Page 56 of Submit
“Guide my hand, and I’ll touch you anywhere you want.”
Closing my eyes, I’m like a blind man, letting her direct me. I don’t want to see where she’s taking me, only feel it, because if I see where I’m going, I might pull back and that’s not what she needs.
The bandages feel like rough cotton under my fingers, and her skin feels cold and smooth. She’s still her soft self, but tighter and guarded, her flesh protecting her as much as it can from me.
I know it’s from the trauma, the body does things we don’t even know about to save itself, and that’s where she is now, in a self-preservation mode, and it kills me that she has to be that way. It never should have happened. There could have been another way to do everything instead of sending her back to him.
Guilt swirls through me. It’s my fault this happened. I was angry, felt betrayed, and yes, I was, but, no I wasn’t either. I should have read more into it, or had the realizations that Ashley did way before anything bad could happen. Now I’m going to have to live with the scars on her just like she does. But I’ll try to make sure that every day she feels safe and sexy, even with the angry marks he left on her.
“Tiger stripes.” I say quietly as she takes my hand across her belly.
“What?”
“Tiger stripes.” I repeat, finally opening my eyes to see her staring at me quizzically.
“Tiger stripes are stretch marks, not scars.” She says, trying to laugh and wincing and hissing in pain at the movement of her body.
“But aren’t they scars? Earned by doing something amazing and brave?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
“Then these are your stripes. You’ve been through something that’s changed your body forever.”
“And you’re okay with my stripes?”
“I will love them, because they’re a part of you.”
The tears in her eyes flow again, but this time they aren’t of pain or fear. I can see her changing before my eyes, blooming into something I’ve never seen before. A woman who’s free, and no longer scared, only scarred.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
It’s been ten days of taking care of my little bunny. She’s no longer the prey of another man, and she’s almost back to herself, during the day time. At night, she tosses and turns, moaning and crying in her sleep, talking out loud with words that beg her tormentor to stop.
We haven’t had sex since before the incident, and she hasn’t asked for it. I haven’t pushed the issue either, but as I lay next to her in the dark, listening to her whimper through another nightmare, her words from when Max was sewing her up come back to me. She had said “Touch me please. I want your touch to replace his.” She knew what she was asking, and I didn’t, not really. Until now.
“Millie? Wake up bunny.” I say, rolling over and propping myself up on my elbows so I’m looming over her when she opens her eyes. “Millie, now. Wake up.”
Her nightmare is intensifying as I speak to her, I can tell she hears the demand in my voice, and I need her to if my idea is going to work. Without the fear of hurting her physically anymore, I grab her shoulders and give her a shake.
A big gasp escapes her as her eyes finally fly open. In the moonlight through the window I can see the fear in them, the green irises almost gone, hidden by her blown pupils. Her hands fly up to smack at me, her vision not focused on anything, her mind still in the midst of the dream. Grabbing them and crossing her wrists together, I slam them to the pillow above her head and crash my mouth down on hers.
She bucks under me, her body tense, and I kiss her harder, hoping she doesn’t bite me, but prepared if she does. She doesn’t though, instead she moans a low rumbling noise from her throat as she recognizes me and the way I kiss her.
“Good girl.” I say into her mouth. “It’s Daddy. I’ve got you, and you’re going to do everything I say. Do you hear me bunny?”
“Yes.” She breathes out, and I swallow her one word down, keeping it inside me.
Her compliance to Tyler may have been forced, but she’s a naturally obedient woman who needs a strong man to guide her, and with me all she has to do is submit, and I will take care of her forever.
“Submit to me.” I say, kissing down her jawline to her neck, feeling her pulse thrumming under my lips.
“I submit.”
“That’s my good fucking girl.” I growl against her throat, nipping and biting it, licking it and kissing it, making her shiver. “You’re mine.”
“Yours.”
