Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 106065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
It rang so false that I wondered how I’d ever fallen for his bullshit.
“Stand your ground,” Greer said quietly, firmly.
I nodded once.
“Are you listening to me?” Marcus asked irritably.
“Yeah—yeah, I’ve…I’ve been listening to you too much, I think.” I screwed my eyes shut and scratched my cheek hard. Everything itched. My scalp too, and I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged at it. “You’re mean, Marcus. You say things to make me feel bad. To make me feel guilty. I can’t do what I want—you shot down the idea of us being open, but you get to be with others. If I attend an event without you there, you get disappointed. You say I choose others over you. But I’ve put you first for over two years. I stopped talking to friends, to Doms, that you don’t like. You lied to me about Greer—you said he was sick when he wasn’t.”
At that point, Marcus tried to interrupt me, but I couldn’t stop rambling. “I don’t know when you started chipping away at the corners of my submission, but you replaced each piece with guilt. I’m controlled by not feeling like I’m failing. That’s why I obey you, that’s why I agree to everything you say—so that you won’t be disappointed. And how fucked up is that?”
Marcus didn’t respond right away.
I caught myself rocking back and forth pretty fast, an indication that the pressure was building up too rapidly in my body, and I felt it too. Not being able to cry unless I was past an extreme breaking point had brought me way too many mood swings and headaches. Everybody needed an outlet. Crying was an outlet. But it was like someone was squeezing the stomach of a starving man. He had to eat, he needed to eat, but nothing would fit in his stomach.
“I believe we have to discuss this when I get home, Corey,” he said eventually. “When we can sit down face-to-face.”
The thought made me nauseated. He was too good at manipulating me.
“We can fix this,” he promised.
Barf.
“I just…I hope you won’t discuss our relationship with others,” he told me. “This is private. It’s between us.”
I heard Greer scoffing under his breath, and I glanced over at him and Sloan.
“I gotta go,” I muttered. “We’ll talk when you get home.” I ended the call before he could say anything else, and if this wasn’t the final nail in our coffin, there certainly wouldn’t be many more. We were heading toward our end.
What pissed me off was that it hurt. I had so many mixed feelings that I couldn’t trust what I felt deep down.
“Tell us what you need, sweetheart,” Sloan murmured.
I exhaled a laugh even though nothing about this was funny. “I don’t know. Part of me is so fucking angry that I wanna punch a wall, and the other part just wants to break down and be little and not worry about anything.”
Greer and Sloan exchanged a brief look, and then Greer nodded and walked away.
“He’s just grabbing something.” Sloan got on the bed and scooted back to use the wall as a backrest. “We wanted to discuss your core kinks after we’d eaten anyway, and I think now’s a good time.”
I wasn’t sure I could agree. My attention span when I was frustrated was awful. Eye contact became harder, everything distracted me, and I scratched at my arms and neck as if something was trying to crawl out from under my skin.
“I don’t feel good.” I shook my head and rocked back and forth a little faster. I needed the pressure to go down. If this went on, I’d have a full-blown panic attack within the hour.
“Are you okay with me touching you, Corey?” he asked carefully.
I nodded and shrugged. I appreciated the question, but touch wasn’t one of my difficulties.
His hand landed gently on my back, and it brought some relief. Something to focus on. Maybe if I concentrated hard, I could slow down my breathing.
“The reason we want to talk to you—the sooner, the better—is because we want you to feel free to regress or go into your Little mode when you’re with us.” His tone was so warm and easy to get lost in that it took me a beat to register what he actually said. “Same goes for Greer—if you need help letting go, finding an emotional release. We’re here for you, little one.”
Oh hell, they were gonna break me. Every single fiber of my being screamed to be taken care of, to let me follow the lead of someone I could trust, someone who…
“Whether you want me to beat you or you want me to beat the nightmares away…” Greer had returned, and he climbed up on the bed too.
I swallowed hard. He was holding the Build-A-Bear box.
Was that for me?