Page 121 of The Ecstasy of Sin

I hug myself tighter, trying to hold my fragile pieces together. “I can’t do this.”

“You can’t do what, exactly?” he asks, a dark edge threading through his tone. He reads me too well. It’s unsettling.

“I can’t live here. For free. I can’t be useless, worthless. I—” I gasp as Dominic grabs me, pulling me into his lap.

“Stop,” he says firmly, pressing his lips to my forehead. “We can talk about what you’re feeling, but you need to understand that you’re not leaving. Not now. Not ever. You belong to me, and you belongwithme.”

I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.

He stands, lifting me easily in his arms and carrying me to the bathroom. He sets me down in front of the tub and pulls his t-shirt over my head, leaving me naked in the soft glow.

A fragment of my vision has returned, and from the corner of my eye, I catch the flickering light of several candles dancing in the dark.

Dominic closes the door, plunging us into a candlelit oasis of warmth and shadow.

I hear his sweatpants hit the floor, and then his hands are on me, guiding me into the tub. Before I can lower myself in, he steps in behind me.

He sinks into the water first, then pulls me down into his arms, cradling me in his lap.

I melt into the blissful heat, my body relaxing against his. He is powerful, broad, and unshakable. He wraps me in his strength and steadiness, and it’s almost enough to chase the terrible feelings away.

“Tell me why,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my shoulder.

I sigh, my eyes closing as I force my tense muscles to relax.

Nearly half of my vision has returned, but it’s still more comfortable to just surround myself in darkness. “I’ve been homeless for so long. Everything I have… I had to fight tooth and nail for. Every little thing I managed to keep, I earned. It’s hard to… m—move o—on fr—from th—that.”

“Shhh,” he croons, stroking slow, soothing lines up and down my back as the aphasia hits. “If it makes you feel any better, you don’t have a choice. You’ll learn to let go of those feelings… and embrace being mine.”

“You’re a m—maniac,” I whisper, a small smile spreading across my lips. “An ah—addictive maniac.”

“And yet you love me,” he whispers back, his voice reverent. “Every fucked-up part of me.”

He shifts me around until my back is pressed against his chest, and I’m sitting between his legs.

His hand slides between my thighs. My fingers instinctively drop to rest against his, uncertain of his intentions.

“I did a lot of research,” he murmurs against my hair. “One of the studies I read said that an orgasm during the aura phase, or early into the migraine, may reducesome of the pain.”

He brushes my hair back with his other hand, his tongue tracing the shell of my ear. My back arches slightly, a tingle racing down my spine from his deep voice rumbling in my ear.

“Relax for me,” his voice rumbles like distant thunder. I exhale as he spreads my thighs wider, hooking my feet on either side of his legs, opening my body up to him.

A soft moan escapes me when his fingers glide through the lips of my pussy, slow and deliberate, stroking back and forth before circling gently over my clit.

The pleasure he gives me is devastating in its precision. He touches me like he has memorized my body, and knows exactly what it takes to make me come apart for him.

My clit throbs gently beneath his fingers, but I force myself to relax, resisting the urge to tense or grind into his hand. He wants me relaxed, yielding to him, and I want to obey.

Then his fingers dip lower, and I shiver as two of them slide inside of me.

I moan, my hips bucking gently despite my efforts to stay still.

“Your body is mine” he growls against my ear, eliciting another shiver from deep inside me. “And you’ll do whatever I tell you, won’t you?”

I nod, my breath coming in soft, desperate pants.

He starts pumping his fingers in and out of me, stroking me from the inside out, and I quiver in his embrace.