Page 21

21

Ryder

I lay awake for a long time. Every time I started to drift off, I shifted. It drew attention to the dried cum flaking off of my skin, and I woke anew.

I was still fighting to understand what had happened.

All right, I’d been dumb, but I’d thought I could sort of unwind the leash from around his wrist. If he’d been a heavy sleeper, it could’ve worked, but those mitts made sure it was a clumsy effort.

Or maybe you wanted to get caught .

I didn’t like the way my thoughts were going.

We’d settled into a routine, him and me. I’d behaved, and he’d gone gently on me. He hadn’t demanded more than I could take, which meant the touches had been light, almost nonexistent. I could tell he wanted more, but he had been — thankfully — reluctant to press against my boundaries.

Well. That was laughable. He’d steamrolled my boundaries, but sexually, he’d been mostly hands-off. I didn’t know if he’d thought I would go to him eventually or what, but he’d held back .

Until tonight.

Tears welled up in my eyes all over again as I thought about how I’d gotten hard despite myself, how the deft strokes of his hand had brought me to climax no matter how much I’d fought it.

What did that say about me?

He’d been so angry. It hadn’t even been about sex. It had been about him thinking I found him repulsive , disgusting. I had at first, but now, it was sort of a part of him. I didn’t notice his scars unless he was being cruel, and that was rare these days.

It was like I’d ripped some festering wound open and left him vulnerable, scars and thoughts and all. It was like he’d let himself relax around me, and I’d gone and fucked it up by trying some stupid escape attempt that was never going to work anyway.

But that was me. Ryder, with all the terrible plans and the unattainable dreams. All I wanted was to go home, but…

But I wasn’t even sure I could.

Even if I went back, this was going to be hovering over me. He’d gotten inside my brain, deep inside where no one should’ve been able to go. I wondered what would’ve happened if I’d fought harder. Would he have known I was serious about not wanting to be touched then? Would tonight have happened?

Would I still be down in the basement, miserable and without food or water?

I didn’t know, but there was no going back.

I just wanted to sleep, to escape to a place where I was myself again — myself, not Toby, not his pet, not his dog. I wanted to be a human being who was treated like one instead of being treated like a naughty puppy .

Instead, bad, bad fucking dog echoed throughout my nightmares.

“Toby.”

My eyes snapped open, the entire world coming into focus all at once as I stared at Griffin.

He looked as tired as I felt.

I swallowed hard, not sure what to say or do.

“I… I’m sorry,” he said.

I stared at him, unsure of why he was apologizing at first. Jesus Fucking Christ, what was wrong with me? He’d raped me, and I didn’t instantly know why he was apologizing? I had to get this out of my head. “It’s okay,” I said, even though it wasn’t. But I’d responded to his touch, hadn’t I? It had been my fault that I’d come.

“No, it isn’t,” he said. He sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. “But Toby, you can’t do that. You can’t try to escape when I give you the privilege of sleeping in my bed. Did you really think I wouldn’t wake up?”

Yes.

No.

I didn’t know.

“There’s nowhere to run,” he went on, continuing my line of thought from the night before. “This is your home now. Think of how good things have been. You’ve been listening, and everything’s been… good. Hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yes, what?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I replied without thought.

“So we won’t have a repeat of last night?” he asked.

I shook my head .

“But it wasn’t all bad, was it?” There was something pleading in his voice, begging me to say it hadn’t been. He wanted me to excuse what he’d done.

I didn’t know if I could argue. I’d been the one to come. Even if I’d said no, my body had said yes, and that had been that.

I shook my head again.

Relief spilled across his face as I gave him absolution, and I felt… not better, really, but strange. It was a relief to me, too, to know he wasn’t angry at me anymore.

“It’ll be okay,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or himself. “Yeah,” I said roughly. “It’ll be just fine.”

He drew in a deep breath, held it, then released it. Nodding, he grabbed the key to the padlock holding me inside the kennel and unlocked it, though he paused instead of opening it. “No more problems. Right?”

“All you have is my word,” I whispered, feeling a bittersweet sadness wash over me at the idea that I’d broken my word the night before — and stupidly at that. There hadn’t been a chance in hell of getting free.

“But you know now that you aren’t going to escape from me. You know there can be good things here,” he said, more confidence in his voice than earlier.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good.” He took in another shaky breath then opened the kennel door. “Good boy.”

There was a flood of relief as he called me that instead of bad dog , instead of raging at me like the man I had thought he was from the moment I’d seen him .

The beast I’d expected to see beneath his scars instead of the man who was there.

I crawled out of the kennel as he held it open for me, stretching out slowly to relieve some of the pressure on my cramped limbs.

He waited patiently, even reaching down and tousling my hair affectionately as he waited for me to finish.

I wondered how long he’d wait, but I didn’t want to see the anger again. I didn’t want to piss him off again and see what was raging beneath the surface, just waiting to be awakened by the wrong words.

I gave him a slight nod, and he attached the leash to the collar.

That was new, and I didn’t like it. Except for the night before, he’d fastened it to the harness instead of putting pressure on my throat. Obviously he hadn’t completely forgiven me, no matter what he said.

I swallowed hard, ducking my head and slumping a little before I started to follow him into the kitchen. He tied the handle of the leash around one of the chairs to anchor me in place — more of a precursory thing than anything else, given that I could probably drag it.

I wouldn’t.

He started working on breakfast — not normal breakfast, which was usually dry cereal and maybe a little fruit with a few chewable vitamins thrown in there.

My stomach growled when I smelled the pancakes cooking, and I looked hopefully up at him. He wouldn’t eat it in front of me, would he? That would just be downright cruel, and I’d tried to make things right. Surely he wouldn’t do that to me…

Would he?

He fixed sausage, too, cutting up a few pieces of fruit before clearing away his mess with the same efficiency he did everything else with.

I could see it, though, finally — the way he favored his scarred side over the other. I couldn’t even imagine what it felt like to be in his place.

He brought over two plates, cutting up the pancakes and sausage. He held out a piece of sausage between his fingers, offering it out to me, and I stared at it for a moment.

I took it from his fingers as gracefully as I could, trying not to let my teeth get in the way. He hadn’t been starving me, and dinners had usually been substantial enough, but this was different.

This was strangely intimate, and I was uncomfortably aware of the shift.

He dipped a piece of pancake in some syrup and held that out too, the strings of syrup hanging down from his hand.

Without thinking, I licked them away before taking the piece of pancake into my mouth.

He patted me on the head with his other hand. “Good boy,” he murmured again.

Again.

And again.

The whole time he fed me, he repeated those words until they were like some balm to my senses. I was a good boy. I wasn’t that fucking bad boy I’d been the night before. I was making him happy, which meant that temper of his would stay firmly under the surface… or so I hoped.

I didn’t know what this meant, though.

I finally shook my head when he offered me another piece of fruit, full and ready for a nap after the meal.

He finished eating, then as he got up with the dishes, he told me, “I’m proud of you, Toby. You did that very well. ”

Thank fuck.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He didn’t correct me that time, his back to me as he ran the garbage disposal with the little bit of food we hadn’t eaten. Maybe he hadn’t even heard me. Maybe he hadn’t cared.

The kitchen went quiet but for the sounds of clinking dishes and running water, and even those didn’t last long. He dried his hands off on a nearby towel and faced me, looking down at me.

I shivered, not liking the way his gaze swept over my body. He’d examined it before, and he’d touched it, but this was something different too. I was pretty sure I didn’t like the change, but I didn’t have much of a choice.

He returned to me, untying the handle of the leash from the chair and tugging lightly. “Come on. I think we’ll do a different kind of training today.”

Oh, that did not bode well at all, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be the reason the day went downhill when it had started so well. I followed him, tail moving slightly in my ass like I was trying to wag it, and maybe I was. Maybe I wanted to do anything that would make him be good to me.

He led me to the living room, settling down on the couch. He nudged me down onto the floor, then he guided my head to rest on his leg. He stroked my hair, and I got as comfortable as I could.

I half-dozed as he watched TV, but it wasn’t long before I could sense the tone changing. He didn’t just want to sit there and watch TV with me at his side — or maybe he did, but that wasn’t the only thing he wanted. He wanted more than that.

I bit my lip. I had a feeling I was about to put my practice on the waterer to use, and I had no idea how I felt about that.

Of course, it didn’t matter. I’d do it anyway, because arguing was futile.

There was no reason to do anything but obey.