Chapter 12

TWELVE

brOOKE

I hate him. My throat aches from screaming out my fury. My limbs ache from yanking against the horrible, barred contraption he’s bound me in. Worse than chains, it constricts my movements so much, it’s driving me insane.

I’ve felt nuts a few times after waking up and not being able to remember my own name, but the last week, or however long he’s had me down here, has made me rethink what insanity really means. I’ve barely slept—who could in this fucking contraption he’s got me locked in? Basic bodily functions like eating and using the bathroom are all but impossible. I mean, they’re possible, but fucking barely.

But worse than all that, he was fucking right .

I can’t stand being alone.

There’s nothing but my goddamned thoughts. I’m supposed to be on this big journey to find myself, right?

But when I’m left alone with nothing but my own thoughts for company, I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.

At first I thought he’d just shut me down here and forgotten about me. Then when his voice came over the speaker and I realized he was watching me the entire time… it felt… better.

I still wanted to stab him in the eyeballs for locking me up in this awful fucking cuff contraption, but still, someone was there . It wasn’t just me and the darkness. And the nightmares.

The last nightmare I woke up screaming from, I finally remembered something. Just an image in the darkness. A black box. Like a trunk you put blankets in. And I was so, so afraid when I saw it. I can’t remember why . But I was so terrified.

What am I supposed to do with these dreams and the puzzle of crumbs Domhnall’s dropped, if any of it’s true?

My father’s someone who likes inflicting pain. Domhnall said he made an art of it. What the hell’s that supposed to mean? And how does Domhnall know it? Did he meet my father at another BDSM club? How do I fit into it? He said I’m a liar, and that we made him a monster.

But if I was so horrible to him in some past life, why didn’t Moira freak out when she met me? How long ago was it, anyway?

My thoughts spiral with questions only Domhnall can answer. Which only makes me more furious. Because he’s got me locked down here and asking him to talk would mean giving in and inviting my captor back in. Not that he’ll sit down and have a civil conversation with me.

Or would he?

Maybe if I could just make him understand . Sometimes he almost seems… familiar. Like I swear I?—

The doctors said things would start to feel familiar.

Nothing has. Except the man who’s taken me captive.

Which is so beyond fucked up I don’t even know what to do with it. I can’t even describe what about him is familiar. Memories feel like a word on the tip of my tongue I can’t quite recall. But they’re so close. It’s like I feel the weight of her— the person I was—heavier when I’m near him.

He’s the key.

But everything he says… If he’s delusional, his delusions have logic to them. It’s just that whatever he thinks about me, he’s wrong.

Because whoever I am, I know I’m not bad.

I mean… I’d know, wouldn’t I, if I was some really bad, evil person at my core? A memory can’t change the essence of who a person is, can it?

It can’t change my— My soul .

I have to still be who I was if I believe that so strongly, right? You can’t have beliefs if you aren’t, like, someone with a soul to even have those beliefs. I know right and wrong, and I’m a person who does the right thing.

But if that’s true, why does Domhnall have me down in this dungeon? Something happened. Something bad.

Or he’s just a liar and a madman who likes to kidnap women down to his dungeon so he can do… things to them.

It’s around this point in the spiral of thoughts that I’d usually start screaming again. Because when I’m alone, my thoughts torture me instead of him. I always think I’m getting somewhere only to arrive back at the beginning. At another dead end.

My mind is a maze, and feeling her —the memory of who I might have been— haunting like a ghost whispering further and further out of reach the longer I go without seeing Domhnall… None of it is getting me anywhere.

At least when he’s here, I occasionally get more pieces to the puzzle. And the tickle of her at the edge of my consciousness gives me hope that one day, I’ll get to look her in the face and know once and for all:

Who am I?

Good or evil? Regardless of whatever story Domhnall has to tell, once I remember, then I’ll know the truth. I just need the truth. I have to know. I have to know who I am.

That’s why I eventually give in. Or so I tell myself.

It has nothing to do with the pull of the ghost inside me towards his every touch. His every glance. His every breath of attention towards me every moment he’s in the room.

Nothing at all.

Even now that I’ve given in to him, it feels like he takes an hour for the damnable ping of the elevator that signals his arrival.

When he comes into the room, I glare daggers at him.

He only smiles, obviously amused by my fury. I’m back to wanting to tear his eyeballs out. The anger inside me is suddenly so big, even though I thought I’d screamed every possible scream out, I want to scream in his face for leaving me like that. Even though I wanted him to go. None of it makes any sense, and that only makes me more furious, especially because I can’t deny the relief and happiness at seeing him again. Not that I’ll let him fucking see that.

“You wanted my attention,” he says. “You have it. Do you yield or should I turn around and go back upstairs?”

“Let me out of these fucking cuffs. You’re a goddamned fucking bastard to leave me like this for days on end.”

He chuckles. “I thought we’ve already established that I’m a sadist. But it’s only been thirty-two hours, my love.”

I gape in astonishment. He’s got to be lying. It has to have at least been four days, if not a week.

“I’ll unlock you now, and we’ll begin your training.”

Rage lights again, burning all along my skin. Answers. I just need answers. “Can we just have a conversation first? Please. You said I’m a liar. What did I supposedly lie to you about? Can you just fill me in on what’s making you do this?”

He shakes his head as he starts to unlock my wrists. “I’m finally letting you out of a punishment for being a stubborn pet and the first thing you want to do is antagonize me?”

I breathe out and press my lips together so I don’t say anything else until he’s unlocked my ankles. Knowing him, he’d leave me in the constrictive fucking cuffs if I make him upset. I stretch my arms and entire body the second I’m free.

Then I roll across the bed to get away from him.

But he just waves a finger at me like I’ve been a naughty child.

“Ah ah ah,” he chastises. “That won’t do. You’ve promised to be a good pet.”

I glare at him. “I’ll be a good… whatever. But can’t you just answer some questions first? What if you just hypothetically entertained the possibility that I have amnesia? Could you fill me in on a little bit about the past, then?”

His eyes narrow. “I think you’re forgetting who’s in control here. A pet does not speak unless spoken to. I’ve come down to begin your obedience training.”

He clicks his teeth at me like I’m a dog and points to the floor in front of him. “Sit.”

Outrage flares through my blood.

“Why won’t you just listen ?” I shout at him, arms out.

“I see that you aren’t ready after all. I’ll come back when you are. ”

He starts to walk back towards the elevator.

“No! Wait!” I run around the bed and reach for the sleeve of his shirt.

He just turns back towards me, calm as ever, and raises one patient eyebrow. “Sit.”

Motherfucking son of a shitting-bitch twat-waffle?—

I keep my glare of fury pinned on him as I stomp my heel once, then flop to the floor dramatically.

I don’t miss the satisfied grin that ever so slightly quirks on the left side of his mouth.

“First, you will learn the correct position. On your knees, bottom on your heels, eyes to the floor. Position yourself unless you want me to put my hands on you to correct you.”

I grudgingly position myself as he’s said.

“Good girl.”

He pats my head, and I jerk away and glare up at him.

He points back to the floor. Huffing, I drop my head and look back at the floor.

“This is how you are to greet Sir when you hear the elevator ping. Now that you know my expectations, if you don’t obey, there will be consequences.”

I let out a frustrated noise and look up at him. “Fuck your expectations. What do I have to do to get you to answer my questions and then let me go? Is it because you paid for my virginity? Go for it. Fuck me.”

I’d decided during the days of spiraling—or fine, during the thirty-two hours of spiraling—that I’d fuck him. He can obviously turn me on. Maybe if he fucks me, he’ll be more pliable or even let me go. He paid for my virginity, right? Fine, take it. Maybe then we can have a normal human conversation.

He smiles down at me with those gorgeous cheekbones of his—a full on smile this time.

“Begging, so soon?”

I remember what he said the first day. That he’d have me begging before he was done with me. I purse my lips together, totally furious again.

Then I glare up at him. “Is that something we used to do? Fuck? Is that why you’re doing this? Because we were lovers and I spurned you?” His amused smile doesn’t move so I try to dig harder. “Did I cheat on you? Is that it and now you’re taking your revenge?”

Suddenly he drops down swiftly so that he’s in my face, his voice low and dangerous. “Oh love, I haven’t even started taking my revenge yet. When I do, I’ll make sure you feel it everywhere .” His voice all but caresses my skin on the last few words.

Then he pulls back, his calm and patient mask returned. It’s like I got a brief glimpse of the real, wildly passionate man Domhnall truly is before he quickly buttoned himself back up again.

I feel short of breath even at the peek, something inside me pulling towards him. The ghost. The memories. They’re there, just out of reach. So close. She’s so close. I’m so close. Domhnall is so close. God, I want to reach up and touch him.

“Consider this the foreplay to revenge. Now, up on the spanking bench.”

My jaw hits the floor. Did he just say spanking bench?

He wants to spank me. My mind sort of blanks out for a second at that. It’s ridiculous. It’s degrading.

An image of him spanking me the first night right before he ate me out hits viscerally. Great. I can’t remember shit otherwise, but this memory sure is showing up in frickin’ technicolor. It lights up every part of my body. Goddamn him for being so hot.

And… maybe it’s not such a bad thing. If I go along with what he says, he stays.

And if he stays, then I can hold on to this feeling of myself. Past and present. The past might be a vague thread I’m barely grasping, but it’s still here .

When he leaves, I lose it.

So against my better judgement, I look where he points. It’s the strangest piece of furniture I’ve ever seen. Now that he’s said what it’s for, I can kind of make out that there are four padded struts where legs and forearms are meant to rest, then a long torso pad in the center.

“If you’re a good girl, I won’t put the restraints on. And I promise, I’ll take it very easy for your first time.”

Oh yes, now I see there are cuffs at the edge of the four limb padded areas.

I gulp and look up at him. “Will it hurt?”

Something washes over his face—a softness I don’t expect. Another crack in his mask.

“It’ll just be a sharp little sting. But I swear,” his face becomes so solemn, his Sir persona slips almost entirely. “Mads, I’d never hurt you, love.”

I blink, something going mushy and confused in my chest at the gentleness in his voice. Past and present collide.

Donny. I’ve got to tell Donny something.

I blink, and the sudden clarity goes fuzzy again. Before I can figure anything else out, I look up at him and his mask is firmly back in place.

“Crawl,” he commands. “Now.”

I swallow and crawl towards the intimidating contraption. As always, obedience feels like the most natural thing in the world for some reason. Is it an impulse from my old life?

“Now, up .”

I climb up, knees on the bottom pads, chest on the largest central area, and forearms on the front two.

“If I do this, will you answer any of my questions about the past?”

“There is only today. Just stay in the present, Pet.”

Ugh! Why can’t he just answer a question straight out?

He chuckles. “Always so impatient. Now stay still but don’t tense your muscles. Allow the experience to wash through you.”

I hear the gentle swish of his pants as he walks away from me and crane my head to look over my shoulder. I swallow again when I see him pick up an intimidating-looking flogger off the wall. At least I think it’s a flogger. It’s got a ton of twelve-inch black leather strips on the end of a long handle. It’s not exactly one of the giant whips, but what do I know? It still looks scary as fuck.

“What are you going to do with that?” I ask anxiously.

He lifts an eyebrow at me. “It’s called a spanking bench, Pet. What do you think I’m going to do?”

Suddenly I feel a draft. I never did get another pair of underwear. I guess I just sort of thought he’d spank me like he did that first night. With his hand.

I have to swing my head around the other way when he walks back over to the nightstand and pulls something out.

He hides it behind his back until he comes around to stand in front of me. Which is when I notice that he’s aroused. It’s hard to miss, with his, um, thing right in my face. It’s tenting his pants so badly it looks painful.

I look up at him. “Are you going to fuck me?”

“So curious, kitty,” he says. “But no, you don’t get off that easily.” Then he pulls his hand from around his back, and I see it’s a blindfold. “When I say give yourself over to the experience and the sensations, I mean it.”

A thousand arguments are poised to erupt, but he’s already settling the blindfold over my eyes.

My breath becomes short. I don’t know why not being able to see makes me feel so much more vulnerable. I’m in the same position I was two seconds ago. And for once it’s not because I’m afraid of the dark. When Domhnall’s here, the dark doesn’t scare me.

I just can’t see to know what’s coming next before it happens. It feels like all my other senses crank up to a ten.

So I hear the slightest swish before a ton of heated little pointed tendrils massage the underside of my ass at first contact.

I blink in confusion. It doesn’t hurt, exactly—it’s just sensation. Less intense even than when he spanked me with his hand the first night.

It lands again on the opposite cheek, and I jerk in surprise but not pain. I exhale sharply and the edges of my fingertips tighten on the bench pad.

Wait. I don’t understand. He called this punishment. No… He called it training. He said punishment would come if I disobey, but that he wanted to start my training when I called out red the other night.

Another heated kiss of the flogger lands, a little more intense on the already warmed flesh of the first cheek and I squirm, short of breath at the senses he’s waking up.

Because instead of the pain I anticipated, this feels… good.

More intense than a massage and certainly more intimate with me spread out so vulnerably like this. I think of that moment we shared when his mask was down. I swear, Mads, I’d never hurt you, love .

If I really am this Madison woman, what the hell happened between them? Between us ?

As the next few lashes land, though, I can’t help doing what he said and just giving in to all the alien, lovely, unexpected feelings he’s eliciting from my body. Warmth seeps through my ass and forwards to my groin. I allow my mind to go completely blank as my pussy swells and moistens, starting to pulse.

I stay in that high, buzzy place for long minutes after he’s stopped, only at some point blinking and squirming on the bench when I realize he’s pulled back. I can’t help the short little whine that escapes my throat. Because as I come fully back into my body, I realize I am so turned on.

I don’t know how I’m going to stop from touching myself after he leaves. But he’s got that fucking camera on me, dammit. I bite my bottom lip.

He’s been so gentle. Would it really be so bad if I asked him to relieve this ache?

I’m immediately upset by my own thoughts. What the fuck?

I don’t care what the hell we used to be to each other. Since I’ve met him this time around, he’s only face-fucked me, kidnapped me, and made me eat food out of a bowl like a dog. If I give him my body, it should be to get something in return, like when I was willing to sell myself at the auction.

I frown, then consider my willingness to wield my body for gain. Is this another clue? Was I a sex-worker in another life?

“Did we meet because I was a prostitute?” I ask suddenly, looking over my shoulder at him. “Was my dad my pimp or something?”

He tilts his head at me. “I was fascinated to see how you’d play this. I have to say, I’m not sure I expected this. It’s an entertaining schtick if nothing else. And your ass is such a juicy little treat, isn’t it?”

He spanks me with his open palm this time, our gazes still locked.

I’m speechless at his audacity. At his confidence. At how this doesn’t feel like the violation some part of my brain knows it should be—if he was a stranger, anyway.

But he’s not.

My eyes widen.

He’s not a stranger.

It’s not a memory, exactly. It’s just a certainty.

I know him.

My— My— My body knows him. My thighs rub together, aching.

So when he asks, Irish brogue heavy, “Would you like me to ease that for you, love?” I say “Yes,” before I can think better of it.

His warm hands are on me immediately, slipping between my legs to my wet sex. Just like the first night when he touched me so expertly.

I’ve always wanted him. For forever .

My whole body trembles and I’m glad for the blindfold now. I need it, as if it helps me hold up the pretense that I’m separate from what I’ve just asked for.

Because I do want this, and that’s fucked up, and is it , really? My short-circuiting brain doesn’t know how to process one thought from the next. All I know is my body arches out in welcome for his finger as he slides it back and forth across my clit. Then he starts to rub it in slow, languorous circles. I shudder on the bench, all my limbs going gelatinous.

“I’m close,” I gasp. I was already so primed from the gentle, teasing flogging. And with his hand against me, rubbing me so intimately— Oh god, if I’m honest, every touch between us has been electric. Too electric. Electric in a way that’s sparking lightning down my every nerve with pleasure.

My fingers grip the bench below me. “Oh God, I’m close.”

I arch outwards towards his touch, and his other hand squeezes a handful of my ass, and oh god, it’s so wrong but it feels so right. I all but hump his hand, I need the escalating pleasure so badly.

“So close,” I hiss, my voice barely audible.

But then suddenly his arms are around my waist, and he lifts me off the bench.

“Wait, what are you—” I cry, devastated at the denied pleasure.

Before I can even finish the sentence, he’s deposited me on the bed.

“I want to eat you out,” he says huskily, and I feel his warm breath on my pulsing, needy center. “Red or green?”

I’m glad the blindfold still covers my eyes. Red. I should say red. My hands are unshackled, and I should push him away. For so many reasons. I feel my body’s undeniable pull towards him but I’m a rational person. There are so many reasons not to give into this man.

Reasons. I swear there are reasons. Serious reasons…

“Green,” escapes my breathless lips.

The next moment ecstasy hits. It doesn’t feel like a mouth or a tongue or anything else on god’s green earth that I can distinguish.

I’m just delivered straight to the ecstatic realms.

My fingers knot in the sheets. My heels dig into the mattress. I thrust against his face. My throat’s already raw, but I scream. Now for entirely different reasons than an hour ago. What the fuck am I doing? This is wrong. I hate him?—

But it’s so good, oh, oh, it’s so, so fucking good. He asked and I want it. Oh god I want it. It’s like light melts from where he’s licking me and god, oh god?—

I scream at an even higher pitch because he lifts me there, when I couldn’t have possibly imagined there was higher to go.

I wiggle my hips back and forth and somewhere through the haze I feel him grasp my ass to pull me into his mouth deeper. I bite my bottom lip as another spasm tears through my belly, only barely coming down before he’s taking me right back up again.

Perversely, now I wish I wasn’t blindfolded. Because I want to look down at him there between my legs. It feels as if there’s some disembodied being bringing me such pleasure, but I know it’s him. The man from the first night who I was so hesitant to trust but then gave myself over to completely. My familiar captor. How is this possible? It shouldn’t be fucking possible for him to get me off so hard when he’s kidnapped me.

I thought I just needed him to scratch the itch he’d raised.

This is transforming into something wholly different, though. For one, it’s going on and on, as if the more taste I get of pleasure, the hungrier I become.

I’m on my, what, third orgasm? Fourth? But I can feel there’s more—higher, harder —to go. And I want it. I need it. I need him to be the one to take me there.

It’s like, for this single moment while he eats me out so crazily, there’s a reversal of fortunes, and I’m the one controlling him. He’s all but on his knees worshiping me with his mouth.

When I feel his thumb pressing against my asshole, wet with the juices spilling down from my drenched sex, it doesn’t feel as foreign as it did the first night. Even though in spite of the plug he used then, the opening feels just as tight. But it’s extra sensation, and I’m starved for it. I want it .

I want him.

“Yes, yes,” I mutter as I thrash against the silk sheets, “it’s so close, I can feel it.”

Maybe he’ll fuck me after all.

I try to tell myself it’s why I’m being like this. To get the upper hand. But the wild animal heaving inside me for more pleasure knows better. She’s in heat, and nothing but his wet, giving mouth devouring me will do.

I feel the pressure of his finger, working at my ass and finally popping inside. He drags me forwards with his digit and his other hand on my butt cheek, and he eats me more voraciously than ever.

It hits. The wildest, most blinding white-out pleasure bursting over the mountain-top into the pure free-falling unknown. I open my mouth to scream but no sound comes out. One breathless second. Then another, and another.

I reach down and tangle my fingers in his short, curled hair as I finally crash land back down to earth, my legs spasming in earthquake-like shakes as the tail-end of the orgasm rushes through me. It makes all my hair stand on end. I can feel it in my scalp and the tips of my fingers.

How—?

What—?

I slam my head back into the mattress and seize a few more times before all strength is gone from my limbs.

He lazily licks me up and down like a lion, and I’m so super-sensitive, I full-body shudder each time .

When he finally pulls away and his finger slips out of my ass, I start shaking and can’t stop. I hear little noises around the room but don’t pull off my blindfold. I feel… so… I don’t know what I feel. Too much and nothing at all, at the same time.

Stunned. In shock, like I’ve just been in a car-accident.

Ashamed. Like I want to crawl into a hole and cease to exist.

And like… like I want to beg him to come back and start all over again. Because for one moment, just one brief moment, with our bodies heaving for breath together, I felt whole instead of fractured.

And now?

Being left alone on the bed feels like the cruelest thing he could possibly do. Was that the point? To bring me to the peak of such terrible intimacy and then dump me so violently from heaven’s river of pleasure to the cold, empty bed left alone without his touch?

I hear his footsteps heading towards the door.

Oh god. Yes. He is going to leave now.

And I’ll be so horribly alone. I’ll be alone, and I’ll dream of the terrifying black box when the nightmares come to swallow me whole. But when I scream and wake up in the dark, I’ll just be alone all over again. No one will be there to hold me. No one’s ever there to hold me. It’s just cold loneliness, that’s all I’ll ever?—

The bed dips behind me, and there’s a warm body at my back. Domhnall lays down, his strong arms coming around to anchor me into his warm chest. He’s got his shirt off again, and with my barely-there nightie, we’re skin to skin.

“Shhh,” he whispers. “It’s alrigh’ now, love. Shhh.”

His voice is so soft and steeped in his brogue. Instinctively my body shifts and softens against all his muscled hardness. I freeze a little when I feel his stiff cock, but he just squeezes me as if to reassure me that his intentions go no further than this.

He just got into bed to… snuggle me.

As if he could somehow sense I was freaking out at being left alone after all that.

Which is what finally has me breaking out in uncontrollable sobs. He only whispers, “Shhh, shhh. It’s alrigh’. Every t’ing’s gonna be alrigh’,” in my ear as he strokes my hair back from my face.

I cry myself to sleep in his arms, knowing it’s totally fucked up even as I allow my captor to comfort me, snuggling deeper into his embrace.

“Such pretty tears,” he whispers as I get drowsier, his fingers still stroking gently through my hair.