Page 52 of Trust

He might get angry at me for allowing it.

He might think less of me, too.

“The whip isn’t my favorite,” I finally say. “I don’t mind it, but I can’t take very many from it. I don’t go into subspace with it, not really.”

“You don’tmindit.” Ilya presses his lips into a thin line. “Which one do you like the most?”

The conversation is making me uncomfortable, but I want Ilya to know what Idolike. “I like the… the flogger,” I whisper. “I don’t like the whip very much.” And the spanking used to feel good, but now it feels too close, too much like punishment instead of pleasure.

Ilya points to the flogger. “This one?” After I nod, he holds up his phone to take a photo. “I will buy one,” he says. “I’ll learn to use it.”

I blink at him. “You will?” I ask dumbly. “Why?”

“Because you like it,” Ilya says. He tucks his phone away and walks over to the cello. I watch as he picks up the case. “Let’s go.”

I glance once more at the wall, and my eyes linger on the collar again.

It had meant something once.

I shake my head and hurry after Ilya, feeling the weight in the pit of my stomach.

“It needs to be something you like, too,” I tell him as we cross into the living room.

“If it makes you feel good, I’ll like it,” Ilya insists. Then he smiles gently. “But if I don’t like it, we’ll find something we both enjoy.”

He’s already acting as though I’m his, and I don’t know what to make of it.

I should be relieved because it makes this farce easier. But instead, I feel guilty because he’s seeing me as something I’m not.

We make sure the doors are locked as we leave, and I watch with apprehension as he sets the cello into the trunk of the car. He handles it with care, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

He opens my door again, and I shake my head slightly even though a smile plays across my lips. “You don’t have to do that,” I tell him.

“But I like to do it,” Ilya says. He smiles back. “But if it bothers you, I’ll do it less.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t bother me. I’m not used to it, that’s all.”

It’s sweet, and I’m not used to sweet anymore.

He leans in, and I tense up right before he presses a kiss to my lips.

“Then I’ll do it more,” Ilya promises. “I’ll take care of you, Micah.”

I’m too dazed by the kiss to do anything but nod.

I don’t understand why.

There’s a voice in my head taunting me that all I do is go from one man to the next, seeking out something I can’t ever have. It tells me that it starts out this way, but they always turn into something else before long.

Charles had, and so had Adam.

Ilya will, too.

But I want to enjoy this as long as I can.

TEN

ILYA