Page 25 of Bound and Branded

“Wait here,” he says.

He leaves me there, lying on the bed in the silence of the room, the pleasant lavender scent surrounding me and the music still playing.

I let out a long, slow breath, and try to take inventory of my body. I’m having a hard time finding a connection to reality.

I’m having a hard time with just about everything.

I’m buzzing. The aftereffects of my orgasm are still pulsing through me, pins and needles now the dominant feeling in my legs and wrists.

I turn my head to the left slightly, and look out the window. It’s much later in the day. I still have no idea how much time has passed. There is no clock in here, and my phone was discarded somewhere… Maybe the hallway?

Yes, it must’ve been.

I hear his footsteps, but I don’t look away from the window. I feel like if I look at him it’ll break the spell. It’ll make me feel shame. Not the good kind that I felt during the scene. The kind that heightened my desire. But real shame. For what I just did. For what I let him do.

Tears start tracking on my face again, more than a release. Something deeper, and I wish that it would stop.

I hear him set something down on the nightstand to the right. “I brought you water, and a cheese plate.”

I can’t help it, I turned to look then. “You brought me snacks?”

“You need protein. And you definitely need to hydrate.”

“How… How long…” My impulse is to ask how long I was gone. Because that’s what it feels like. I feel like I just spent an unknown amount of time both out of my body and more in it than I’ve ever been. I can’t explain the difference between those things. I can’t explain why it’s like that.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

Then he puts his hand on my head and strokes me, like I’m a kitten. This is after care, I suppose. Good doms do it. And I see why now. Because I lost my fucking mind on the journey back to earth after that experience.

I’m stuck in a tangle of weeds. The weeds being my own emotions.

There’s too much happening. The realization that I’ve actually done that and what it says about me, my body, my sexuality—and that it’s him. All those things feel heavy. Feel like just a little bit too much.

Too much is everything we are.

“Sit up,” he says.

I think about obeying him. I think I maybe even do. Except that I’m still lying there. “Avery,” he says.

The use of my name snaps me out of it. I’m angry that he’s called me that. I want to be Dove. Being Avery feels like too much work. But he’s reminded me that’s who I am. And he’s Caleb. He is the prick next door who has created so much of the drama in my life.

I sigh heavily and work my way into a sitting position, drawing my arms out of the blanket. Of course, doing that makes it fall down to my waist and exposes my breasts.

Feeling embarrassed about that at this point would be protesting too much.

“Thank you,” I say. I take the glass of ice water off the tray, and take a sip. It’s lemony, which is nice. And that’s a very inane thought. But my brain feels like a wasteland. There are nothoughts. No conclusions. Maybe that is a gift in and of itself. Maybe.

“This doesn’t have to cross over into our agreement. It’s up to you.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

“This, the Dom/sub stuff. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with who we are outside this room.”

That unlocks something inside of me.

Relief. Fear. I’m not really sure which.

It feels easy, though. Much easier than trying to sort everything out. Much easier than trying to figure out where this discovery of me being a submissive, for absolute certain, fits into my life and where this shift in my relationship with him fits.

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