Page 18 of Marking Micah

She looked up at that, her green eyes wary, questioning.

“It’s a good thing,” he continued, “because you’re allowing yourself to be raw with me. And what kind of sadist would I be if I told you exactly what to expect? No, don’t answer that. No need to,” he said with a small chuckle. “You know what a good Dominant does. How I’ll assess your emotions, your physical response, and base my play on that. So it’s important that you don’t hold back. I need you to open yourself to me as much as possible. Tell me you understand what I’m saying.”

“Yes, Arrow, Sir. I do. I understand.”

“You’re trying to be brave. I can see it. Tell me what’s scary to you right now.”

Her long, slender throat worked as she swallowed. “You, Sir.”

He let out a low chuckle. “I’m scary, am I? That’s not a bad thing, either, as long as you know I’ve got you.” He dropped his tone, working against the emotion suddenly rolling through him. “I do, you know.” He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Don’t you? Do you feel that, Micah?”

“Yes. I feel it, Sir,” she answered, her voice breathless. He still sensed both anticipation and nerves there.

Good. This was exactly where he needed her to be.

He stood and took her hand in his, helping her to her feet.

“These heels are pretty, but let’s take them off. Here, I’ll help you. Step out of them,” he commanded, hanging onto her hand to steady her as she stepped out of one shoe, then the other. “Very good. And now we undress you.”

She let out a small gasp as he tugged on the belt to her robe. Then, as her black lacy lingerie came into view, it was his turn to gasp. He did his best to suppress it. But Lord, she was stunning.

She’d worn a pair of high-waisted black lace cheeky panties with garters and fishnets, and a bra that matched the panties, all of it very pin-up girl style. But she also wore a cropped, sheer black, long-sleeved top over the bra, and he knew exactly why she was so covered up. Before her accident she’d spend the entire evening at the club mostly in a state of undress, but since then she’d shown very little skin. Not that he minded—she was beautiful and enticing to him in jeans and a t-shirt. But the whole point of this trip was to help her move past the things that were holding her back, in kink, and in life, and he knew baring her scars to him was a big obstacle to overcome.

He slipped the robe from her shoulders and set it on the arm of the chair.

“You are so beautiful, Micah,” he said quietly, knowing this was one of the moments when she was most likely to shut down. He ran a hand down one arm. “I’ve seen your scars, lovely girl. All of them. I was there with you holding your hand when they took the staples out of your ankle, remember? And they make you no less beautiful. They make you a warrior.”

She let out a small sob. “They don’t.”

This was absolutely not the time to get on her about speaking without permission, not at this pivotal moment.

“Yeah, they do. As much as my own do.” He took a half step back to pull his black t-shirt over his head, then he moved in toward her once more. “Do you see this tattoo?” he asked, turning so she could see the back of his right shoulder. “Look closely; there’s a huge scar under there. And this one?” He turned again, so she had a good view of his back. “The one that runs down the side of my spine? And the one that almost wraps around my waist? That one robbed me of a kidney. And theshrapnel in my spine? That’s the hit that killed my career in the military, and nearly killed me. They thought I’d be paralyzed, and it’s only by the grace of God that I can walk and do most of the things I did before.”

He turned back to face her, saw the tears pooling in her eyes. “This is why I understand. Trauma bonding you called it, and you weren’t wrong. But it’s more than that. It goes deeper. We’ve both been through the extremes of pain. We’ve both been through loss; different kinds, maybe, but in the end it’s all the same, isn’t it? In a way, for both of us, our hopes and dreams were crushed. And I can’t say I’m completely over it. I don’t know that anyone ever is. But we can work through this. Together. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

She gave a small nod, wiped at her tears with her fingers. “I never saw this before, your scars. I never knew exactly what had happened to you.”

“No. Because I didn’t want the enormity of my scars to ever mess with anyone’s head, so I never took my shirt off at the clubs. There’s a lot of scarring, and they run pretty deep. It can be triggering for some people, and distracting, at the very least, for most folks. But, Micah,youneeded to see. You needed to know.”

She sniffed. “Does this mean… does this mean that you hate your scars, too?”

“I don’t hate them in the same way you do. I don’t care how they look, but then, I’m not a pretty girl like you, darlin’. I am absolutely not ashamed of them; I got these serving my country. But what they mean is still important. They’re still a reminder of how my life was destroyed—maybe not completely, but it came close, and I was hyperaware of that for a long time. And we both have to live with those memories. But part of really recovering is deciding at some point that we won’t let it take control of our lives—the lives we are so damn lucky to have.”

She shook her head, her gaze on the floor. “I don’t know how to do that.”

He lifted her chin with his hand, forcing her gaze to meet his. “This is why we’re here. And I need to ask you once more: do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She bit her lip, but then she lifted her chin a bit higher, and he saw a little more confidence in her eyes. “I trust you. Only you, Arrow, Sir.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, his heart catching on the words.

My girl.

Well, for tonight, she was.

Micah gazed up at Arrow.Her friend. Her confidante. A man who trustedherenough to be vulnerable about his own experiences. And she felt such an utter trust for him she couldn’t even begin to explain it to herself. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the way she knew so deep down in her bones that he was the only man she could even attempt this with.

They were going to play. And while those in the kink community called it “play” all the time, they both knew tonight would be so much more than that. Tonight would be cathartic. Therapy, of a sort. And she had no idea what sort of emotions the evening would pull from her.

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