Page 154 of My Skin Begs You Please

I wondered if my time in Luke’s basement had steeled me to face the agony.

Like it or not, it was time to find out.

Chapter Thirty-One

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Luke

“Pancakes were youridea, I’m guessing?” I asked, as I drove up the ramp to the interstate, headed back to Knoxville. We were taking my car and leaving his truck at my mom’s place until we’d dealt with things.

“Yeah. Mornings after nights where I’ve made questionable choices, I make panic-pancakes. Or panicakes.”

“What were you panicking about? Meeting my mom or…?” I gestured at the windshield indicating the direction we were driving.

“‘Or’ mostly.”

“We need to go to the campus police as soon as possible. We should have gone before, when he attacked you the first time.”

Minty nodded, and he looked so green that I was worried the half-dozen pancakes he’d eaten might come back up. “I know.” His voice was a whisper.

I put my hand on his thigh, leaving it there. His leg trembled with apprehension. It radiated off him. I tried to think of a way I could center him. If we’d been at my house this morning, I’d have taken him to the basement and worked him over with a light flogger to get him into a calmer headspace.

As it was, I could only offer something to look forward to.

“When this is over, I’ll take you home and wipe it all out of your mind for a little while. All right?”

Minty shifted, licked his lips, and whispered, “What if I want something different?”

I blinked in surprise. “You want me to make love to you? I can do that.”

He shook his head vehemently. “I definitely don’t want that.”

“Okay…” I let my uncertainty hang in the air between us.

Eventually he spoke again. “I want to switch roles.”

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me?”

“I want you to submit to me. I want to do whatever I want to you, however I want to do it.”

My heart started to pound. It’d been a long time since I acted the role of sub, but I still remembered the lessons Jerome had taught me. Be still. Take it like a good boy. Get rewarded with bliss.

“How—how long have you wanted this?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said in a small voice. “A long time, maybe. I didn’t realize I wanted it, though, until this morning, but now I think it’s been there for a while.”

“You’ve been dissatisfied?”

“No. Yes. Not always. It’s hard to explain.” He picked at his shirt. I wished we could stop by the dorm so he could don one of his beautiful outfits and wear it as armor, but I understood why wearing boy-drag to see the police was important. “I want to be the god.Iwant to be the puppet master. I want to force someone—force you—makeyou feel something against your will. I need that.”

I cleared my throat. “That’s what Kyle did for you.”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “In his fucked-up way, that’s what he did.”

I let off the accelerator, which I realized I’d been pressing too hard. We were flying along many miles above the limit. “I don’t love pain,” I admitted. “I don’t enjoy it like you do.”

He remained quiet, and I let the words sink into the space between us. That was the point, wasn’t it? He knew damn well Ididn’t enjoy it, that I didn’t want it, and he wanted to give it to me anyway. He wanted to try to alchemize the moment into something bigger than my likes and dislikes. He wanted to make me explode with feelings—wanted and unwanted—andhewanted to control it.

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