Page 168 of Season of Gifts

Branded leather proudly circled Jay’s neck, the darkened initials visible across the room.He was thoroughly owned, his position known, and his possessive lean into Henry revealed how well he understood it.His secretive smile and the tilt of his head urged her to join him.

Obey and enjoy.

She swallowed back the thread of fear, of not-enoughness, and balanced the velvet box across her palms.Elbows bent at ninety degrees, she shuffled forward on her knees.Physics demanded the sway of her hips, insisted upon the spread thighs to keep her level.Simple physics, not desire.Not the heat of Henry’s stare that had her mouth dry and her center wet.Not measuring the twitches in his rising cock by her strides, or the soft whines from Jay as her knee-walking added bounce to her breasts.

The pillow dipped beneath her.She wriggled into the middle, with her knees pointed toward the front corners, and dropped into waiting pose.The box had her arms trembling.She could’ve blamed the weight, but it wasn’t that.So what if she wasn’t getting a formal collar and cuffs like Jay had?She didn’t serve Henry in the same way.She didn’t even need that depth of ownership.

Henry’s brand wouldn’t affect her the way it did Jay; he held his hands crossed, thumb stroking the letters seared into his cuffs over and over again.His hazy stare might’ve seemed sleepy if she didn’t recognize subby delirium on him, the bliss that quieted all else.His cock stood tall, and he paid it no attention, focused instead on the leather claiming him.

She held the box level.The velvet nap alternated soft and rough against her finger.She already had floggers, both to use and to be used on her.Shoes might fit inside such a box—fancy shoes, a complement to the commuting boots Jay had given her, something with a heel to elevate her at the club.A set of clamps?Henry had introduced them before the month had gone sideways, and maybe he’d been planning—

Henry’s splayed hand landed across the top of the velvet, his wedding band shimmering in the light.“Forever my problem-solver,” he murmured.“I’m sorry, my love, to have left you unguided for so long.You’ve forgotten how to stop thinking.”He curled his fingers around the front of the box, and she clutched the bottom as he lifted the hinged lid.“I shall have to apologize until you remember.”

The lid stood straight up.Nestled inside the box, displayed on black silk, were a collar and cuffs in the same soft brown as Jay’s, the same soft brown of his harness and her suede.Henry’s initials, burnt and dark, carved deep furrows into the leather.A branded collar and cuffs.Sized more delicately for her neck and wrists, but otherwise indistinguishable from Jay’s.A matched set.

Her stomach lurched.A rasping sob forced itself past her lips, and her body collapsed, folding around the box, the lid nearly catching her skin as it shut against her chest.Tears streamed from nowhere, from nothing, a torrent—how had Jay managed this flood without lying in a crumpled, weeping heap at Henry’s feet?

More than relief, more than gratitude—this was awe.Not the watered-down version of the modern age but the powerful transformation of the ancient myths, her eyes struck blind by a glimpse of the heavens.She curled her fingers like talons, clawing into the velvet.No one would take this from her.He’d said.He’d said to Jay, no one, not anyone, could take this from them, could say they didn’t deserve it or hadn’t earned it, or—

“Oh my sweet girl, my beautiful Alice.”Henry cradled her in his arms, straddled naked around her as he rocked her on the pillow.“No one, not ever, my love.I promise you with my very soul, you are mine, and you will never stop being mine, not for a single instant.When you crawl on your hands and knees, when you spread your legs for me, you are mine.When you order Jay to do the same for you, you are no less mine.All of you is mine, Alice.A switch is not a mistake or a half anything.You are a glorious, multifaceted you, as intricate and shining as the gemstones that proclaim our bond to the world.Would they be improved by showing only one face?Or is it their nature to find the greatest clarity and beauty from multiple angles?”

He rained kisses on her face and neck, forceful and pounding as a summer storm.He clasped her tight, one hand at the base of her spine and the other at the top, fingers buried in her hair.Jammed between them, the box shifted with each breath, its unyielding frame a promise of reality, of existence.

“I was afraid.”Her whisper hardly left her lips.“I didn’t realize…” Her submissive desires had crawled down deep and tugged the door shut after them.Jay couldn’t sate those, and Henry had been gone, and she had tried to be what they needed from her.Who had—Ollie.Ollie had told her that, months ago.“I kept trying to be you, because I thought that’s what was missing.If I could just be you, everything would work out.But the more I tried to be you, the less I felt like me.I couldn’t be you and be yours.”

“You need only beyou, my love.”Henry slid the box from between them and tapped hard on the lid; Jay opened the box and raised it up.Henry lifted the collar in both hands, thumbing open the buckle.“And you are always mine.”

The leather settled around her throat.The inside rubbed more softly than she’d expected, sliding against her skin as she swallowed, the front edge pressing into her as she bowed her head.Henry worked his fingers against the back of her neck, the metal buckle warming as he teased the tongue through and closed the circle.

“My wife, my beloved.”He caressed down her arm and plucked a cuff from the box with a softshrrrof slippery fabric.“My pet, my plaything.”

The cuff curled around her wrist, each notch sliding past the metal until the leather clung to her.Rough, soft—owned.No other word described the sensation that sent goose bumps up her arms.

Henry smoothed the leather and pulled at the metal ring; her body rippled forward.Humming, he pinched her nipple.“My exquisite work of art.Do you think I cannot feel how you tremble?”

The second cuff found its way into his hands, deft fingers spinning the leather and wrapping her wrist.His embrace had left her straddling his thigh; her cuffed hand rested on his shoulder, the seared initials gazing back at her, the towering W at the center with the smaller H and B nestled on either side.Her body rocked; she hissed in a breath as her clit grazed his thigh.

“You cannot conceal what you are from me, sweet girl.I place my claim upon you”—he closed the second cuff with the quiettinkof his fingernail against the metal—“and your pupils dilate.Your breath grows uneven.Your heartbeat flutters in your throat beside my brand.”

He drew his finger across the monogram at her neck, pushing the leather against her skin.Warm now.The room itself had grown much warmer, the air thicker, her mouth drier.

“Yes,” he murmured, his eyes dark and piercing.“I see you understand.You are mine, and I would have you carry that knowledge with pride.You are neither me nor Jay, Alice.You are a beautiful chameleon, changeable as a storm-tossed sea, and all of your surging power yields tome.”

Hooking his fingers through the ring on her collar, he slowly stood, bringing her with him.Her feet tingled.Her body shook with urgent desire, as wet and open as she’d been the first night he’d pressed her against the dinner table and lifted her dress.

“I am no less pleased by your strength than by Jay’s devotion.But for now…” Walking backward, he coaxed her forward by her collar, quick steps, the pillow giving way to rug and hardwood.Henry snapped his fingers; Jay opened the playroom door.The hallway to the bedroom had never been so long and narrow, nothing but the corridor of Henry’s gaze, the green path she followed.

“For now I would have you on your back, begging for permission to come.”

Yes.The craving pulsed through her, attuned to Henry’s certainty that he could accomplish such a thing.That he could master her mind.His cuffs weighted her wrists as he led her to their bed, issuing orders to Jay with a deep calm.

Henry worked magic with quiet confidence.He controlled her with two fingers hooked through a metal ring at her throat.The friction at the back of her neck wound through her like a live wire, sparking down every nerve, and his touch powered the circuit.

Once Jay had flung the covers back and thrown the pillows into a heap on the floor, Henry backed her into the bed.Her thighs hit the mattress.A tug at her collar sat her down on her ass.Henry wedged himself between her knees, his cock firm and rising toward his stomach.He might hook his hands under her knees and drag her onto him.He might—

“Name your safeword for me, Alice.”

“Pistachio.”The response came to her lips, still automatic, as natural now as breathing.

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