Page 58 of Lesson In Forgiveness

“Close your eyes, Tabby. Bring your breathing back in sync with mine, and just listen to my voice. That’s it. Good girl.” He praised her despite the fact she was huffing like the little engine that could, and her slender body was stiff as a plank. “There’s nothing to be afraid of here. Say the safeword and the giant blond asshole over there will come rearrange my face, okay?”

A quiet, nervous laugh. “I thought you liked him?”

“I do, as long as he’s not rearranging my face. Have you seen the size of his hands?”

“They’re big.”

Grit switched their hands so he cradled hers from the top, linking their fingers. Taking his time, he dragged their fingertips in slow circles on her stomach. “Mmm-hmm. I like my teeth where they are. But if I do something to make you safe out, then I deserve to have them knocked down my throat. Did you close your eyes?”

A tiny head shake.

“All right. Tell me when you’re ready.”

He watched her in the mirror, the range of emotions flitting through her eyes as she struggled with the need to please him and the desire to save herself. After a few minutes of his circling touch and low murmurs in her ear, he felt her breathing snap into rhythm with his—slow, easy, quiet.

It took a minute or two more before she sagged into him, her eyes closing.

“That’s a good girl. My good girl. I know it must be difficult to submit whenever I ask, Tabby, but you never disappoint. Especially here, when we’re not in familiar surroundings and not alone.” Lowering his mouth to her shoulder, he spoke between soft kisses. “I hoped you might feel safer, more protected, with not only two other Doms in the room, but another woman as well. I’m assured that she’s quite the savage when she believes someone else is in trouble.”

“She couldn’t stop you.”

“Apparently, she took on Atticus without any thought for her own safety when he threatened to take a belt to Alicia’s ass.” He grinned at the thought. As he talked, he enlarged the lulling circle on her belly until their fingertips almost brushed the pretty white-blonde curls protecting her core, pausing when she went rigid. “Relax and breathe, Tabby.”

“I’m n-no good at this.”

“Only because you’re scared. We’re going to change that, you and me. Can you spread your legs wider for me, little tiger?” More kisses, travelling to the rounded ball of her shoulder joint and all the way back along to beneath her ear. “Do you know what I want to do to you? I think about it more than I should, but there’s something decadent about laying a beautiful woman out on my bed and settling between her thighs.”

Tabitha said nothing, her slight shift on his lap the only response.

“Spreading you out on the sheets, kissing every inch of you because every single one is beautiful, scars and all. Teasing all the hidden hot spots of pleasure with my beard, dragging it over your skin until you’re ready to burst.” He lifted his other hand to her breast again, brushing his thumb back and forth along the sensitive underside. “Sliding down your body until your legs hook over my shoulders. I think I’d give myself a minute to play with these soft, pale curls,” he murmured, doing just that with her fingers twined with his. “Soft like silk, little tiger. Pale as pearls. I’d give them a kiss, just to show my appreciation.”

Bullets could bounce off her, she was so tense. A low noise, not unlike a dying moose, throbbed on the air.

From the corner of his eye, Grit saw both Eli and Evander’s heads whip in their direction. The light from the screen caught the scrutiny in Elias’s gaze as it raked over Tabitha, then he lifted an eyebrow in question.

Grit shook his head, declining their interference.

Widening his legs, he opened her further until she whimpered in protest. “Even though I love these curls, my impatience would get the better of me. I’d want to know if my woman, the woman trusting me with the very core of her being, is wet for me.” Slowly, he guided their hands lower, into her red flag zone, and felt her recoil. “Now the question is, what do I do first? There’s this perfect little clit in need of attention, but this sweet pussy is dreadfully neglected.”

“Grit,” she beseeched.

“That fucker didn’t deserve you, Tabby. He didn’t deserve to be your first, he didn’t deserve the right to call himself your father. The assholes who came after him should’ve been hunted down and castrated for their part in what was done to you.” He sighed and rested his forehead against her hair. “What’s your safeword?”

“Oh fuck.” Sweat seeped through his shirt from her back. “Rory.”

“Use it if you need it.” Mentally bracing himself for war, Grit slid their joined hands over her curls to cover the place she feared most.

For about five seconds, she contained herself. Admirably, he thought. But he didn’t let his guard down, and she didn’t disappoint his expectations.

Wrenching her hand from under his, Tabitha raked her nails down his arm, trying to gouge furrows into his skin. When that didn’t work, she twisted like a snake, only to be thwarted by his free arm pinning her diagonally across her chest between her breasts.

It was akin to sumo wrestling a bucking bull, he decided, doing his best to simply hold onto her instead of forcibly restraining her fury. She didn’t need to be pinned down and made to take what he gave her; she’d been put in that position her entire life.

She needed to be able to fight like the hellcat she was and still feel loved.

With his hand cupping her pussy fully, he kept her safe as she bucked and snarled, accepting the bite to his forearm and another to his shoulder as a hazard of the job he’d assigned himself.

“C’mon, little tiger,” he heard himself say over the thump of blood surging through his ears. “Do some fucking damage. Let it out, give it all to me. I’m the one doing this to you. I’m the one touching you. I’m the one bringing the fucking pain back to life. Make me pay for it.”

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