Page 12 of Once Upon a Dream
Lorne lets out a long, jagged breath, pulls my face back to his and drops his forehead to mine, mask to mask. “Mark came to me because he is a good friend to you, no matter what you might be thinking right now. He came to me because he knew I could give you what you were looking for and keep you safe. And that’s what I was proving. That I could give you everything. That it could be enough, even if just for one night.”
“I feel humiliated,” I say.
“Would you still feel humiliated if it had been a stranger to give you this dress? To fuck you while you were welted up from it?”
“Yes,” I say. “No. I don’t know.”
“You were wet, Morgan. The dress made you wet.”
“And that’s what you needed to prove? That I can be a switch after all?”
He sighs and lifts his head from mine.
“I was with you all night, Morgan. While you dressed, while you drove here, while you walked in. Because my touch was in that dress, because I was wrapping my desire and discipline around you before you even knew you’d see me. Yes, I wanted to prove that it could be fun and good—but only because you already wanted someone to prove that to you tonight as well.”
I don’t have an answer to that, because it’s undeniably true.
“You wanted to feel the weight of someone’s will on you,” he continues, “and I proved that I can do that with just a few nettle patches in your dress. For four years, I’ve been asking myself if there was anything I could have done, any argument I could have given you, any gesture I could have performed, to show you that you can play however the hell you like and still be the woman you need to be. I thought—”
He stops, and a muscle leaps along the carved line of his jaw. He looks down at his hands, still holding the tube of ointment, and I hate that I can’t read his gaze right now, I hate that I can’t see his whole face.
He doesn’t finish what he was saying, and I can’t think of what to say. I just came harder than I ever have; I came so good that my body is craving infinitely more. But I cannot be un-humiliated, and the sting of my pride is worse than the sting of the nettles.
And…yes. I’m afraid.
Still.
Lorne screws the cap back onto the tube of ointment and then places it in my hand, curling my fingers around it. “Hydrocortisone cream. If the welts aren’t gone in two or three days, let me know.”
“Thank you,” I say numbly.
He takes a step back, and I realize he’s about to leave. A fresh bubble of panic swells in my chest.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Do you want me here?”
Always. “Of course not,” I say instead, making my voice as frosty as possible.
I can’t let him see how much I want him, not after he embarrassed me, not after he lied. He’s plundered everything else of mine, and the fact that I enjoyed the plundering as much as him doesn’t soothe me in the least.
He nods, as if he expected this answer. “Then I’ll go. And I am sorry.”
“Sorry for which part?”
Those gorgeous eyes trace my face. “All of it. But especially that none of it was enough.”
And then he pushes through the gauzy veil separating our alcove from the ball and disappears into the lavish, glittering fray.
4
I cry all the way back to the city.
I have my Secret Service team drive me back, not Mark, because I’m not entirely sure I won’t kill him for his part in Lorne’s deception, but mostly because I need to be alone.
When I get to my hotel, I tear off the wings, the dress, the still-damp silk covering my pussy. I kick off my shoes and I throw the mask in the trash.
And it’s when I’m climbing into the shower for a nice long shower-cry that I catch a glimpse of my ass in the mirror. Those welts which feel so huge and which throb in aching time with my raw, unhappy heart—they’re so small in reality. They’re the size of peas.
