Page 42 of Master

I lay her on the bed, and she curls into a ball with her eyes closed. Her chest rises and falls with a sputtered, choppy motion, matching her heavy, ragged breaths.Oh, sweetheart…As much as I hate to leave her for even a second, I don’t want her to wake up in the state she’s in. I step into the bathroom just long enough to grab a wet washcloth and a towel to tend to her.

“I’m going to take care of you,” I promise, wiping the trails of mascara from her cheeks. Softly, I lift her hand from the bed and clean the arousal from her fingers. I wash all evidence of our scene from her thighs, carefully extract the plug from her, and clean any remnants of lubricant from between her cheeks.

Haphazardly dropping everything on the floor beside the bed, I quickly grab two pairs of my sweatpants and a hoodie fromthe closet. I slip the far too-big sweatpants up her bare legs and pull the oversized hoodie over her head, then dress myself in the remaining pair of pants before climbing into bed with her. Resting against the headboard, I pull her listless body between my legs and rest her head against my chest. “I’m here, sweetheart,” I mumble against her as I stroke her hair. “Whenever you’re ready to come back, I’m here.”

Sasha’s heart rate slows, and her breathing becomes less erratic as she rests against me. I let her sleep against me and continue to comfort her as I wait for her to rouse.

The sun creeps over the city, and Sasha startles awake in my hold. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” I whisper, tenderly tightening my embrace and pressing my lips to her forehead. “You scared me for a minute,mo mhuirnín.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

“Hey”—I tip her face up to mine and shake my head—“You don’t need to apologize, but I think we need to have a very serious talk about your safewords.”

“I… I couldn’t,” she stammers.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, I respond, “Always. You can always use them. And I will adhere to them. Full stop.”

“I was fine.” Her voice is soft and timid. “And then I wasn’t.”

“There are nerves, and there is hesitation.” I speak softly, wanting to impart that I’m not upset with her. “The second you have an inkling of feeling unsafe or thinking we need to stop, youneedto use them. Because I don’t ever want you to disappear on me like that again.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me,” I insist.

Taking a deep breath, she lightly exhales, “I promise, Sir.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

SASHA

“Now that we’ve settled that, are you going to tell me where you went?” Liam pushes, tightening his hold on me.

Burying my face against his chest, I grasp the front of the hoodie I’m swimming in for comfort before answering, “Some place bad…”

“Tell me because I don’t ever want to be the reason you go there again.”

I reach up to his jaw and pull his gaze to me as I slide my face from his chest. Meeting his eyes, I share, “You aren’t the reason. I know beyond all doubt that you would never do anything to harm me.Ever. But when you forced me to my knees, I couldn’t stop every last one of them from encroaching on my thoughts.”

Wrapped in his warm embrace, I spend the morning telling Liam every abhorrent detail from my time spent with numerous wannabe Dominants before him. He comforts me—without judging me but vowing to kill each of them—as I provide the details of what I now know was my horrible mistreatment.Abuse.

“You should have told me,mo mhuirnín,” Liam mutters. “I refuse to strap you to a bench and can’t fathom gagging you because I know your history. The negativity you have associated with those practices has no place in our play foroursafety. Had I known your history with kneeling, I would never have demanded that position of you.”

“Dropping into the conversation that the last guy I was with would make me kneel on the concrete by the pool so his friends could use me like a urinal doesn’t exactly slot into Tuesday night dinner conversation,” I joke, trying to ease my discomfort.

“In this house, it does,” Liam insists. “Tuesday night dinner, Saturday morning baths, or random Wednesday afternoon texts. There isn’t a thing I haven’t told you about my life, and I expect the same from you.”

I would doubt his admission, but he spilled all of it to me as I moved into his room a couple of weeks ago and accidentally stumbled upon an engagement ring in the valet on the dresser. He told me all about Ella, how his life wasn’t for her, and how he swore off caring for anyone like that again… Explaining why he was so hesitant to give in to us. When he was done, he shared so many sorted details of his life outside this apartment that I could single-handedly be the reason he—and his brothers—spend the rest of their lives waiting for the electric chair.

He’s opened his closet and unpacked every one of his skeletons because he trusts me. “This thing between doesn’t work if there are any secrets,” Liam adds, further fueling the guilt I’m harboring for everything I’m still holding tight to my chest.

Liam slides from the bed as I find the courage to give him the last piece of me. I open my mouth and speak his name as he says, “I’m serious about eliminating all of them for you. I can’t removethem from your thoughts, but I sure as fuck can remove them from this world.”

“I know you would.” With what he did to Isaac for me—when he barely knew me—I don’t doubt him for a second. “But I don’t need you to. They aren’t part of my life anymore, and I don’t need them to take up more space than they already have.”

Climbing over me on the bed, Liam presses his lips to mine and pulls back with a smirk. “Dead men don’t take up space, especially after they go through the crematorium. I’d let you watch. It’s hot!”

“Oh, my God!” I playfully shriek, shoving him from me. “Did you just make a disgusting dad pun about burning one of my exes to ash?”

---