Page 4 of Piece Us Together

I blink. “Okay. What is it that youdowant then?”

“I don’t want any of it,” he growls, the words so low I almost miss them beneath the noise of the bar. He shakes his head and starts to stand. “This was a mistake.”

“Sit down,” I order without meaning to, my tone clipped and authoritative. It’s mydom voiceas my friends and subs like to call it. A voice that leaves no room for argument. A voice that makes naturally submissive men want to fall straight to their knees and obey.

Maison hesitates, but then he sits.Interesting. I tuck that away for later.

“Explain yourself,” I say, keeping my voice the same since it seems to be working on him. “Now.”

He inhales shakily before finally—fucking finally—lifting his eyes to meet mine again. The turmoil in them steals my breath. “I need you to train me to like it.”

Wait—what?

“To like what? Submission? Or dominance?”

“I—” He pauses to groan, his elbows resting on the table so he can grab fistfuls of his hair and tug. Our server passes us by. I gesture to his empty glass and mouth athankswhen she nods and heads to the bar to get him another. I certainly don’t want to get the man drunk, but some liquid courage never hurt anyone when it came to a difficult conversation. I even let him wait until the drink is brought to him. Sure enough, he downs a quarter of it before forcefully placing the glass back down and word-vomiting, “He needs me towantto dominate him. It’s not enough for me to pretend. He said it feels like he’s the dom, ordering me to be dominant, instead of him being the sub? I don’t fucking know. And—well, there are kinks hewants, a fucking lot of them, that I don’t want, and I thought maybe you could teach mehowto wantthem. At least some of them. Because what I can offer right now isn’t—it isn’t fuckingenough.”

“Alright.” I sit back, digesting the information for a moment. “I’m going to assume from the way you’re talking that the two of you have tried to have a dominant and submissive dynamic already?”

“Yes.” He rubs a hand over his face. “It wasn’t good.”

“Was that the only thing that went badly? Him feeling like you didn’t want it?”

He shrugs, looking down at his drink. His leg is bouncing beneath the table again, making his body and the table slightly shake. I lift my arms off the surface to keep from feeling the vibrations. “It was kind of a hot mess all around. It fucked with my head, trying to be that for him. I hate it.”

“You hate being dominant?”

“Yeah.” His voice cracks. He drinks more of his beer, squeezing his eyes shut and keeping them that way even after he’s placed the glass back down. “It—it makes me sick. It makes me feel like I’m crawling out of my fucking skin.” He opens his eyes, staring blankly at the table ahead of him. There’s something haunted in the look. Something worse than the desperation of before. “It’s too much. I can’t do it. I hate it.”

My heart aches. If he hates it, I can’t fix that. Not ethically. Some doms are willing to condition subs, and I’m sure it could work the opposite way, but that’s not me. I don’t fuck with the mind like that. I can’t help him with this.

“How important is it to your boyfriend that the two of you practice that dynamic together?”

“He claims he’s fine without it, but…” He closes his eyes again. His expression is nothing short of grief. “He needs it. I know heneeds it. And I don’t think it’s just about sex. Like, it’s not just about getting off for him. It’s his mind that needs it, too.”

Well, fuck.

“Maison, I can teach youhowto be a dom.” I brace myself for the pain I’m about to see on his face. “But I can’t teach you how to want it.”

Sure enough, his entire expression crumples. He presses a hand over his face to hide from me. I hate that I don’t know him well enough to comfort him. I don’t know what he needs to hear right now. Hell, I don’t even know enough details to give good advice. I’m sure there are options they can consider—

I startle as he suddenly shoves out of the booth and starts walking away, a few crumpled bills beside his drink that I hadn’t even noticed he’d placed. I call after him as I frantically dig out some money of my own. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down.

Fuck.

I drop the first bill I get my hand on, not caring that it’s going to be a ridiculously large tip, and hurry after him. My heart drops for a moment as I reach the cold air to find that he’s nowhere in sight. Then I hear a grunt.

He’s in the alley around the corner, his forehead pressed to the damp brick of the building as snow lightly falls onto his hair and shoulders. One of his hands is braced near his face. The other is hanging limply beside his hip, covered in blood. My throat goes tight at the sight.

“Maison.”

“I’m being dramatic,” he says, his voice thick with unshed tears and anguish. “Just give me another minute.”

Anyone else, and I’d probably agree. Yes, this is dramatic. Yes, this is how teenage boys behave when they’re upset. But something deep inside of this man is hurting. I think that maybesomething has been hurting for a very long time. And that erases everything else.

I walk up to him, mindful that he’s not a submissive, not single, and a man who very well may be armed considering our first encounter. He doesn’t flinch when I place a hand between his shoulder blades. A soft whimper escapes him instead.

“I’ve done bad things,” he chokes. His muscles tense beneath my hand as he seems to press his forehead harder against the brick. “I ruin things, Hunter. I’ve—I’ve had to make decisions that—that hurt people. I’m so fucking tired of hurting people. I’m so fuckingtiredof being the one in control. I don’t wanna do it anymore. Ican’tdo it anymore. He wants me to be this person, this dominant personality, and—and I—I can’t. I can’t. Ican’t. I’m gonna ruin it. I ruin everything I touch.”

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