Mirror of My Soul (20 page)

But, oh, he looked so good sitting there. He was dressed more casually than she’d ever seen him in Tea Leaves. Well-fitted jeans, dark T-shirt, a day’s worth of stubble. In order to be in her tearoom when she’d talked to him on the phone less than ten hours 100

Mirror of My Soul

before, he must have taken a red eye home. He looked dangerous, all the more because he didn’t move when he saw her, just pinned her with that tiger’s gaze.

She tightened her chin and her resolve. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“I was told to go to hell. My connecting flight was delayed so I thought I’d drop in.”

She raised a brow. Stopping at station four, she laid out the stack of napkins. She took up one by the two corners and did the first fold, though it took all her

concentration to keep her hands from shaking. He had to get out of here. Didn’t he know she couldn’t do this, couldn’t want anyone this much? She knew just how his hands would feel on her, his mouth.

“You’ve never paid any attention to anything I’ve told you to do before. Why

would you start now?”

He stayed quiet. He was probably trying to figure out how to manipulate this

situation, get her to be as absurd as he always seemed to make her. Insane was a better word than absurd. But not this time. This was her territory, her fortress, where she could best keep the nightmares at bay, and she was not leaving it again. Resentfully, she wished fairy tales were true, specifically the one about unwary knights being turned into toads when they ventured uninvited into a sorceress’s palace.

She was messing up the design. Picking it back up, she shook it out and started over again. Her fingers kept twitching involuntarily, more and more as the silence grew.

Or a herd of swine. She’d keep him as a pet and let him wallow in a mud puddle in her private garden. Feed him scraps.

Even as she dwelled with satisfaction on the image, her radar picked up on a

different quality to the quiet. A dangerous shift. She glanced up. His gaze had settled on her throat, the decorative scarf she wore around it, tucked into the neckline of the sleeveless button-down blouse she wore loose over the pleated broomstick skirt. She quickly turned away, but spun around as she heard his chair scrape back. In a flash, she moved to put a table between them. “Stop,” she warned, gesturing with the napkin.

Thinking better of it, she put it down to keep both hands free.

She resisted the urge to put her hand over the scarf, over whatever part of her neck might be exposed. Last night, she’d done it in angry defiance and fear, but now, looking at his face, she thought she’d lost her mind. Proving that even when he wasn’t around, he was making her do insane things. A century or two of advances in women’s rights meant very little to a man like Tyler, who felt it was his job to protect a woman and give her hell when she didn’t follow his orders to do so.

“I told you what would happen if you did that again.”

“Chloe and Gen are here.” It was a desperate statement and she cursed herself for making it, for showing him that he’d unnerved her.

“You think that will protect you? You take one step back from me, I’ll throw that table through the wall and haul you up the stairs over my shoulder. Or you can lead me up there now and we’ll have this discussion in your room. Your choice.”

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“I don’t owe you a conver—”

His hand caught the edge of the table and she quickly sat on it. “Gen,” she called out, pulling back her lip in a snarl at him. “I’m going upstairs a moment. Will you watch over things?”

“Sure,” came the reply from the kitchen. “Take as long as you need.” A chuckle wafted out from Chloe, indicating they’d seen who their first customer of the day was, but Marguerite wasn’t seeing the humor of the situation. Not faced with a man of Tyler’s imposing stature who was obviously, genuinely furious with her. He made a gesture, a clear command for her to precede him up the stairs. She didn’t have to do so.

She could scream her lungs out, even stand in cold defiance and call his bluff…except she knew it wasn’t a bluff. She was trembling at the look in his eyes. And what was more terrifying to her was that all of her reaction was not fear. Any more than all of his was anger.

Chloe peered out, her smile vanishing as she looked between the two of them.

“Everything all right?”

“Fine.” Marguerite forced the words past her lips. Tyler moved. One step, two, to come around the table and take her arm. He brought her to her feet with a firm lift, drawing her hips off the table. Marguerite nodded to Chloe with a reassurance she did not feel as he guided her up the narrow staircase, down the hallway toward her room, away from the safety of an audience.

“Are you finished being overbearing and obnoxious?” She said it between gritted teeth because if she loosened her jaw she was sure they would chatter with nerves, the way her arm was vibrating under his touch.

“Is there anything you do that isn’t designed to take you a step closer to the other side?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No? The rituals, the ceremonies you surround yourself with. The way you cut

yourself off from everything and everyone, only allowing us so close. You’re a ghost.

You act like you died at fourteen and you’ve been conducting the damn funeral for your whole life, figuring out the most likely way to get yourself in the coffin in just the right way. So what is this?” In the privacy of her room, he let her go, gestured at her throat with an accusing finger. “A hope that one day something will go wrong so you can be a corpse stinking up your bedroom with your post-mortem bowel release?”

She drew herself up. “I won’t have this discussion. You’ve no right to make

demands on this part of my life.”

She’d always thought great levels of anger were like conflagrations. With Tyler, it was an arctic wasteland that frosted his gaze, living up to his surname and making her realize instantly she’d just said the worst thing possible.

“I’m in all parts of your life. If you’re determined to be in that coffin, you’re going to have to make it a bigger size as part of your ‘preparations’.”

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He closed the bedroom door with a snap. “I made a promise never to strike you

with anything other than my hand. I’m going to break that promise, because you broke one to me.”

“I never told you I wouldn’t do it again. I didn’t promise.” She backed away. “You don’t own me, Tyler. I’m not a child.”

“No, you’re not. But you know one of the reasons a child tests her parents, asks for punishment by being bad? Because it tells her that someone loves her enough to keep her safe. I’m not your father or your brother, but I’m your lover. You didn’t protect your neck under the belt so the strap would mark you. So you’d have to wear this.” He lashed out with a long arm and flicked the edge of the pale blue print scarf she’d worn, making her jump and despise her cowardice more. “You did it to test me in exactly this way.”

“I didn’t even know you were going to be here.”

“You knew I’d be here sooner than later. Take it off. Now.”

When she didn’t move, he stepped forward and her heart leaped, though she tried to maintain an indifferent outward appearance. “Marguerite.” His every syllable was carefully pronounced, underscoring the threat. “You won’t do this anymore because I’m telling you that you won’t. You belong to someone now. Me. And I take care of you, even if your greatest danger comes from yourself.
Take the goddamned scarf off
.”

She raised her chin defiantly, but her cold fingers rose, unknotted it, let it fall away.

Let him see the red mark of the belt, the light bruising.

His eyes coursed over it. His gaze rose, pinning her with a look she’d never seen before. A look that gave her chest wall jagged edges which stabbed her heart with every painful beat.

“I told you who I am, what I am,” she managed. “You can leave. No one’s holding you here.”

Though I’m afraid I won’t survive if you turn your back on me now. Which makes no sense.

I don’t need anyone.

Clenching her fists, she stared at him with as much disdain as she could manage, trying to reclaim her aloofness, her protective isolation in a room where she was almost overcome by his heat, his presence.

“Go away, Tyler. Just go the hell away.”

“Did you get the fucking orgasm you sought from it?” He loosened his belt,

stripped it off him with one quick, deliberate movement. “Take hold of the bedpost.”

“Wh-what?”

“I’m going to spank you with my belt and then I’m going to fuck you hard and

strong with your ass still smarting to remind you not to defy me. Not about this. Not if you know what’s good for you.”

She stood staring at him, their expressions clashing for a solid minute. Her gaze shifted to the door.

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“Don’t try it,” he warned, low. When he closed the last gap between them, it took all she had not to step back for she was afraid of the swirl of emotions roused in her by the implacable resolve in his eyes. He took her arm and turned her, wrapping her fingers around the post. Reaching under her skirt, he caught the elastic of her panties and pulled them down to her feet. He left them at her ankles, the lace draping the straps of her heeled sandals. His hand went to the small of her back, pushing her lower, and the other moved under her waist to cant her ass upward. Folding the skirt into the small of her back, he pulled her back a couple awkward steps with her ankles manacled in her underwear.

“Stand just like that,” he said, his voice thick with arousal and other things she didn’t want to face. “Ten licks. They’re going to hurt.”

She heard the snap of his belt as he doubled it, tightened her fingers on the post.

His hand moved down her waist over the curve of one flank, caressing the whiteness of her skin, making her even more aware of what he was about to do to that delicate flesh.

“You will never, never choke yourself again, Marguerite. Not ever. Do you

understand?” His tone sharpened. “Answer me.”

“I understand.” Her voice shook. Though she tried to infuse it with anger, it was lost in the nerves.

“Tell me you’ll obey. You’re right. You didn’t promise before. But you will now.

Tell me you won’t do it ever again. Once you say it, I know I can trust your word.”

And trust him to take care of her demons. She shut her eyes, thinned her lips, fighting a compulsion she didn’t understand. Tears wanted to swell into her eyes, but not because he was hurting her physically. In a way she couldn’t explain, barely understood, she wanted to say yes to him. To say that she would obey, that she was sorry, as if the apology was to herself as much as to him. But punishment…she wanted, needed the punishment first.

The belt slapped her buttocks with exceptional accuracy and strength, though she’d had no doubt it would. She found for all that Tyler supposedly didn’t flog his submissives much, he knew exactly how to do so. What he was doing wouldn’t break the skin, but he intended to leave welts, a way for her to remember the lesson for several days afterward. Maybe a week, she thought, as the next stripe came. Her breath expelled sharply on the third as real pain sang through her nerve endings. But another reaction was occurring at the same time. Her cunt was dripping her response onto her legs. Between the third and fourth stroke he reached down and fondled her, running his fingers through the slickness. She moaned, raising herself higher for him. At the fifth and sixth, she cried out.

“Tell me you’re not going to do this again. Now. Or I swear to God I’ll give you ten more.”

“I’ll… I won’t do it again.”

“Promise me.”

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She bit down on her own arm to keep from screaming as seventh, eighth and ninth cut into her tender flesh.

“I promise.”

The tenth blow landed. Even as she was gasping for breath from the throbbing pain, he had her arm and pulled her up to hold her against him. The skin of his arms pressed hot and demanding against her back. When he dropped his grip down, caressed her hips with rough, demanding hands, she thought the ache was going to explode in her chest like a wound as he deliberately squeezed her raw buttocks hard. She struggled against him and he turned, pushed her down on her stomach on the bed, holding her there a moment to keep her still, his hand running over her sore ass, quivering under his touch. “Christ, I’m so furious with you.”

When she closed her eyes, the tears burned. He was right. Since she was seven

years old, no one had punished her because they loved her. Because they cared if she lived or died. Because they wanted her to stay safe. Or were scared of losing her. She should hate him, be angry at him for humiliating her, but she didn’t feel humiliated.

She yearned for something, another way to punish her, a way to take her, invade every part of her, make his claim one that could not be denied.

“You haven’t…” Her voice was thready, such that the words almost weren’t

coherent to her own ears. “Taken me there yet. Put your cock there.”

His fingers stilled on the crease of her buttocks, his other hand resting on her back, over her scars. His reaction made her wonder if Komal had told him that one shameful thing.

“No.” The roughness of his voice hadn’t abated, but the tone gave her the answer to the question. Her heart was shattering and only he could pick up the pieces. “I won’t punish you that way. No.”

She pushed against her hands and rolled to her back to stare up at him. He was standing over her looking angry and anguished all at once. And so terribly dangerous and sexy.

“I need you to. I want to feel you’ve been everywhere in me, that your come has scalded his away. It’s an illusion, but if you do it once, I can make it real.” She caught the waistband of his jeans, pulled herself up so her chin was resting on his hard flat stomach, her fingers digging into his thighs. “Don’t ask. Don’t ever ask me for anything again. Take me. Your slave is begging you. Punish me when I need it, never make me doubt whose Will I have to obey. Whose love will protect me from the darkest shadows, especially the ones I carry inside myself.”