Page 114 of Dmitri

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” She shakes her head, contradicting what she’s saying. “I’m okay.” My girl looks around like she doesn’t know where she is.

“Easy, baby…” I slide onto the floor to be at her level. Nodding my head, I keep my tone soothing. “Breathe, Daelyn. You’re safe. It’s just me here with you.”

Her chin trembles and she looks confused.

“You passed out on the cross. I gave you a bath and massaged your muscles. I was just drying you off.”

Daelyn’s exhale trembles from her lips. “I’m okay.”

No, she’s not, but she’s going to be as soon as I find out who’s terrorized her for so long.

I slowly inch closer. “Can I touch you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Alright.”

“I’m gonna be okay.”

“Yes, you are.” Especially if I have anything to do with it.

“I’m safe.”

“One hundred percent.” God…damn. What the fuck kind of monster has a chokehold on her like this?

Daelyn lets out a sigh and tries standing, but her legs wobble and give out. “I think I’m broken.”

“Yeah… sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” she says, trying to stand again. My girl looks like a newborn fawn, all wobbly and frail. “I loved it.” Daelyn fumbles with her first step and I catch her. “Jeez, you really know how to break your toys, man.”

Her dark humor makes a laugh bubble out of me. “You’re not my toy.”

“Pity,” she says, sighing when I cradle her in my arms and carry her out of the bathroom. “You’re the one who owns me. If you won’t play with me, who will?”

My heart stops in its tracks, and I freeze midway to the door. “What did you just say?”

She’s already fallen asleep in my arms again.

???

I leave Daelyn in my bedroom, tucked in tight on my cot. I can’t stay here and watch over her while she sleeps. Not with her last confession swinging fists in my brain.

“You’re the one who owns me. If you won’t play with me, who will?”

That was probably her subspace talking.

Yeah. Definitely.

So why do I feel like it’s more than that? Why am I suddenly willing to do anything to make that true? If Daelyn was mine, and I could play with her whenever I wanted. Worship her day and night. Take care of her. I’d be the luckiest motherfuckerin the world if she were mine.

Or the stupidest, considering she belongs to someone else, and is only here to ruin me.

I keep forgetting that crucial part. I’ve blurred a lot of lines between us. Made some big fuck ups. Am I so desperate for comfort and to belong to someone who might love me for exactly who and what I am that I’ve run straight into the arms of an enemy?

Yes.

Which is why I’m putting space between us and am currently in the kitchen making a late dinner.

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