Page 23 of Saving Meri

Bear’s fingers traced slow, lazy circles against her lower back. “Say it.”

Meri clenched her jaw. “Say what?”

“What you want.”

She shook her head.

His grip tightened, his thumbs digging into her skin just enough to send a shiver down her spine. “Say it, little one.”

The words lodged in her throat. She couldn’t. If she said it, it would be real. If she admitted it, she wouldn’t be able to take it back.

Bear didn’t let up. “You want structure. You want discipline. You want someone to take control and let you breathe.”

Meri trembled, her body betraying her, her pulse racing, her nails dragging against his shoulders as she tried to hold on to herself.

Bear leaned in, his lips brushing against her ear. “Say it.”

She exhaled a shaky breath, her muscles locking down, and then—finally—she whispered, “I want it.”

Bear let out a satisfied sound, his hands sliding up her spine, holding her exactly where he wanted her.

“Good girl.”

Meri’s world tilted, her body shuddering at the two simple words, and she knew—knew—she had just crossed a line she couldn’t come back from, and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She had always played at submission, but what Bear was talking about—offering—was real submission.

She shifted, moving so she could face him. Her breath came hard and fast as she sat straddling Bear’s lap, her thighs spread wide over his, the solid weight of him beneath her anchoring her in place. Her body was trembling, but not from fear. The heat that had been simmering beneath her skin had ignited into something uncontrollable, something she didn’t know how to handle.

She should be running. Should claw her way out of his grasp, putting as much distance between them as possible. But she wasn’t. Instead, she was gripping his shoulders, her nails pressing into thick muscle, her pulse hammering as she stared at him—waiting, wanting, but too afraid to move.

Bear’s fingers traced a slow path up her spine, setting off a shiver that left her gasping. He cupped the back of her neck, firm but not cruel, his thumb brushing along her jaw.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured.

Meri swallowed hard. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Bear tilted his head, watching her with the same steady patience that always stripped her bare. “Yes, you do.”

Her stomach clenched. No, she didn’t. Yes, she did.

Her body was betraying her, her brain short-circuiting under his gaze. It wasn’t just the physical. It wasn’t just the dominance, the control, the absolute authority in his posture, in his voice, in the way he touched her like he already knew every part of her.

It was the way he refused to let her disappear.

She had spent months learning how to vanish inside herself. How to block out the pain, the shame, the helplessness. It had been her only option, her only protection. Even now, she felt it pulling at her, whispering for her to shut down, to slip into numbness, to let herself fade.

But Bear wouldn’t allow it. His fingers flexed on her nape, a reminder. “You will not disappear on me,” he ordered, voice quiet but firm. “You will stay right here, and you will feel.”

Meri’s lips parted, her breath catching. She wanted to fight it. God, she wanted to fight it, but Bear saw straight through her.

His hand slid down to her hip, gripping her firmly. “Do you trust me?”

The question sent her spinning. Trust. It was such a foreign concept now, a language she no longer understood. And yet… she knew, deep in her bones, that Bear wouldn’t hurt her.

No one at Club Southside or Cerberus ever had. She might not have known Bear before, but she knew of him and if her brother and Fitzwallace trusted him, that meant she probably should as well.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

Bear’s jaw ticked, his thumb brushing over her hipbone in slow, deliberate circles. “That’s fair. But you do know how to follow orders, don’t you, little one?”

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