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Fire-red singed her cheeks and her pulse picked up beneath my grip.

“You mentioned the other day about never letting a man have control of you. Who abused it before?”

Her eyes narrowed at me and formed lasers. Weaker men had probably shrunken back from the lethalness in her look. Not me, though. “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”

“Not when it comes to something this important. You need to trust me. You give me that every time you obey something I command. I can’t be an effective Dom if I don’t know what minefield I’m walking beforehand. It’s uncomfortable and hard for you, that’s obvious, but it’s also necessary since you signed our contract.”

She tried to pull her hand out from my grip but I tightened my hold on her. Not hurting her, but whatever she needed to say would be easier to take if I was holding her in some way.

She grabbed her water glass. It shook in her hand as she drank from it. Wetting her lips, she sighed.

“My dad took off when I was young. He left the day after my eighth birthday but my birthday present from him was a black-eye.”

My chest burned like a branding iron was pressed against it. “What?”

Her gaze dropped. I allowed her to take the distance she was putting between us. Her fingernails dug into the back of my hand and I gave her that too. If she needed to cause me pain to get through hers, I’d take it times a million.

“I think he’d beaten any real life out of my mom before I was ever born. She was always weak around him. My first vivid memory is waking up at night, carrying my yellow blanket down the stairs to ask for water and my dad punched her. She fell to the ground and he kicked her in the stomach.”

Tear-filled eyes hit mine and I sucked in a breath to keep from losing the hold on my own anger. A man who beat a woman, a little fucking girl, was no man.

She sniffed and swiped beneath her eyes. “He still had his pointed dress shoes on. Anyway, that continued for years. It was all I knew of him. After that I was terrified of him, and slowly I understood why my mom always walked hunched over. She would say she didn’t sleep well, or she had a bad back but by the time I was six, I’d seen too much. It was around that age he slapped me for the first time.”

“Rebecca—”

“I know you say BDSM isn’t about beating and abuse, but I don’t know if I fully believe it yet.”

“Yet you came to Luminous, and you signed the contract.”

She laughed, but it was cold. As chilling as the rawness in her story. “Yeah, well the sex is good and Miranda and Shawn talked me into Luminous.”

Stunned, I let go of her hand and sat back in the booth. The hell? “Are you saying you don’t want this? That, what? I’m your experiment to see if I’m just a woman beater in disguise?” Fury and frustration prickled my spine, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t use women. Hell, I’d made myself completely clear with the fact I wouldn’t even take a paddle to her unless sheaskedfor it.

She was saved from having to answer me because the waitress arrived. Our plates were on the table and we assured the waitress we didn’t need anything further, even if I’d kill for another damn drink to burn out the anger inside me.

“It’s not that,” Rebecca finally said.

“Then explain it.” Because fuck if I understood.