Chapter 22

TWENTY-TWO

DOMHNALL

“I’m not leaving before I get her bathed and see she’s resting peacefully,” Professor Roberts says.

I nod. I don’t love having to defer to other people, but I’ll do whatever’s best for Brooke. Her eyes are closed but I know by the way she frowns and furrows closer against my chest when Professor Roberts speaks that she’s not asleep.

“Brooke,” Professor Roberts says in a gentle voice I haven’t heard until now, “Can you try to walk for us?”

She glares at me over Brooke’s head and gestures for me to set Brooke down. I don’t love the idea when Brooke is clinging to me for dear life. But I’m the one who fucked things up here, so I’ll listen to the professional.

When I try to pry Brooke’s arms from around my neck, though, she makes a pitiful noise. I set her feet on the floor, but she immediately collapses to her hands and knees, pushing her face against my legs like a shy child.

… Or like a shy kitten.

Professor Roberts watches on, nonplussed. Her lips purse in thought, but when she next looks up at me, it’s not with the disgust or judgement I expect. “All right. Brooke, we’re going to have Domhnall carry you to the bathroom. Does that sound all right?”

Brooke doesn’t acknowledge her, but when I look down, her big brown eyes meet mine, full of trust. My chest clenches, feeling the connection still between us. Mine . She’s still mine.

It’s a fucked up thought. I’m fucked up.

But for whatever reason, she’s chosen to trust me.

It’s not trust, you fucking bastard .

I manipulated her into bonding to me. I utilized my extensive skills and I did?—

I did… what was once done to me.

I was an innocent once, too. So long ago I can’t remember what it felt like. But I was an innocent, preyed upon by a monster.

But I’m the monster now.

I swallow hard and sweep her up into my arms. I feel my monstrous insides pulsating, shameful and disgusting, as it stretches its claws around her. But she just curls against me with the trust of a newborn babe.

She loved me the same way that summer. Thirteen . Jaysus fecking Christ. Four years between us isn’t that much now, but when I was seventeen?

He was making a monster of me even then and I didn’t fucking know it. Stamping me with his soiled touch in a way I’d never get off. It doesn’t matter that he’s dead. The disease of him lives inside me, poisoning me into the fucked up, wrong thing I am today.

Brooke clutches my neck tighter, face nuzzling in as if she can sense the war inside me.

Fuck.

None of it matters.

All that matters is the sub in my arms now .

Subs come first.

Take care of the sub at all costs. Those are the rules.

Caleb jogs in front of Professor Roberts and I towards the elevator. He’s been to my house for a few events before but never to my bedroom. Still, he knows most of the bedrooms are upstairs and hits the up button. I see Professor Roberts eyebrow lift when she sees the personal elevator. Did she not pay attention to the address when she pulled up? They don’t call it Billionaire’s Row for nothing.

I punch in the keycode, and we ride up to the third floor, my personal floor, and I lead them to my bedroom. Brooke nuzzles me the entire way. Caleb hurries to the ensuite bathroom to turn on the bath.

“I’ll take it from here,” Professor Roberts says. I know it’s right that she should.

But then Brooke makes that pathetic noise again and clings tighter to my neck.

I squeeze her possessively to my chest and shake my head. “I don’t think my kitten wants that. Thank you for your help, Professor Roberts, but I’ve got it from here. I’ll give my good girl proper aftercare and get her to bed.”

Professor Roberts’s eyes go hard. “Where? In your kennel downstairs?”

Brooke’s fingers dig into my neck. She can sense the other woman’s anger. She’s so sensitive right now, like all her nerves are frayed and she’s reactive to the tiniest shift of mood around her.

“Shhh,” I say, running my palm over her head, cupping her to me. “Pet will sleep in my bed tonight after the bath.”

“Really?” Brooke says, lifting her head from my chest to look me in the eye.

I’m so gratified to hear her voice that I barely notice Professor Roberts and Caleb taking a step back in the background.

Brooke actually talking must have proved something to the Professor if she’s finally backing off. I have no doubt she’ll be watching my every move on the cameras from now on, but I don’t give a shit .

I’m lost in Brooke’s pleased, surprised eyes. She might still be in a dissociative state, but at least she’s mostly making eye-contact instead of staring off into nothingness.

“Really,” I smile gently, trying to rebuild trust with her. The real kind, if that’s even possible at this point. It doesn’t matter, though.

All that matters is pulling her back from the brink. The Professor said aftercare could provide a bridge back to reality. So I’m going to give the best aftercare any dom ever aftercare’d.

“You’ll get to snuggle side by side with me in my arms. It’ll be warm and safe. But first, let’s get you cleaned up, all right?”

Brooke nods, still not losing eye contact with me.

That’s better. When she’s in full-on kitty mode, there’s no eye contact.

“I’m going to carry you to the bathroom now.”

She nods, staring at me as if mesmerized. There’s still something not quite right in her eyes. She looks spacy. Not quite here with me.

C’mon, Brooke. If you survived years with that evil, malicious bastard, you’re strong enough to survive a week with me being a psychotic asshole, aren’t you?

I don’t want to contemplate the particulars of that fucked up question.

I take her to my huge bathroom and look back and forth between the bathtub and the multi-headed shower. There’s a bench in the shower, but the multi-jets in the sauna-like bathtub might help ease any aches or soreness she might have.

In the end, I turn off the bath and opt for the shower instead. I want her to feel completely clean, and the multi-showerheads can accomplish it best. We can always revisit the tub tomorrow.

I unpeel the fluffy blanket that’s still partially wrapped around Brooke, kick off my shoes, and walk into the shower after it starts steaming. I’m still wearing clothes, but I don’t give a shit.

I sit us down on the wide bench as steam envelops us, her on my lap with her legs to the side.

“Warm,” Brooke says, holding out a hand tentatively towards the central spray.

“That’s a good girl,” I encourage.

She yanks her hand back when it makes contact with the water and hides her face in my now damp shirt again.

“It’s alright,” I soothe. “The warm water will feel good on your body. We’re going to get you clean now.”

She shakes her head slightly.

She needs me to have my shit together right now and take control. Fuck knows I need it too. So I make my voice firm. Unyielding. “Good kitties take baths when their owner tells them to.”

She blinks up at me. “Good kitty?”

I hold her eye contact as I reach for the hand-held shower head beside the bench and nod. “Good kitty. ”

She seems unconvinced as I bring the spray nearer. “Not bad kitty?”

She asks with such earnestness that it makes me wonder what’s going on in her mind. Now I wish Professor Roberts was back.

Brooke fell into this state because of all the accusations I was hurling at her.

If Professor Roberts was right and Brooke already had dissociative amnesia before that night on the auction block, what the fuck happened to land her on the doorstep of the women’s shelter where Moira works?

I pissed on her father’s grave two years ago. So where has she been since then? Why did she only show up now? What took her so long to come find me? The hospital report said she only got hit on the head two months ago.

Has she been here silently watching me and Moira from the shadows since her father died? Then some sort of bad luck ended her up in the wrong alley at the wrong time of night, coincidentally bringing her into our path?

After all we’ve been through, I just can’t believe that.

“Not bad kitty,” I manage to say through a thick throat. “Good kitty. Good girl. Beautiful fucking exquisite girl. I’m going to wash you now.”

She looks scared, but she nods. She turns and hugs me, face in my neck.

I bring the spray against her shoulder, and she shudders, clinging to me .

“Shhh, it’s okay.” I grab my bottle of body wash and squirt some on her shoulder. I massage in the body wash while I run the water over the rest of her back. She moves, slinging her other leg around the other side of my lap. It makes me glad I still have all my clothes on. It’s good for access to wash her when I get to it next, but difficult for the perma-hard-on I always have around her. Professor Roberts would not approve.

It doesn’t help when Brooke grinds against me, letting out little high-pitched mewling noises in my ear as I massage foaming shampoo into her hair.

She does get turned on at the drop of a hat whenever I touch her, so I should’ve expected this. Control. I’m taking back my fucking control .

I breathe out roughly as I wash my shampoo out of her hair, next inhaling the steam and the scent of my shampoo and body wash on her. The idea of her coming out of the bath smelling like me makes my cock pulse even harder.

As if feeling it, she writhes on top of me where I sit on the bench with even more fervor, bowing her head towards my ear.

“Touch me,” she whispers, teeth nipping at my ear.

I’m befuddled by having her on top of me after all the revelations and realizations today.

She’s not who I thought she was. She’s pure. Whatever she did or didn’t do in the past—she was twisted by a sadistic fuck of a puppeteer. But she’s innocent and always has been .

If I take advantage of her now while she’s so vulnerable, I’m nothing more than the game piece he intended me to be. Fucker always did love chess. He used it against me all the time. If I won, I’d get a night off from him, so I tried to master the game. But I never could win a single match against him.

Even from the grave, he’s trying to twist me into even more of a sick, contorted beast. And I fucking refuse for any more of my life to be dictated by that vile fuck.

So I allow my sweet kitten to mewl and paw and rub herself against my hardness while I wash her, all the while telling her what a good girl she is.

“Sir,” she mewls, “good kitty get a treat?” she begs.

I close my eyes as she flips around on my lap so her back is to my chest. Her hips writhe her naked, wet cunt back and forth against my clothed hard-on like a lap dancer as her body finally uncurls into the warm spray of the second showerhead.

My teeth clench.

It’s Mads. My Mads.

It’s always been her. Only ever her.

And now she’s here, with nothing between us.

I want to pick her up, press her against the wall and shove into her, claiming her the way I’ve imagined a thousand times.

Right. Because there’s nothing between us… except for her dissociative amnesia and the fact that I’ve kidnapped and broken her after buying her at a virgin auction .

Fuck.

“Take your treat, kitty,” I growl, keeping my hands in what I feel are strict safety zones. I wash her underarms. “Take everything you deserve.”

My jaw locks, teeth gritted, as I scrub her back in slow, massaging circles. I’ve already washed here, but it’s another safe zone, and that feels very important at the moment.

Because she’s just set her hands on her widespread knees and bent over, rutting her pussy against the hard staff of my cock that’s all but bursting through my wet black slacks. She seems quite focused on rubbing her clit back and forth against just my tip.

Holy motherfucking Mary mother of Jaysus Christ?—

It’s taking every ounce of my so-called iron control not to yank open the button to my drenched slacks, flip her around, and drag her down on my cock.

What’s more healing aftercare than a good fuck?

That’s just my dick talking. I blink and keep massaging her back with the water.

But when she starts lifting up and down as if she’s trying to get my cock to go in her pussy through the layers of clothing, my control snaps.

I flip her around by her waist so that she’s facing me and settle her back on my lap. Her legs cradle my waist, knees on the bench on either side of my hips. My cock is cemented between us against her tummy, literally about to burst the fabric of my slacks .

“Put your head down on my shoulder,” I instruct thickly, shocked I can manage words at all. She obeys immediately. “Eyes closed.”

She nods against my shoulder, gently rocking against my hardness. Jaysus fuck.

I lift the shower head by the bench and start to run water through her hair, washing out any lingering shampoo and taking the opportunity to massage her scalp.

“I love your hands in my hair,” she murmurs, then she starts to thrust against my cock again.

Her arms fling around my back and her spread legs widen even further until she’s all but riding me. And I do mean riding me. Because my cock—oh fuck, she’s finding friction against me right where she needs it. I keep my hands in her hair long after I’m sure all the shampoo’s washed out. Jaysus fuck, she’s gonna fecking kill me. I’m in control— I’m in control— I’m in contr?—

Her mewls turn to little screams as her thrusts become even wilder, almost violent. But there are little notes of dissatisfaction, too. Like she can’t quite get where she’s trying to go.

Goddammit.

She needs to come. I’m a cruel dominant to deny her after the day she’s had. I said she could get a treat. So I stand up. She’s still wrapped around me like a koala, so she goes with me.

“That’s right, kitty,” I growl into her ear. “Take what’s yours. ”

I press her body against the smooth marble wall, so she feels all of me.

Then I yank the manual shower spray back up and turn it to maximum pulsing mode. Lowering it, I hold the shower head down between our bodies, aimed upwards precisely where she needs it.

She’s got the pressure of my cock pressed against the top of her clit and now the pulsing water thrusting up from underneath.

She immediately lets out a little cry, her eyes flying open as I start to thrust my hips rhythmically into hers. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met. I want to do such dirty, dirty things to you.”

“Like what?” she squeaks, her breasts arching out into my face as a spasm of pleasure wracks through her body.

“Like putting you over my lap and spanking you until your ass is red from my handprint. So you know you’re mine. I’ll enjoy your little yelps of pain. I’ll enjoy the way you squirm on my cock and beg me for more. I’ll slip my hand down between your legs after ten swats to rub your clit just the way you like, then I’ll allow you to beg me for ten more before I eat you out.”

“Now.” Her face contorts, so close to orgasm. “I want it now . Touch me. Eat me now.”

“This is all you get until Brooke comes all the way back to me, not just kitty.”

I tease the pulsing spray right where she needs it. But she and I know it’s not enough. It’s not my fingers. It’s not my tongue. It’s not her sitting on my face.

“Please, Sir.”

“That’s not my name,” I whisper in her ear, shifting the pulsing spray rhythmically back and forth along with my hips. “What’s my name?”

“Sir,” she says, eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, peaks of her hardened nipples only an inch away from my mouth. It’s difficult not to graze my teeth along them like I long to. It would ratchet her pleasure even higher. But I’m not sure I could keep the razor’s edge of control I’m walking.

Plus, keeping her on the edge pleases the sadist inside me. I could keep her here all day, torturing both of us. The hot water won’t run out.

“So close, my good girl, but you know that’s not my name.” I tug the pulsing spray away from where she wants it and put a little space between our bodies. She makes a sharp noise of protest.

“What’s your name?” I lift the pulsing spray and blast her beaded nipples with it.

She gasps, eyes popping back open as her nipples harden and extend outwards. She wriggles her hips back and forth frantically, but I’ve shifted so she can’t get much relief that way.

“What’s your name?” I ask again.

She mewls with need, and I blast one nipple. She arches towards the spray and I almost lose the load bursting in my balls right there. She’s going to go absolutely crazy when we get to nipple play. I haven’t even clamped her yet. I blast the other nipple and her head swings back and forth, bottom lip clamped between her teeth.

Fuck. I’m getting distracted. Plus I don’t know if we’ll ever get to nipple clamps or anything else. I just need to get her to come back to me.

“Your name,” I demand, dropping the spray until she looks at me again, eyes desperate.

“Kitten,” she gasps.

I drop the spray to dangle from its hose again and lift a hand to caress her face. “Love, tell me your name.”

She blinks a couple of times, and then looks around the shower like she’s just seeing it, just coming back into her body. Her arms clamp tighter around my back as water—not from the shower—beads at the edges of her eyes. Tears.

“Oh god, Domhn, I don’t know my name,” she says.

I hug her tight as she cements herself against me, hips jerking once more as she shudders in orgasm.

I hold her to me and massage the back of her neck underneath her hair as she begins to sob.

“It’s going to be okay, love,” I whisper fervently, determined to make it true. “I swear, I’m going to make it all okay.”