Page 61 of Vienna Betrayal

Another spank, then another.

At the fourth one, she broke. She shoved off the table, her shoulder knocking into Alexander’s chest.

She whirled away from him, backing up several steps. Her breathing was labored, fueled by newborn panic.

“Alena.” The word cracked like a whip and she winced, taking another step back. Her dress was on the floor by his feet, as was her underwear.

“Alena?” His voice softened, her name now a question.

“You said I shouldn’t trust you.”

“Yes.”

“Do you see how I might find that alarming when I’m alone in your home with you?”

Alexander frowned. “You’re…scared?”

The panic folded in on itself, making way to exasperation. “Yes, Alexander. I find it alarming when you say I can’t trust you when, unlike at the club, there would be no one here to help me if you…” She swallowed heavily. “If you really hurt me.” Her fingers twisted together nervously. “It didn’t help that I told you I’m sore and you still started to spank me.”

He crossed his arms. “You’re a lazy sub, then.”

“Excuse me?” Alena’s fear disappeared in an instant, replaced by outrage. She mirrored his posture, arms folded under her bare breasts.

“You’re submissive because you’re lazy. You want the Dom to do all the work, make all the decisions, while still controlling what happens.”

“I am not a ‘lazy sub.’” Alena narrowed her eyes at him. “You can be infuriating. First you walked away because I have an entirely normal reaction to you smacking me with a weapon—”

“A crop is a weapon now?”

“And now you’re calling me lazy because, once again, I am having an objectively justifiable reaction to both pain—that spanking hurt—and your implied threat.”

“I know the spanking hurt. You have to trust me.”

“Lord, preserve me…” Alena pantomimed strangling him, then took a deep breath. “You literally just said I shouldn’t trust you. That’s the implied threat I was talking about. But now I should trust you?”

“I…” Alexander unfolded his arms, shoulders sagging. “There’s a reason I prefer silence.”

“Which is it? Can I trust you? Or should I walk away?”

“Both.” Alexander ran a hand through his hair, then scrubbed his palm across his face.

She waited for him to say something, but after a painfully long minute he walked to the kitchen and braced his hands on the countertop, his head hanging low.

Alena’s heart clenched. She couldn’t hold on to her outrage. She walked over, silent on her bare feet. He tensed when she slid her arms around his waist from behind, but relaxed when she lay her cheek on his back.

She’d never forgotten something a fellow sub, one who was married to her Dom, had said back when she’d been new to the lifestyle.

They need us to be soft because they’re hard. Everything the world has done to them...all the scars, they put up walls and only our softness, the trust we give them can let them know it’s okay to come out of that prison.

Alena had thought the other sub was full of shit at the time. She hadn’t been able to hear the truth of those words, because she had her own scars, her own walls.

Now she was older and wiser. She knew her mental health was far from perfect, and her moral compass no longer functioning, but she had coping mechanisms. She’d found a way to live with her scars, put windows in her walls.

She didn’t think Alexander could say the same.

Alena closed her eyes and hugged him tighter. He was at war…with himself. He needed her, if only for this one brief moment.

Alena lifted her cheek and kissed his back. She wished he’d undressed so she could press her lips against bare flesh.

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