kernel of fear, she felt an undeniable wash of heat.

“I see that the idea of punishment excites you.” In full-on Dom mode like this, Elijah barely seemed to be the same person who had on occasion demonstrated such tenderness. His voice was layered with something that made her want to obey.

“Since you haven’t earned the privilege of pleasure, I think I’ll withhold it for now.” A streak of cruelty colored his voice, and Samantha roused to it.

“Stand and remove your jeans.”

Pulled to her feet as though she were a puppet and he held the strings, Samantha looked over Elijah’s shoulder at the control booth for the roller coaster. Ted was standing in front of it, hands in his pockets, watching intently but not moving a muscle.

It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse, but a flicker of something in Elijah’s eyes gave her pause.

He
expected
her to back down. Thought she would use her safe word.

Damn him! There were parts of submission that didn’t come easily to her, but she was here because she wanted to be.

Grinding her teeth together, she undid the button and zipper of her pants. The hint of surprise that passed over Elijah’s face had grim satisfaction welling inside her.

Toeing off her sneakers, Samantha slid the stiff denim and soft lace of the clothes that Elijah had provided for her just that morning to the concrete beneath her feet and stepped out of them. Forcing herself to stare at the ground, she tangled the fingers of both hands together and waited. Every nerve in her body was on fire.

“Face away from me.”

Wanting with every fiber of her being to look up, to try to discern his feelings from his face, Samantha instead did as she was told.

“Bend your knees and place your hands on your thighs.”

Samantha shivered as she followed the instructions. As she rested her sweaty palms on tense thigh muscles, she grimaced at the sensation of exposure.

She felt like a naughty child, about to receive a spanking . . . which she very likely was. And the most perverse part of it all was that, mixed in with the humiliation, was an unfamiliar deep need.

She wanted to be punished for not obeying orders. Wanted him to give her no other choice than to tell him everything.

She heard the belt whistle through the air seconds before it landed on her backside. A choked cry escaped her as the bite of the leather shocked her senses, making her jolt forward.

“I’m not into extreme pain, Samantha. You know that.” Another sharp smack on her ass, another jolt. “And I’m not pleased that you’ve forced my hand, though that vanilla skin of yours does redden very nicely.”

Tears sparkled in her eyes as the third blow landed. Her ass was incredibly sore already, and she didn’t know how much more pain she could take. Yet despite the undeniable discomfort, she could feel herself growing wet and needy. Wanting him to fill that aching place inside her.

“I’m doing this because words aren’t getting through to you. I’m very nearly at the end of my patience.”

“No!” Panic was sharp and flashed bright inside her, and she tried to stand, to turn and face Elijah. But one final lash of the belt landed right over her mound before she could fully straighten, and arousal snapped through her hot and tight, making her moan aloud.

She waited, tensed, for the next blow. Instead, she heard the sound of leather rubbing against cloth as Elijah worked his belt back through the loops of his jeans. The panting of their breath, his and hers, was quickly carried away by the wind on the rooftop.

A single scalding tear spilled over, the wind drying it almost before it had fallen. Samantha shuddered, full of too many emotions, ablaze with arousal that only needed one more small touch to break free.

“Turn and kneel.”

Samantha obeyed instantly, dropping to her knees on the hard concrete. It was rough and scraped at her naked skin, but she didn’t care.

Over Elijah’s shoulder she could see Ted. Somehow, she’d completely forgotten that he was even there.

“Look at me.” Elijah’s voice was slightly softer, and when Samantha looked up she saw that he was feeling just as undone as she was.

“Tell me what you did wrong, Samantha, and apologize.” The expression that lay behind those eyes, as blue as the brilliant sky around them, was less scary than it had been earlier, but Samantha saw that he still wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“I tried to hide something from you. I’m sorry.” She meant every word. And more, as she looked up at Elijah, she found that she wanted to share everything with him—wanted to so badly that she could taste it.

Somehow she knew that he could make the nightmares go away. But as she tried her best to form the words and share her burden with him, they still wouldn’t come. She’d locked them down so deep that they were entirely petrified. Frantic, she searched Elijah’s face. Something flickered through his eyes as he saw that she still wasn’t talking, and then his expression became shuttered, neutral.

Dread washed over her. She would have preferred to see the thunderous rage to that blankness.

“Get dressed.” He waited, his hands stuffed in his pockets as Samantha drew her panties and jeans back up over her hips with trembling fingers, then slid into her sneakers.

“Let’s go.” Silently Elijah led her back across the roof and into the elevator. Instead of the casual intimacy that came with holding hands, this time he kept his hands tucked in his pockets, away from her, and Samantha felt as though a wall of ice had grown between them.

Panic had lodged inside her, and she wasn’t sure how to make it go away. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She knew how, but the words just wouldn’t come.

The ride down the elevator was excruciatingly silent, as was the drive back to In Vino Veritas and Elijah’s apartment. He helped her exit the low-slung vehicle, his face still stern.

“Samantha.” Elijah spoke only her name.

Hot tears blurring her vision, she turned back toward him reluctantly, though all she wanted to do was run and hide. She looked up at him with wide eyes, swallowing past the large lump in her throat.

“Samantha, I need you to understand something.” For the first time since she’d met him, Elijah looked as though he wasn’t in complete control of himself. The fact that she had done that to him was not a comfortable sensation.

“There is nothing that you can tell me that will shock me, or turn me off, or make me not want to be with you,” Elijah began, his face serious.

Samantha wanted nothing more than to run into his arms, to bury her face in his chest, but that invisible barrier kept her from doing it. She knew they would keep running into this again and again, until she was able to confess her secrets to him.

“You say you want to submit to me. I can help you with that, can push you past so many of your boundaries. But this . . . You need to find it in yourself to trust me—with anything. And if you can’t do that, then I’m not the Dom for you.”

Samantha sucked in a breath of searing Las Vegas air as the words Elijah
hadn’t
spoken rang through the air.

You need to open yourself to me fully, or we’re through.

Stunned, panicked, she followed Elijah into the elevator that led up to his apartment. She stared at her toes, clad in the new, bright pink sneakers that she’d found that morning, and felt like she was going to be sick.

By the time the elevator had reached the apartment, she’d reached one conclusion. Elijah was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She wasn’t about to just let him walk away.

As they exited, Elijah turned toward her, his mouth open as if he was about to say something. Though she suspected she was breaking all kinds of submissive rules, she interrupted, needing to say what was in her head.

“Please. Give me a minute.” Not daring to look up into his eyes, Samantha looked down at the floor as she instinctively dropped to her knees, laying her hands in her lap, palms up. She had seen other submissives doing this at the club the other night, and it seemed like the thing to do at that moment.

“My sister called to tell me that someone . . . someone from our past might be back in our mother’s life. That’s all it was.” Samantha swallowed past the unease that the very thought of Stanley brought to coat her throat. “This person . . . I can’t say he ruined our family—that was on my mother’s shoulders. But he sure didn’t help. I’ve spent a long time trying to forget he even existed.

“I wanted to tell you earlier. So badly. But after so many years of shoving it away . . . it’s like it’s frozen inside me.” Steeling herself, she looked up, looked into Elijah’s eyes. He was regarding her thoughtfully, though she couldn’t gauge the expression on his face.

“I don’t know how to say I’m sorry in this world,” she whispered, shifting uncomfortably on her knees. “But I am. I’m sorry I didn’t just tell you this. And I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more. Please understand. Reliving it . . . it just might kill me.”

•   •   •

N
othing could have stunned Elijah more than when Samantha dropped to her knees in front of him. Though he hadn’t taught her the position, she had sunk to her knees as if she’d been doing it her entire life.

And when she apologized . . . it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.

Still he couldn’t overlook the fact that she wasn’t confiding in him completely. Why couldn’t he make her understand that there was nothing she could say that would turn him away?

“I’m tempted to push you right now, little one.” He studied her body language as he spoke, noted the sudden and complete tension that racked her frame.

She was terrified of revisiting whatever it was her memory held, and that made it a hard limit, at least for now. It would be detrimental to try to convince her to open up any more right now.

Bending at the waist, he offered her his hand, helping her up from her knees. Catching the side of her face in his fingers, he turned her toward him until she had no choice but to look right at him.

“Thank you for telling me as much as you did.” Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her up until he balanced her entire weight. She sighed and buried her head into his chest, and the contentment that wrapped over him was strange and new.

In his bedroom, he gently placed Samantha on the bed—noting that she winced when she landed on her bottom—then crossed to the bureau. He extracted a thin, silky slip and a pair of sheer panties from the clothing he’d bought her. He contemplated a pair of sky-high, sexy-as-sin red pumps, then decided she would go barefoot for the night.

“Put on these items, and only these.” Crossing to the bed again, he placed the lingerie in Samantha’s lap. She looked at them, then at him, and he watched as her nipples hardened beneath her cotton T-shirt.

“Are we going to the club?” Her voice was soft and contained the faintest hint of a tremor.

Elijah glowered down at her, watching as she sucked in a breath and looked down at her sneakered feet. The pink tennis shoes were adorable on her, but the way he was feeling, nothing but naked skin and restraints would do.

“Do not ask questions. Do not speak until I give you permission.” He wasn’t normally so formal with his subs, but he was in a mood. “Dress in what I have given you. Meet me at the elevator in precisely ten minutes.”

He noted the tinge of pink that flushed her skin, the shine that came into her eyes as he took control away from her.
Now
it was time to push her, though it likely wouldn’t be in a way that she expected.

He crossed his bedroom, pausing at the door to look back at Samantha. With her pink cheeks, bright eyes, and messed hair, she looked entirely fuckable, and he wanted nothing more than to tear her clothes away, flip her over, and drive himself into her from behind.