Page 114 of Swallow Your Sorries

“I just want to look, remember? That’s all.”

He says as if examining every pore on my body isn’t still insanely intimate.

“I think you want me to look. Your pretty pussy’s already gleaming in anticipation and I’ve barely touched you,” he says, gazing up at me beneath those dark lashes. “No matter how much you lie, your body won’t. I know you want to get up there, on that table like a sacrifice, and present yourself to me. So just do what you want and not what you think makes sense.”

I inhale sharply because he’s just read my damn mind.

“Be good and climb up, Dovey. Lay back. I want to see you wet and open.”

I hate the way the worddoveyrolls off his tongue even more thandoveand yet, more heat shoots to my clit. More moisture coats my upper thighs and I feel his eyes burning into my wetness as I oblige, crawling up onto the high table on all fours.

When I get onto my back, spread my legs and find the courage to look at him as he keeps ordering me to do, I see that he isn’t looking at me at all.

I follow his black eyes that twinkle in the candlelight to a grimy glass pane. It’s just shiny enough to make out our reflections. I’m obviously naked and vulnerable while he looms over me fully clothed and all in black, looking like an angel of darkness. Just the sight of him, looking so menacing even with his hands bound, sends a shiver through me.

I think he’s right about me after all.

Right that I like it when he chases me.

That I like how he lures me into these positions.

Right that I’m a little sick and twisted just the way he is.

I was wrong about something else, though. The table isn’t cold as the flames are giving off far more heat than I’d given them credit for. In fact, surrounded by them in a crescent now, it’s almost too warm given the heat surging through my veins.

When Gant breaks our stare in the glass, I expect him to immediately zoom in on my slit, but he doesn’t. He leans forward between my legs, dipping down so low to my face that I think he’s going to kiss me.

I want him to kiss me.

But he doesn’t. He breaks off a candle above my head and hovers it over my breasts.

“What are you—”

When the hot wax drips onto my left nipple, then my right, I arch and hiss and Gant hisses with me, admiring his work.

“You have to trust me if I’m going to be your tutor, Dove. For now, I want to hurt you, but only in ways you’ll enjoy.”

Before my spine fully relaxes, he does it again, dripping the wax straight down my sternum. My legs attempt to snap shut as my toes curl, but Gant positions himself further between them, keeping them spread.

When he moves the flame over my ribs, I squirm harder as the wax trickles into my indented scar that’s able to hold far more and for far longer.

“What caused it?” he asks, swiping the cooling wax away with his thumb.

I didn’t want to talk about that night.

Not now.

“A car accident.”

He pauses, tipping the candle up, so it stops dripping.

Fuck, I know he’s recessing back to his own car accident. The one he thinks I caused.

I should’ve lied. But despite Gant’s proclamation, I’m not a liar and I don’t want to start now. Not when it concerns the reason Gant hates me anyway. I always want to tell the truth whether he believes it or not.

“When?”

I hesitate. “The night that I leaked the email.”

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