Page 32 of Crushed

Do you often obey rules without question?he sent.

I stared at the words. I thought of Lizzy. She was always the leader when it came to the two of us, but now she wanted me to take over. What would it be like to give my own orders?

With Cormac, he was in control, and I didn’t question his every move. I had to obey, because it was what he wanted. And that was how I would get closer to him.

I… If the situation calls for it, I sent.

Good answer, he replied.

What the hell did he want? Why was that a good answer? Was that another test that I had somehow managed to pass?

What do you want from me?I asked.

I sent it and immediately regretted my decision. I knew what he wanted. He wanted someone obedient, compliant, not someone questioning what his motives were. But I was frustrated and wanted to get this over with so that Lizzy and I could go back to normal, or even find ournewnormal, whatever that meant.

I want everything from you, Scarlett. I want your body, mind, and soul.

Those words seemed larger than life right then, taunting me with their power. It wasn’t only about the sexual aspect for him, but the power it gave him over another human being. A being with a mind. Someone willing to give it up.

Iris and Teagen were wrong then. He didn’t want a doormat or a robot. He wanted to train and mold someone so that they wanted his cruelty, even when they knew the gravity of it.

Write my name in every place that you want me to own, and that I own now, he texted.Take pictures, and be ready to share them with me.

If he wanted to own all of me, then I would have to write his name everywhere, in permanent marker.

I went to the full-length mirror and stared at myself in my underwear. The thighs were easy, and the black marks barely showed up against the purple bruises. Then I went to each breast, writing his full name,Cormac Stone, to signify that he had touched me there, marked me. It might have been with his cane, but he had still made contact, and those places would never be the same again. I wrote on my ass, my sex, across my stomach, then wondered about my arms, hands, and brain. Did he expect me to write his name there too?

Would I have done this, if it weren’t for the assignment?

There was something freeing about it. I told myself that I was only doing it to secure the assignment, to get him to trust me, but there was more to it than that. Because it was like he was marking me. As if his hand was guiding me, writing with me. As if these hands were his own. As if my mind was his too.