Not Your Damn Dom (Denial #2) (20 page)

Alex threw up her hands in frustration.
“What did you do? You won’t tell me, and God knows I’ve tried to figure it out. I need you to be honest with me so that I can tell you exactly why you’re wrong.” She made a visible effort to calm herself. “Please, Spencer.”

I knew right then that I
’d lost her. As soon as I told her about Kristin’s breakdown, her perception of me would change and she’d leave. “I’ll tell you everything. Just…uncuff me first. If you want to leave, at least then you won’t have to worry about freeing me first.”

Alex
eyed me suspiciously for a moment, but then her expression softened. “I’m not going anywhere, Sir.”

She
undid my ankles first, then my wrists. I reached for her the moment I was free, and she allowed me to give her one soft, lingering kiss before pulling back with a tiny shiver. “Don’t distract me, Spencer. Please.”

How could I fucking explain that I was scared I
’d never get to hold her or kiss her again?

I sat up and made sure the sheet remained over my lower half before I began. Letting my nakedness show while I was recounting my sins was unfair to all of us
—to Kristin as well as Alex and me.

I tried to gather my thoughts to begin, but where the hell could I start?

“Kristin and I were together for six years. She was my collared submissive after the first year. She lived here with me. I knew her responses and limits inside out, and I would have said at the time that we’d be together for our whole lives. We trusted each other absolutely, until the session that fucked it all up.”

Alex moved to my side and took my hand. I laced her fingers through mine, glad of her show of support.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

The old, familiar dread rose in me again. The self-loathing. The hurt. I pushed past it and tried to relate things as they
’d happened.

“
Kristin asked to roleplay a specific scene. We’d done others in the past, but never anything this edgy. She wanted me to pretend to be an intruder to the apartment and force her to…”

At Alex
’s swift intake of breath, I knew she didn’t need any more elaboration. I let her process it for a moment.

“
I know a lot of people like that kind of thing. Or think they do, in theory. I can sort of see the appeal, but I’d never want to try it myself.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m guessing it didn’t go the way it was supposed to.”

I forced myself to speak again, though it was the last thing I wanted to do.
“We negotiated beforehand. It wasn’t something we needed to do that often, but with a scene that intense, I wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting into and how much…force to use, whether she wanted me to be quiet or to call her names. All the little details. She didn’t have a lot of restrictions, but that wasn’t a red flag. I knew what she liked and we trusted each other.”

Alex nodded, but stayed silent. I was kind of grateful for that. It made it easier to continue.

“We did the scene, and it was intense. I won’t go into it, but it was pretty extreme in some ways. She’d asked me to make her cry, make her genuinely scared. She got off on things like knife play, so this would be like a new level of fear play, she said.”

A shudder ran through me. I couldn
’t suppress it. “She started freaking out, but since that was part of how we’d planned it, I didn’t immediately see there was something really wrong. It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later that I realised she’d forgotten she could safeword and make it stop. A couple of minutes…it’s a long time to be fighting someone stronger than you, afraid for your life.”

Alex rested her free hand on top of our joined ones and squeezed.
“God, that’s awful.”

I kept going, unable to stop now.
“She wouldn’t let me give her aftercare or repair the damage I caused. It took her two hours of hiding in the bathroom to tell me she’d flashed back to something that happened when she was a teenager, on the way home from school. She’d repressed it, locked it away. And being in that situation with me made her remember.”

Thick guilt rose like bile in my throat, but I swallowed it down.
“She blamed me for not stopping, said I should have seen the signs. I
did
see them. She was scared and crying and shaking, telling me ‘no’, but she’d asked for that beforehand, so I had no idea she wasn’t okay with being in that state.”

I stared blankly at the wall, unable to stop remembering.

Get away from me! You monster! I trusted you, loved you, and you did this to me…

“
Spencer,” Alex murmured. From her tone of voice, it wasn’t the first attempt she’d made to pull me from my thoughts. “Come on. Focus on me, okay?”

She cupped my face in her hands and made sure
she was all I could see. Her eyes were full of tears, but none of the anger or outrage I’d expected showed in her expression. She was probably glad she was an actor right then.

“
It wasn’t your fault. How could you have known? The whole point was for her to be scared and struggling, right? So what apart from her safeword could have made you realise something was wrong?”

Logically, I knew she was right.
It was the exact point Callum had made many times. But the way Kristin and I had known each other, I should have realised. “Maybe I got too caught up in the role I was playing. Maybe there were obvious signs I should have seen before her meltdown.”

“
She didn’t let you near her afterwards? At all?” Alex changed the subject, as though recognising that it was a losing battle to try to argue with me.

“
Not within arms’ reach.” And fuck, that had hurt the worst of all. I’d needed to make amends for the way I’d failed her, to make her understand how truly sickened and sorry I was.

“
I can understand that she was traumatised. I’ve known people who’ve had repressed memories come back to them. It wasn’t pretty. But God, if I ever meet her I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind…”

The anger in her voice took me aback.
“Huh?”

“
Don’t get me wrong—her teenage attack wasn’t her fault, and it’s terrible that she flashed back to it. She didn’t ask for it and she couldn’t have seen it coming. But after your scene went wrong, you needed as much reassurance as she did, and she told you her flashback was your fault.”

Sighing, Alex paused, as if trying to set her thoughts in order.
“She didn’t use her safeword, Spencer. It’s tragic what happened, but you gave her that safeword in good faith as a way to stop a really edgy roleplay. I feel so bad for her that she forgot how to end the scene, but you’re not psychic. How were you supposed to know if she didn’t safeword, and you couldn’t rely on her body language or what actually came out of her mouth?”

She put her arms around my shoulders and hugged me tightly.
“It sounds like it screwed you up just as much as it screwed her up. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was just a scene that went wrong when something you couldn’t have foreseen popped up from some forgotten corner of her brain.”

I shook my head slowly, unable to shake the memory of Kristin curled up in a ball on the opposite side of the room, threatening to scream or call the cops if I took even a step towards her. She
’d ceased to be the Kristin I recognised that night.

“
I still love you.” Alex was speaking softly against my shoulder. “I don’t know if you can even process that right now, but I still love you and trust you and I want you to be my Dom.”

Be her Dom? With the past so close to the forefront of my mind, just the thought of it made me nauseous. Imagining Alex cringing back from my touch was physically painful as well as mentally.

“I can’t talk about that right now. Just give me some time.”

She nodded.
“Is it okay for me to keep holding you?”

I gathered her into my lap, pulling her close and burying my face in her neck.
I never wanted to let go. Her quiet support made me feel like less of a monster. Her warmth against my body chased the chill of guilt from my bones.

“
I love you so much,” she whispered, and if she noticed I was silently crying, hoping she wouldn’t catch on, she didn’t say anything.

Alex

I held Spencer for a long time, my heart aching for him. God, it was a horrible situation he’d been through. I couldn’t even imagine.

Everything I
’d said to him was true. I didn’t know what reliving a suppressed memory was like, but I hoped that if it had been me in Kristin’s shoes, I’d have been able to put things with Spencer in context better than she had. To throw away six years of love and trust because something you’d requested had gone wrong, and to blame the man you loved for it, when it was clear he was completely broken up about the situation…

At least now everything made more sense. Of course Spencer was determined to never have a submissive again, to commit on that deep a level. If it had been me in his
shoes, I would have felt horribly responsible. Guilty that I hadn’t noticed something was wrong, too.

But it was a rape scene. As far as I understood it, things were
supposed
to seem like they were wrong. Right?

It didn
’t affect the way I saw him. His need to avoid roleplay made sense now, and I was entirely willing to go along with that limit. He was a careful, responsible, loving Dom—it was so obvious, and I’d barely even scened with him.

I ached to be the submissive who could get him through this terrible emotional wound, to show him that he was worthy of my trust and love.

God, he was so broken right now. He was silently crying, and he wouldn’t want me to know, so I kept quiet, hoping my own tears wouldn’t turn to sobs that would clue him in.

After a painful eternity, Spencer drew me off his lap and reached for his pants.
“I’m gonna go take a shower. I need a little time alone, okay?”

I tried not to see it as a rejection.
“Okay.”

“
Thanks.” He went into the bathroom before I could say anything else.

Alone, I curled up in the middle of the bed and sighed. Had that done anything to help us through this? I wasn
’t sure. Spencer was likely to throw up even higher walls around himself after this, and to insist that he shouldn’t be a Dom. How was I going to convince him that he was wrong?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Alex

I met Giselle for
a picnic lunch in the park midway through the week. We sat down with our miniature feast far away from anyone who might eavesdrop on our conversation.

Giselle listened sympathetically as I told her what had happened after our big scene
, keeping his revelation about Kristin to myself. “God, I can’t believe he’s still pushing you away. Stupid guy!”

I shrugged and took a bite of apple.
“He has his reasons, I guess.”

She pointed a breadstick covered with dip at me.
“You know what you need to do? Give him a shock. Shake him up. Make him stop taking for granted that you’ll always put his needs first.”

I stared at her.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

She smiled.
“Offer your submission again, and if he rejects it, go find someone platonic to play with at Scene One. Or at least pretend that’s what you’re gonna do.”

I looked down at my slowly browning apple slices uneasily.
“I dunno, Giselle. I might lose him that way.”

“
Why?” she asked, as if her solution was the most logical thing in the world. “You need to submit. You need pain. He won’t give those things to you, but he’s fine with everything else in your relationship. I know tons of people who have arrangements with their partners like this. They go out and get whipped or whatever, then go home nice and horny, and their partner does the rest.”

I already knew Spencer would
despise the idea of some other Dom whipping me into a frenzy and then releasing me in his general direction. “I’m pretty sure he’d hate that. A lot.”

“
Duh,” Giselle said. “That’s the whole point. He’ll get all possessive and territorial and forbid you to do it, and drag you into his dungeon and collar you on the spot.”

The idea of that was hot
…but…

“
What if he doesn’t?”

She shrugged.
“You go to Scene One and find a Dom to do something platonic with, then take care of yourself with a vibrator afterwards. And maybe think about whether he’s worth all this angst.”

I sighed.
“He’s worth it, okay?”

“
Maybe I’m just bitter because I’ve been single too long,” she confessed. “I’m not the trusting type, so all my submissive encounters are skin-deep at best. I’ve never really had that total surrender thing you and Kat do.”

I tried not to think about how much I wanted
‘that total surrender thing’.

“
Just think about it. Just because his last relationship ended badly, that doesn’t mean you should have to suffer forever.”

On the way to
a promotional event twenty minutes later, I sat quietly in the back of the seven-seater while my co-stars joked around. Something had to change, that much was clear. Though our relationship was still loving in every other way, we hadn’t had sex since our conversation about vanilla leaving us wanting something. If we didn’t repair it somehow, and soon, I wasn’t sure if we had a future together.

“
Hey, Alex. Don’t forget your game face.” James could tell something was on my mind. In his usual style, he didn’t push, just squeezed my shoulder before he followed the others out of the limo.

I plastered my celebrity face on and followed, doing my best to feel as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I was acting.

* * * *

Spencer

As soon
as Alex appeared in the doorway, I knew we were gonna end up fighting. She had that look on her face—the one that begged me to understand her need to submit.

“
Hey.” She sat down on the couch beside me. “How was your day?”

I let her drop a quick kiss on my lips, but my guard was up and she knew it.

“Not bad,” I answered. “How about you?”

She took a breath and plunged in.
“I met up with Giselle at lunch. She said there are lots of couples where only one of them is into BDSM, and they agree that the partner who wants to do it can get what they need platonically. With someone else.”

Instantly my possessive streak, my Dom streak, flared.
“Hell, no.”

Defensively, she said,
“I haven’t even asked you anything yet!”

“
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what the question is, Alex. No way. No fuckin’ way am I letting any other guy get his hands on my girl.”

“
I said
platonically
,” she gritted out, fire in her eyes to match my own temper. “It wouldn’t be any different than acting out a sex scene on a movie set. Less intimate, because there wouldn’t even be kissing.”

Bullshit!
I got up and paced across the room, anger and nervous energy fuelling me. “I’ve seen your reaction to pain without any intimate stimulation at all. You’d be halfway to an orgasm from just a spanking, and you know it.”

She blushed, her hands clenched into fists in her lap, her head bowed as she tried to formulate an argument.

“No.” And that was final.

Getting up off the couch, she stood in the middle of the room, then deliberately lowered herself to her knees, her eyes o
n my face. “If I belong to you, then prove it.
Sir
.”

I turned my back on her tempting form, my cock
twitching. “I can’t.”

“
You don’t trust me. That’s our whole problem.” Her voice shook with emotion, killing my arousal as quickly as it had stirred. I knew she was on the verge of tears.

“
What?” I turned to stare at her. I trusted her completely. It was
myself
I didn’t trust.

“
You won’t let me in. Since our scene you’ve locked away part of yourself and it’s not fair. What’s even going on here? Is it Kristin? Are you still too in love with the memory of you guys together, before the bad stuff, that nothing between us could ever be as good?”

Where the hell was she pulling this from? I was doing this for her. For us.

Before I could speak, she carried on, “Or do you think I’m weak? Like I can’t handle what you can dish out?”

I stared at her, wondering what the hell else was going on in her head. She was so off-base that I honestly didn
’t even know how to respond.

“
Or maybe you’re just still punishing yourself for what happened back then. It wasn’t even your fault. And by punishing yourself, you’re punishing me, and you will for the rest of our time together.”

She stood up to go.
“I had you, Spencer. For a few days you opened up completely and I thought nothing would come between us again. But then you snatched yourself away from me. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of you. I just thought you’d trust me enough to keep being your full self, and let me be mine.”

I
moved forward, reaching for her, but she stepped back immediately, tears on her cheeks.

“
I need some time alone,” she said, and left the room.

I sank back down onto the couch once her footsteps had receded down the stairs and the door that led out into the gym had swung closed with a thud.

“Fuck.” I covered my face with my hands as if that would stop her misery from permeating my brain.

Now she
’d gone I could run back over what she’d said, pick it apart. She thought she might be to blame for me holding back? That she wasn’t sub enough for me, or that I was still hung up on Kristin?

The one thing I was certain of was that we loved each other. I
’d have to be completely senseless to not realise it. But she’d been trying to pretend she could do vanilla and it was weighing on her, just as it was weighing on me. If she was trying to find ways to be with me and still live out her masochistic, submissive impulses—not with someone else, never with some other fucking Dom—she was almost at the end of her rope.

S
he was right. I was punishing us both by refusing to acknowledge my dominant urges, and it was worse because she’d seen how much I loved to hurt her and to subjugate her to my will. Even worse because we both loved it equally.

I groaned and pondered my options, but couldn
’t get past the melancholy expression on her face. She was out there now, hurting because of me, and I hadn’t even had to touch her.

I grabbed my phone and speed-dial
led Callum. He answered after a couple of rings. “You okay, bud?”

Somehow he
’d known before I’d even told him. “Goddamn it, how do you already know we had a fight? Did she call you?”

“
Tonight? No. But I’ve been expecting this for the last couple of weeks. I’ll bring the Scotch.”