Page 95 of Wickedly Played
I kiss her shoulder. “Sweetness, what happened to you doesn’t change my feelings for you.”
It isn’t a lie. I’m still intensely attracted to her, but I have some shit I have to work out in my own head now. My head is a mess as she sleeps next to me. I do everything I can to fall asleep, but nothing seems to work. I can’t sleep.
Shit. Truthfully, I’m afraid to sleep because of my night terrors.
It turns out that for the next week, it wasn’t my night terrors we had to worry about. It was Serena’s. Every night, she would wake up screaming. She would wake up instantly if I left the bed for longer than a few minutes. If I left the hotel room to get some fresh air, she would go into a panic attack.
Dr. Cook has come out and prescribed her sleeping pills to help with the fear she is experiencing, but I hate to drug her even more than she already is. I miss Serena. I miss the old Serena. I know there are still glimmers of hope inside of her, but I still feel like it is all my fault.
We leave the hotel tomorrow after Franky and Joey found us a penthouse in one of Detroit's nicer neighborhoods, Corktown. Serena hasn’t said too much about going and hasn’t said too much about what happened recently. I don’t push her, though.
After I’ve packed all our stuff, she comes around the corner in the robe. “Max?”
“Yes, sweetness?”
“Do you think people will still want me as Mistress Aphrodite even if they find out what happened to me?”
I drop what I have in my hands to hold her cheeks. “I’m sure they will. If they don’t, fuck them. Because I still want Serena Jermaine.”
“Are you sure?”
The blood rushing to my cock, is hard to miss. “Yeah.”
“Why haven’t you done anything about it?”
“What?” Clearly, I heard her wrong.
She throws her hair back behind her shoulders and straightens her back. For the first time since everything has happened, I see her as the old Serena. This is the Domme. “Yes. Fuck them.” With that, she unties her robe, drops it on the ground, and walks into the bathroom naked.
I’m left standing next to the bed with my cock straining against my pants.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
SERENA
My body shakes me awake as it pulls me out of my nightmare.Shit.I can’t believe I had another nightmare. In this one, Max didn’t get to me in time, Connor got his way, and I ended up being his breeder.
Slipping my hand across the sheets, I try to sense Max, but I can’t feel him. His side of the bed is cold.
Weird.
It has been two weeks since my kidnapping. It has been one week since we moved into this beautiful penthouse in Corktown, and a room is being constructed to fit my needs for a playroom. Each night, Max holds me while I sleep, I feel him next to me, but he hasn’t made a move. Is he no longer attracted to me?
What kind of fucking Domme does it make me that I’m questioning if my… what the hell even is he now to me? The threat has been eliminated with the death of Adam. Lorcan has been scared off to the other side of Detroit, and the McGuires have managed to take over a majority of the market again.
But where does that leave me and Max? Does he want me? Before the kidnapping, our relationship was just getting started… He was possessive. He was possessive in holding me when guns were pointed in the warehouse. He claimed me in thewarehouse. But there hasn’t been much of anything else going on.
My stomach dips with nerves. I hate feeling so unsure of myself as I tiptoe through the house until I get to the office, which he has been using since I can’t stand to have him leave the home. I hope to feel better soon. I hope I can get him to leave our house soon without worrying.
I press my ear against the door to hear if there is anyone in the office. When I don’t hear anything, I push it open just slightly. “Hello?”
There is a hushed sound of expensive Italian fabric rubbing against fabric as people turn to look at me. I stand in front of ten men with Franky behind the desk, Max off to the side, Joey seated next to him, and then a few other men I have never seen before. I shift from my left to my right foot.
“Uh, sorry,” I mumble. My foot is about out the door when Max grabs my hand.
“Where are you going?” He pulls me to sit on his lap. In seconds, his arms are banded around my waist. “Don’t apologize for being wherever I am, sweetness. We were finishing up.”
I look around at the men in the room. Franky is squinting his eyes at me with a slight smirk dancing on his lips. “Serena, you’re looking a lot better.”
