Page 108 of Filthy Dirty Dom

What he’d just revealed about himself – his belief in his unworthiness, the fact that he’d let someone make him bleed because of it – it seemed to have opened the floodgates. Or maybe it was just that he was so tired. Tired of the secrets. Tired of pretending.

No one aside from Luca, Mia’s family, and those in the criminal underworld who’d heard tales, knew what he’d done, not even his brother, Lee. Leslie thought he was a hero. Perhaps the most heroic thing he could do was disabuse her of that belief once and for all by letting her see just what kind of man he was.

He forced himself to remember the day he’d returned home to their Texas home and found Mia dead, then made his way to New York. It was like stepping back into a nightmare, a stark reminder that he was a man capable of brutality in the name of vengeance.

"Mia," he started, his voice barely audible, haunted. Leslie sat beside him, her eyes wide, attentive, her hand resting gently on his arm. The physical contact felt grounding, a beacon of warmth in the chilling abyss of his past. "Mia, despite being raised by mafia, was innocent. She didn't deserve what happened to her."

He saw Mia's lifeless body, heard the sickening silence that had filled their home. The shock. The disbelief. The sheer, blinding rage that had consumed him. His gut churned with the memory, the taste of bile burning in his throat.

"You already knew they killed her,” he forced out. “What you don’t know is I hunted them down. I made them pay."

The words felt like shards of glass, cutting him open, laying bare the raw wounds of his past.

The look on Leslie's face was hard to read. There was shock, yes, then horror. Sympathy. Understanding. But there was also a flicker of fear, a dawning comprehension of the depths of his darkness.

He couldn't blame her. He had been a monster, driven by grief and rage, hell-bent on retribution.

He averted his gaze, focusing on the wall as he unleashed the demon from his past. He could still remember the blood, the screams, the satisfaction. It wasn't something he was proud of, but it was the truth. The ugly, irrefutable truth of who he was, of what he was capable of.

Leslie didn't say anything for a while. He felt her eyes on him, studying him, assessing him. He braced himself for her rejection, for the disgust he was sure to see in her eyes. But when he finally mustered the courage to look at her again, all he saw was sadness.

"That's who I am, Leslie," he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper. "That's who I really am."

There were no tears, no recriminations.

Just silence.

Until she took his hand in hers, her grip firm, her touch warm.

The darkness within him stirred, but it didn't consume him, not this time. For the first time in a long time, Alex felt seen. It terrified him just as much as it comforted him.

"As far as my interest in BDSM, I gravitated toward it back in college. I’ve always liked pain as a contrast to pleasure, like what you experience when I spank you, but after what happened with Mia, I felt the need to push myself in ways I never had before. The more I pushed, the more I liked it. It got to the point that I needed more and more pain to get off. And maybe, to some extent, I did feel I was deserving of the pain. But I swear, it didn’t consciously start that way. The pain became a coping mechanism and before I knew it, it became an inextricable part of my sexual urges.”

He was silent for a moment, contemplating his own words, his own thoughts. It wasn't often that he delved this deeply into his psyche, not often that he let someone else peer into the darker corners of his mind.

“And now?” Leslie asked.

He shook his head. "Sometimes, honest to god, it’s just about the sting of pain that enhances what feels good until I’m awash in pleasure. Other times, when I can’t get there, for whatever reason, it helps push me over the edge. And sometimes, it's a lifeline. The things is, it’s not so easy to distinguish when I’m craving it for one reason or for another. I just know sometimes I need the pain, and that’s all there is to it.”

“And the bloodletting. The extreme pain, letting someone whip you until you bleed. How long has it been since you’ve engaged in that?”

He thought back. Realized with surprise that it had been a couple of years since he’d given in to that need. When he told her that, relief swept over her features, and he knew what she was thinking. That unknowingly, he’d processed some of his worst thoughts about himself, and at some point had stopped punishing himself and instead had surrendered to the pain as an extension of pleasure. At least for the most part.

Was that really possible?

She stopped asking questions and he stopped volunteering. They sat there in silence, the secrets of his past laid bare. He felt raw, vulnerable, but the longer the silence went on, the more he feared that if he looked in Leslie’s eyes again, he would see the horror, the repulsion that would be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship.

He had always known it would come to this. He had been foolish to think he could ever be more to her than a bodyguard, a protector. With a past as tainted as his, he had no right to ask for love, for acceptance. It was only a matter of time before the reality of his monstrous deeds would drive her away.

He closed his eyes and tried to etch her into his memory. The way her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders, the gentle curve of her lips, the warmth of her eyes; he wanted to remember it all. He was going to lose her, but now that she knew, he’d lose her family, as well. And not because he walked away, but because they would.

Yet even as he resigned himself to the impending loneliness, a surprising warmth enveloped him.

Leslie pulled him into her arms, encasing him in a cocoon of comfort. His body stiffened, taken aback by the unexpected contact. Her slender arms wrapped around him, her hands running soothingly up and down his back.

"You deserve love, Alex," she murmured into his ear, her voice as soft as a lullaby. "You deserve love."

Her words echoed in his mind, a mantra that he both fought and held onto. She rocked him gently, her touch as soothing as balm on his tormented soul.

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