Page 28 of Bottoms Up
“When she returns, if you wish to negotiate the TPE contract with her, the two of you will do so, and the way you’ll agree to the contract will be to endure that scene for two hours without safewording — without so much as asking for a tiny second of reprieve. Tears are fine, but you will not ask Silver to stop, nor will you utter the safeword you’ll be given to stop the scene.”
Two hours. No out. I wanted to be sick. If I’d been human, I’d have probably thrown up.
And what if I lasted for an hour and fifty-five minutes? With the stakes this big, I’d rather have choice taken from me once I submitted to the scene.
“And if I ask to have my tongue removed, so I won’t have that option?”
Marco shook his head. “The request will be denied. This is my condition, not Silver’s, but if she doesn’t completely destroy your balls, so they are entirely flat when she’s finished — the insides utterly destroyed — the contract won’t be valid.”
Flat.My stomach twisted. I could already feel the weight of the roller, the shame of failing again, of crying and crumbling and proving to everyone I wasn’t strong enough to be free.
“I’m on board with it, now that I understand some of Marco’s reasons,” Silver said, his voice kind, his scent sad. “It’s his condition, but I don’t disagree as to the necessity of you consenting and then enduring it as a means of acknowledging the change in ownership from Marco to me.”
And with that, she stood and walked out. No hug. No telepathic comfort. Not even a glance back.
My chest caved inward. Everything in me wanted to chase after her, wanted a hug, a touch, aconnection, but I couldn’t move. I just sat there. Frozen.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” Marco said in the same calm voice. “I do have an order for you, though. Decide how badly you wish to be free.” A soft sigh. “I know this is hard.Understand, Silver wants you to be free to love her on your own accord. A free man who can come and go as he wishes, change jobs, buy a house. A man in control of his life who can come to her without restrictions or restraint. She’s willing to risk it all to help you get there.”
The possibility of freedom, of no longer being owned, had always been a far-off concept — a fantasy that didn’t belong to someone like me. I breathed in and nodded, numb, and used the air to say, “I’ll meet with Dr. Woods tomorrow, Master.”
And I would. I’d probably agree to Marco’s stipulations, but I needed to figure out how the hell to put that kind of weight on Silver’s shoulders, and how to live with myself if I broke again.
Chapter 10
Silver
Walking away without looking back was hard, but it’s the way it had to be.
Marco texted to tell me Julian had agreed to meet with Dr. Woods, and I had to laugh. He didn’t actually have a choice for this particular thing, but since he thought he did, I supposed it was good he’d agreed to it.
When Mythic Beast is on tour and we stay in a hotel, we all have our own room. We’re crammed together on the bus, so when we can get some alone time, it’s good. However, for music festivals, our travel person often finds a huge suite with enough bedrooms, we all have our own, but we also have a shared space. The penthouse suite only had three bedrooms, but Hailey said she was good with her and Ghost having their own room one floor down. They had a keycard for our suite, so they could hang out in the living room whenever they wanted, and they were goofing off with Mikey when I came out of my bedroom the next morning at ten minutes to twelve.Technicallystill morning.
“There are breakfast burritos in the fridge,” Mikey said. “Minute and a half in the microwave.”
I shook my head and walked to the table with the room service menu. “I want waffles, bacon, eggs, and potatoes.” It only took a few seconds to submit the order through the hotel’s system. “Anyone else want something while I’m ordering?”
“I want hot chocolate and a half pound of bacon,” Hailey said.
I added it to the order and looked at the windows — blinds down, curtains drawn. Or, since Hailey wasn’t burned to a crisp, I assumed all the layers I’d noticed the night before had been closed.
The nighttime view of Rio de Janeiro had been incredible, but if I wanted to see it in daylight, I’d have to go to my bedroom and close the door. Hailey can handle short bursts of filtered sunlight — heavy rain, or extremely overcast conditions — but Julian’s a different kind of vampire and can’t handle any daylight at all, even if it’s raining. Itreallywouldn’t work for me to bring Julian, but I missed him more than I wanted to admit.
Especially since I wouldn’t even be calling him over video, or texting him, oranything.
But he needed time to figure out an answer. This was a big deal, and he needed to make it without my input. It had to be completelyhisdecision.
“It’s supposed to rain in about an hour, but the forecast says it’ll be cleared out long before we go on tonight,” Hailey said. “We can open the blinds and curtains for a little while when the rain hits. The bacon and chocolate help pull the wolfie parts of me to the surface and push the Lugat parts down.”
“I’m good either way,” I told her honestly, because I’ve learned it’s stupid to lie to supernaturals. “If I want to see the view I can go to my room, but I’m good out here with ya’ll.”
She shrugged. “I’m not. I’d like to see the daytime view, and I’ll have a chance while it’s raining. Ghost took a picture of it for me, but it isn’t like seeing it for yourself.”
Davy came out while I was eating, naked except for the shiny little cock cage he so often wears. He grabbed two orange juices and a bottled water from the fridge, nodded to all of us, and returned to the bedroom. I heard the sound of a belt hitting fleshabout three minutes later, and damn if it didn’t make me horny as fuck.
But here’s the thing: I wanted to feel the belt, not wield it, and that meant the next nine months were going to royally suck for me.
Not just blue-balls suck. Existential suck. Whole-body-ache suck. That bone-deep frustration of denying myself what I wanted most — the surrender, the helplessness, the absolute clarity of being owned — but I’d do it in a heartbeat because I love him. Because we both wanted him to be free, to be his own man.
