Reconstructing Meredith (27 page)

I took a few steps back, drawing her with me.

“Do you still want to suck my cock, Meredith?” I growled, sliding my hand up the back of her neck.

“Yes, Sir. Please.”

“That’s what I thought.” I twisted her hair around my hand and put her on her knees. Not hard enough to be unduly painful when she hit the floor, but with enough force to make it clear she
would
go down.

She half-yelped, half-whimpered, licking her lips as she waited for my next command. She made no advance. There was no fear in her posture or expression, no preemptive flinch or recoiling from an anticipated punishment. Simply surrender. She was unafraid, and patiently waited for me to wield the power she’d given me.

I loosened my grasp on her hair. She still didn’t move. Swallowing hard, she waited.

“Good girl,” I whispered, and her eyes flicked up to meet mine. I released her hair and gave a single nod.

That was all she needed. I forced myself to keep breathing slowly, evenly, while she stroked with both hands and alternately ran her tongue around the head of my cock and deep-throated as much as she could in that position. Her eyes flicked up to meet mine, and immediately took my breath away.

Hunger, the need to please, lust. Not a shred of fear, not a shadow of the ghosts of the past. She was fully here with me. Judging by the lust in her eyes and enthusiasm in her mouth and hands, there was nowhere she’d rather be.

Nor was there any place I’d rather be.

Except one place, that is, and if she kept doing what she was doing much longer, we’d never get there.

I grasped her hair and pulled back slightly. She immediately took my cue and stopped, sitting back on her heels and looking up at me.

“Stand up,” I said. When she did, I gestured at my clothes, which I’d left to one side of the Saint Andrew’s Cross. “There’s a condom in the back left pocket of my jeans. Get it and bring it back to me.”

“Yes, Sir.”

When she returned, condom in hand, I said, “Put it on.”

“Yes, Sir.” She had a little trouble opening the wrapper, but it finally gave, and not a moment too soon. I gritted my teeth to keep from outwardly showing her how much her hands on my cock made me want to give in and lose control. I wouldn’t, though.

I want you so fucking bad, baby, you don’t even know
…

With the condom in place, she let her hands fall to her sides again.

“Good girl.” Left cheek, right. Then I nodded toward the door. “Bedroom.”

She walked ahead of me, and she was no less beautiful now than when she faced me. Shoulders confidently set back. The gentle curve of her waist. The subtle swell of her hips that fucking begged me to grab hold and fuck her senseless.

She reached for the doorknob, but I reached past her and grabbed her wrist, then put an arm around her waist.

“I changed my mind about the bedroom.” With that, I shoved her up against the door, and she whimpered softly. I nudged her ankles apart with my foot. “I think I want you just like this.”

She moaned, clawing at the door as if her fingers might find some invisible handhold. She pressed back against me, and her ass against my cock was almost more than I could handle. God, I wanted her.

I pulled her hips back just enough to grant me better access to her pussy. When I guided my cock to her, she sucked in a breath, shuddering as I slid inside her. Her back and shoulders rippled as I took a few slow, smooth strokes, and when I thrust into her as deep as I could in this position, she cried out, her whole body tensing as if she’d just surrendered to a powerful orgasm.

Up against the dungeon door, I fucked her. Deep, hard, while she begged and pleaded for more, I fucked her.

“Like that?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Yes, Sir, yes, I love it.”

“Touch yourself, Meredith.” The words came out as a hoarse, uneven whisper.

She rested her forearm against the door and reached down with the other. In a heartbeat, her pussy was impossibly tight. I groaned, trying to thrust even deeper.

“May I come, Sir?” Body and voice alike trembled.

“No.” I gripped her hips tighter and fucked her harder. Her elbow thumped against the door every time my body forced hers forward. My eyes tried to roll back. The whole room spun around me and the floor lurched under me, everything moving faster and falling to pieces each time I thrust into. She overwhelmed me. Completely overwhelmed me. Her body, her pussy, her breathless moans.

I released a sharp breath, biting my tongue when that breath nearly came out in the form of
God, I love you
.

“Please, Sir,” she whimpered, oblivious to my near-confession. “Please, may I come?”

“Not yet.” I shut my eyes tight, clenching my jaw and holding my breath. She tried to beg some more, to plead with me for the right to let go, but her voice failed her. Had I not been so close myself—
fuck, baby, do you realize what you do to me
?—I’d have denied her again.

Instead, I drew the deepest breath I could, and whispered, “Come.”

Lying in bed afterward, we faced each other. I ran the backs of my fingers down her cheek. Not to cue submission, just to touch her.

We’d caught our breath. The aftershocks had passed, the trembling had stopped. For now, we just looked at each other.

When we first started this whole thing, I’d wondered if a night like this was possible, and yet, here we were. No panics. No flashbacks. Not a speedbump in sight except in the rearview. In the beginning, a lifetime ago, I’d questioned whether I could help her through this. Somehow, fumbling and stumbling together, here we were.

Some of the scars would always remain. She would never again be the Meredith that Rich had never touched, but she’d made it this far. I was thrilled. Relieved. I admired her, I was proud of her, and I knew it was only a matter of time now before she could continue on her own two feet. I wished nothing but the best for her, wanted her to heal enough and have strength enough to do just that, but I still wondered where that would leave us. Where it would leave me.

Meredith ran her thumb along my lower lip. “What are you thinking about?”

“You.” I smiled, stroking her hair. “You’ve come a long way since we started doing this.”

She returned the smile. “You brought me this far.”

“No, the work was all yours, babe,” I said. “I just gave you a safe place to do it.” That sinking feeling in my gut refused to be ignored.

Meredith raised her eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

Avoiding her eyes, I chewed the inside of my cheek. Then I looked at her. “I have something for you. Out in the living room.”

Her eyebrows flicked up. “Oh?”

I pushed myself up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Eyeing me warily, she sat up. “Scott—”

“Just trust me. Come on.”

We made a quick detour into the dungeon to put on a few clothes—a shirt and panties for her, jeans for me—and went into the living room.

I gestured for her to have a seat on the couch, and I sat beside her. “Close your eyes.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.”

She rolled her eyes, then closed them. “I’m not sure I trust you with surprises.”

“I think you’ll like this.” I pulled out the paper bag I’d left on the shelf beneath the coffee table. Reaching inside it, I added, “In fact, I’d be willing to bet money you will.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

I carefully brought my hand out of the bag. “In that case, why don’t you take a look?”

She smirked, a smartass comment no doubt right on the tip of her tongue, and opened her eyes.

The smirk vanished.

Her lips parted.

With both hands, she took the music box from me, cradling it as if it might shatter if she jarred it. She turned the box in her hands, looking at it from all angles, disbelief etched into every line on her face.

“Scott…” She pulled in a breath, still staring at the box. “You… fixed it.” She traced her finger over the inlay of her nickname. With a trembling hand, she lifted the lid. As soon as the first notes played, her hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God…” A tear slid down her cheek and she quickly brushed it away. “I can’t believe it. I thought it was beyond repair.”

“Don’t you have faith in my ability to fix broken things?” I asked, grinning cautiously.

She laughed, wiping away another tear. “Honestly, I thought this was even beyond what you could put back together.”

“It looked a lot worse than it was.” I ran my fingers through her hair while she turned the box in her hands. “Just needed a little TLC.”

Meredith smiled, glancing at me. “It’s perfect.”

“I tried to get all the scratches and everything out, but—”

She put a hand up and shook her head. “It’s perfect, Scott. It’s… it’s perfect.” She set the box on the coffee table and put her arms around me. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, babe.” I kissed the top of her head and held her to me. I closed my eyes, breathing in her familiar scent. Even like this, with her arms around me and the taste of her kiss on my tongue, I couldn’t ignore the feeling she might, at any second, get up and tell me she didn’t need me anymore. And I’d be thrilled she didn’t need my help anymore, I just hoped to God she still
wanted
me even when she didn’t need me.

Everything I’d discussed with Leslie and Kristen bounced around in my head with a backbeat of their unanimous advice:
Talk to her. Talk to her. Talk to her
.

Swallowing hard, I sat back and looked at her. “I’ve been doing some thinking. About a few things.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“The night you called me,” I said quietly, “when you said you needed my help finding a Dom…” I had to search for the words.

She put her hand in mine and squeezed gently. “Yes?”

“What did you think I would say?”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, did you think I’d hook you up with another Dom?” I paused. “Or that I’d take this on myself?”

“I didn’t know, honestly.” She ran a hand through her slightly disheveled hair. “I was so worried about even getting in touch with you, I hadn’t really thought about it. Why?”

I watched my thumb trace slow arcs across the back of her hand. “Just wondering.”

“Something else on your mind?” She touched my arm.

Closing my eyes, I exhaled.
Just get it out on the table and get it over with. Say it. Just say it
. I moistened my lips and made myself look at her. “What happens when this is… done?”

“Done?”

“You wanted me to help you get through everything he did to you. And you’ve made leaps and bounds, so I assume there’s going to come a point when we don’t…” I cleared my throat. “When we don’t need to do this anymore.”
When you won’t need me anymore
. “What then?”

It was her turn to look at our hands. “I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Meredith swallowed hard. “What do you think should happen?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“It’ll probably be a while before we get to that point,” she said softly. “You’ve brought me a long way, but there’s still plenty more to go. So we don’t have to worry about it now, do we?”

“I suppose we don’t.”

She looked at me for a moment before she spoke again. “It’s still bothering you, though, isn’t it?”

No sense pretending it wasn’t. Sighing, I nodded. “Yeah, it is. I’ve been thinking about it a lot actually.”

She squeezed my hand. “Why is it bothering you so much?”

I took a breath, then forced myself to look her in the eye when I whispered, “Because I still love you.”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted, and she looked even more startled than she had when she saw the music box. Then she dropped her gaze.

I started to reach for her face, but pulled my hand back. Though I’d intended touch her just to make contact, that touch was too close to her submission cue to do during a conversation like this. I didn’t want her to think I’d ever use it to manipulate her. So I put my arm around her shoulders instead. She didn’t recoil, thank God, but there was just enough stiffness in her posture to keep her from sinking against me like she often did. She wasn’t pulling away, but she wasn’t coming any closer.

She took a deep breath. “Scott, I still love you too. I never stopped loving you. Never.” She met my eyes, and there were tears in hers. “But that doesn’t mean we can go back.”

“Is there any reason we
can’t
go back?”

“Scott, this is…” She chewed her lip. “Everything with Rich isn’t over. He’s still in my head. He still…” She screwed her eyes shut and took a deep breath before meeting my eyes again. “He still crosses my mind every time we touch.”

I flinched. Exhaled sharply. Then I squeezed her hand. “Has that made me walk away yet? I’ve seen what he still does to you, babe, and I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“You’re here now. How many months or years are you willing to put up with this?”

“As long as it takes.”

“It’s not just Rich, though.” She took a deep breath. “Yeah, he’s fucked me up as far as relationships go, but it’s also… us. We’ve been there, we’ve done that, and we can’t do it again.”

“Says who?”

She sighed. “Scott, think about it. Where would we be in a few months or a couple of years? Right back where we were when everything fell apart?”

“It’s been a long time, Meredith. We’ve both changed, we’ve—”

“We’ve done this once before,” she said, her voice wavering. “Look what happened.”

I swallowed hard. “What happened was I had a few of the best years of my life with you.”

Meredith flinched, dropping her gaze and quickly wiping away a tear I didn’t see.

I slid my hand around the back of her neck and touched my forehead to hers. “Look at us, babe. Even if we haven’t admitted to it, we’ve
been
almost everything we were back then.” I ran my thumb back and forth along her jaw. “We can just take things a day at a time. We’re different people than we were back then.”

“Are we?”

“We’ve learned to communicate.” I pulled back enough to look at her. “We’ve both done a hell of a lot of growing up.”

She focused on our hands, but didn’t speak.

“I’m not saying it would be perfect,” I said. “No relationship is. But I’ve had seven very long years of not being with you, and imperfect or not, I think getting back what we had would be worth the effort. I would rather be with you than not.”

Rubbing the back of her neck with her free hand, she closed her eyes and exhaled hard. “Don’t you remember how hard it was the last year or so?”

“That was then.” I kissed her forehead, then sat back and looked at her, struggling to keep myself together. “It’s only as difficult as we make it, babe, and one thing I learned real quick after you left was that making a relationship work is a hell of a lot easier than not having you.”

She pursed her lips. “Look, I don’t even know if I know how to
make
a relationship work anymore. With you or anyone else. In the last five years, the only relationship I’ve had is the one with Rich.” She sniffed sharply and wiped away the tear that slid down her cheek. “He’s all I’ve known for years, and since you and I have been doing this, all I’ve done is take from you.”

“You’ve taken what I’ve freely given, babe,” I said. “With everything you’ve had stolen from you, you deserve it.”

“But I don’t even remember how to give back anymore. And the thing is…” She looked down, cursing under her breath when another tear escaped.

I stroked her hair. “Tell me. What is it?”

Sniffing again, she met my eyes, and the pain in hers almost brought tears to mine. “Scott, I don’t even know what it’s like to be loved anymore.”

I cradled her face in both hands and drew her to me. Just before our lips met, I whispered, “Yes, you do.” I let the gentle, tender kiss linger for a long moment before I pulled back and looked into her eyes again. I ran my fingers through her hair. “Meredith, I love you.”

In a trembling, barely-whispering voice, she said, “I love you, too.” As soon as she spoke, she lost whatever composure she’d been struggling to maintain. She buried her face against my neck, holding on to me while she cried. It was all I could do to keep my own emotions in check as she let go of hers. I closed my eyes, stroked her hair, and tried to ignore the way my heart pounded.

When she finally sat up, wiping her eyes with a trembling hand, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall apart, this is just…”

“Don’t apologize,” I whispered, caressing her damp cheek. “I’m throwing a lot at you right now, so if it’s overwhelming…” I shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s a bit overwhelming.” She sniffed. Closed her eyes for a long moment. Took a deep breath. Finally looked at me again. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying… I’m saying I don’t know.”

“Babe, if you don’t want—”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she said, shaking her head. “I just… don’t know. I know what I feel for you, I know what we’ve been through in the past, but… that’s it. That’s all I know.”

“Let me ask you this,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “You still love me, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“If we didn’t have a past together, and you didn’t have your past, but we were sitting here like this,” I paused, taking a breath. “If all you knew was the way we are right here, right now, would you want to stay or go?”

She was quiet for a long moment, neither speaking nor looking at me. My heart pounded as the silence lingered.

Finally, without meeting my eyes, speaking so softly I barely heard her at all, she said, “I’d want to stay.”

Relief swept through me. I reached for her face and gently lifted her chin so we had nowhere to look but at each other. I leaned in closer, drawing her to me, and just before our lips met, I whispered, “Then… stay.”

For a long moment, we were still. Just my lips against hers, neither of us moving, neither of us breathing. Blood pounded in my ears. With every heartbeat, I was sure she’d pull back. My stomach flipped as she shifted, but then I realized she’d turned toward me, not away. Featherlight fingertips brushed my jaw. Again, more assertively now, before drifting into my hair, and when I teased her lips with the tip of my tongue, she parted them without hesitation. We wrapped our arms around each other, and I swore I could have stayed like this all damned night.