Page 37 of Yours to Break

I told myself I was over my parents abandoning me; that it was just water under the bridge. I told myself that I had tough skin; the years upon years of threats, jeers, ugly comments, and bullying didn’t faze me. I told myself that it wasn’t scary—terrifying—to go through my transition practically alone. Sure, Lane did help me after my top surgery—and I’d always be thankful for that—but no one was there for all the appointments, for the first time I injected T, for the fears and tears and pain.

I didn’t have a mom who’d held my hand through it all, or a dad who had encouraged me to be strong and steadfast through the rough patches. I didn’t have a family.

I only had myself.

So, yeah, it was goddamn tempting to give in. To have two partners utterly devoted to you. Beautiful men who cooked you nutritious meals, washed you in the shower, and purred promises into your ears at night. Men that brushed your hair, administered your medication, and dicked you down to the lowest gate of Hell.

They were serpents in the Garden of Eden.

And I was beginning to think I was Eve.

* * *

“Paw,” Hayes said, holding his hand out and looking down at me expectantly with a cocked brow. I shifted on the pillow I was kneeling on, rocking side to side slightly, and huffed. Earlier in the day, Hayes had very grandly announced to Hudson and me that he was going to spend the day teaching me tricks.

Shortly after Hudson had left the house for a job, Hayes brought me into the main living room; a large jar of animal crackers accompanying him.

I was already used to sitting or kneeling at the twins’ feet, so I readily lowered myself to the floor. But when he spoke the command, I froze. It wasn’t out of fear or shock. It was self-reflection.

Was I going to submit to this humiliation?

And so, Hayes and I had sat staring at each other for fifteen minutes while he periodically threw out the command to see if I would respond to it.

“Paw,” he repeated once more, growing frustrated. “Do you not want the animal crackers?”

The staredown continued.

“Fuck, you’re being a brat today. Okay. You don’t want the treats? Stay there for a minute.” Hayes stood on an aggravated sigh, leaving me in the room alone. Now, if I didn’t have the stupid puppy mitts on—not to mention the rest of my get-up—I could have at least tried to run and open one of the doors leading out of the home. But, I did have the mitts on, and it was pointless in my eyes to even try tasks that required any dexterity.

I stood up, gritting my teeth at the feel of the tail plug shifting inside me, but before I could decide what to do or if I wanted to try anything, Hayes reentered the room.

“You don’t even know how tostay?”

I flinched back, surprised at the anger laced into his words. When I went to cautiously lower myself back to the ground, he roughly grabbed my arm, making me fall over him as he sat back on the sofa. Fingers latched onto my hair, yanking my head back so that I was looking at his face. And suddenly, instead of the face of the caretaker, the lover, I was seeing the face of the killer.

I wasn’t sure how to placate him, given that my gag prevented me from speaking to him. I whimpered in fear; the muffled sound was pitiful. Hayes’s burning eyes cooled, and he smiled, loosening his grip on my hair.

He cooed, “Shhh, baby. You’re shaking. I’m sorry, did I scare you?” I nodded, wincing a little as he began to stroke my back. “Poor little thing. It’s okay. I just… I wanted this to go differently. It’s not your fault, it’s ours. We should’ve started training you from the beginning, but I think we got a bit sidetracked, to be honest. I mean, we have been training you, but loosely, and not with commands.”

I furrowed my brows at him. I was getting pretty good at non-verbal communication, in my opinion.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll say a command, you’ll follow it, then get a treat. Same as we were trying to do before, okay? But if you don’t follow my command, you get ten hits from this riding crop. Sound fair?” I stared back at him with wide eyes. I hadn’t noticed the crop. That must have been what he left to get.

He picked it up from where he’d laid it when he pulled me onto him. It looked menacing. Hayes lightly brushed the end of the crop up and down my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. I thought about how it might feel to have that expensive leather raining down on me.

The crop trailed up my chest, stopping just below my chin to lift my face towards its handler.

Hayes brought his face only an inch from my own, so close that the tips of our noses touched on a deep breath. I swallowed. The air between us became thick, charged with my reluctant curiosity and his need to dominate.

“Pet,” he whispered, the heat of his mouth radiating onto my face, “it’s time to play.”

I gasped as he wrapped his large hands around my waist, picking me up from his lap and placing me at his feet.

His predatory gaze swept over my body.

“Paw.”

I could do it. It’d be easy to simply lift my hand and place it in his.

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