Page 61 of His Custody

It was thoughts like that that brought him up short. Most of the time, she was Keyne and he was Jasper. How old they were and what they did while they were apart didn’t matter nearly as much as what happened when they were together. So often he felt like the hours he didn’t spend with her were filling in the gaps between time when he could have her by his side again. A distraction, an annoying dream to be waded through until real life restarted.

But sometimes he remembered she was only eighteen. He’d been mastering her in one way or another since she was seventeen. Though he’d like to think he’d gone about it honorably and with the best of intentions, he sometimes worried this life he’d introduced her to wasn’t what she would have chosen if she’d known anything else.

Power exchange was intoxicating and heady, but just because you were addicted to something didn’t make it good for you, didn’t make it what you really wanted. He’d seen more than a couple of people who did a line or two at the occasional party turn into serious cokeheads to maintain that delusion.

Would Keyne have stumbled into this if Gavin had lived? Would Gavin and Keyne have ended up playing these games? Would his bounding puppy of a brother have been able to get it up to offer her the control and the dominance she craved? Or would his brand of enthusiastic affection have been enough for her? Would she not have realized this was an option? Would she have wanted it if she did?

An idea started forming in his mind. One that would let him keep her if this was truly what she desired, but would offer her a release valve if it wasn’t. He’d feel like his veins and arteries had been ripped out, his body a useless shell with a heavy aching heart the only reminder he was alive, but he would live. And so would she. Maybe more happily than she would with him. The thought of her with anyone else made his muscles tense so hard he had to mindfully relax and bury his face in her hair to forget.

Not yet. He wouldn’t have to give her up yet. For now, he would keep her.

Chapter Twenty-three

August

It was the day before she left for New Haven. Yale wasn’t far, but anything that put more than fifteen minutes between her and Jasper made her anxious. New Haven was an hour. Despite Jasper’s best efforts to make her feel good about it—visits to campus, encouraging her to be in touch with her suitemates, leaving Yale T-shirts and pennants in her room—she’d been getting increasingly worried about it.

The nightmares that had never left got worse and she’d wake up more frequently in a panic, clutching the star dangling from her bracelet and tugging at her ankle until the resistance comforted her. She was not at all thrilled she was going to live in the dorms and therefore couldn’t keep a cuff chained to the foot of her bed. It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d insisted on staying in the dorms as she was supposed to. Not that it would be the same, opening and closing the lock herself, but at least in the middle of the night, the pressure, the sense of being held would be a relief. She’d have to rely on the star on her bracelet to remind her.

She’d considered asking Jasper to come and put her to bed while she got used to being at school. She was pretty confident he’d do it, but she was already going to have enough of a hard time at school. No need to pile on the weirdness factor of being put to bed like a child. Bad enough there’d be more people to learn her story, cast her sympathetic glances, offer trite apologies, and in the case of boys, use insincere sympathy as a way to try to get in her pants.

Lying on her chair in the bathroom, she waited for Jasper. She had strict instructions, her favorite kind, to not get ready, that he would prepare her himself. What might that mean? They weren’t going anywhere, so he would have myriad ways to torture her, make her ache for him.

When he walked in, it was in a navy blue suit and a tie she’d picked out for him. It entertained her, the small ways in which she could leave her mark on him as he left his mark on her. He studied her for a few minutes, his eyes lingering over the body she’d posed just so when she’d heard him enter her room.

“Come here. Not on your knees.”

She followed him into her dressing room and sighed when he draped her over the stool. He worked in silence, inserting a plug and a dildo, larger than the ones he usually chose for her. Sometimes it was an ownership thing; he did it because he could. Tonight wasn’t one of those, though. Tonight, he wanted her constantly aware of the toys he’d pressed inside of her.

The harness was fastened around her to keep the toys in place and he had her step into a dress he’d picked: green and close fitting, the top constricting enough that it gave her a tiny bit of cleavage. She could barely breathe and she liked it. The shoes on offer were high and narrow—she’d need to cling to him for balance as they went down the hall to the dining room and walk in small, mincing steps. Her pussy squeezed around the dildo buried in it. He was going to make her crazy.

He always made her crazy.

Jasper settled her at the table, pushing her chair in, and sprawled in his own seat. The way he took up so much space, so casually... Out in the world like on the subway or at a table in the school dining hall, a man doing that would’ve made her crazy. But here, with Jasper? Her lungs tried to expand beyond her constricted ribcage. It was so sexy. The entitlement, the ownership, the mastery. It made her rub her thighs together.

He clucked at her, shaking his head. “Be still, naughty girl. I want to look at you, pretty like a picture for me. You’re my little doll to toy with, aren’t you?”

She stifled the moan rising in her throat. Yes, she was. “Yes, Master.”

She sat still and silent, his eyes roaming over her and it made her ache in so many ways. Most of them she was used to, delighted by, reveled in, but there was something about the way he looked at her she didn’t quite like. It was a note she wasn’t used to hearing in the symphony of his want for her and it unsettled her stomach.

The first course came and she sipped at her soup as she was bade. Lobster bisque, one of her favorites. Jasper asked her questions in between spoonfuls, mostly to do with her packing. Was she ready for tomorrow? It would be a busy day.

Then their places were cleared and helpings of hake almondine placed in front of them. She was chewing her second mouthful when Jasper sighed and her heart lurched against her ribs. Something must be wrong. A sigh was not a characteristic noise for Jasper.

“We need to talk about school, Keyne.”

“What about it?” A thrill ran through her when she thought he might tell her she couldn’t go, he couldn’t bear to be without her, he was going to chain her to their bed and never let her out. But he wouldn’t do that. He was too responsible.

“While you’re in New Haven, I think it’s best if we don’t... do this.”

Her fork clattered to the plate, the sound of the silver clanking against the china echoing through the suddenly tomb-silent room.

“What do you mean?”

His eyes were dark under his heavy brows as he focused on her. Mostly she loved the weight of his attentions, but right about now, it felt like she might be crushed by them. “I mean I won’t be your master while you’re away.”

Jasper’s face blurred through the tears rising in her eyes and there was a rushing in her ears, like she was caught in rapids and being carried along and couldn’t grab onto anything to drag herself out. “Why? Did I do something wrong? Are you tired of me? You promised, Jasper.”

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