Page 20 of Bound and Branded

I stand slowly and I turn away from him, beginning to walk toward the bedroom. I don’t have to ask him which one. I know now.

It’s the soft one with all the windows. It doesn’t look like a dungeon, but I suddenly think that’s the point.

Then suddenly I’m immobilized, his large hand reaching out and grabbing me by the back of the neck, pulling me back toward him as he turns me so I’m facing him, those blue eyes boring straight through me.

I wonder for a moment if he’ll kiss me.

He doesn’t.

“Dove,” he says. “You’ll call me Wolf. Because I’m your alpha now.”

Wolf.

All the better to eat me. And he’s going to devour me, I just know it.

I’m in over my head. This is so fucked up. It’s just so fucked up.

But I am too.

I do my best to nod with his hand holding me fast. And when I answer him my voice doesn’t shake. “Yes, Wolf.”

Chapter Five

Avery

When he releases me, I walk forward into the bedroom and he shuts the door behind me, leaving me alone. The silence presses in on me, oppressive in a way I can’t describe.

I avoid silence. It’s part of avoiding stillness. There’s always music, movement, something to do or think about so that I don’t have to be in my own skin. In my own life.

Not here. Not now. I look around the room and the hardware on the bedframe suddenly makes sense. He’s into bondage and he probably uses it to secure his subs to the bed.

He’s had other subs here.

I feel like that should comfort me. In some ways it does. In others, it serves as a sobering reminder for what this is. I conveniently match his kink. But he would happily have any woman who does.

A weird thing to be upset about, since you’re the same.

Any Dom would do. Or so I told myself when I signed up for the app.

Now as I stand in the center of the room—the sun shining through the windows, the trees swaying in the breeze outside, goosebumps rising up on my arms, my breathing coming in shallow, even bursts—I wonder if that’s true at all.

I close my eyes and listen.

I breathe in, then out, and I hear a sound rise up in the silence of the room. Quiet music that would sound right in a spa, and not a sex dungeon.

Of course, while I’ve never been in a sex dungeon, this isn’t the black velvet, red silk, manacles, and chains I’d have assumed I’d find in one.

Soft bedding, natural light and ambient music is a surprise.

You think you know anything…

The door opens behind me and I feel my whole body go tense, my posture straightening as I react to his nearness.

My heart is beating so hard I’m sure that he can hear it.

I expect him to say something. To move to me. To touch me.

Wolf.

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