Page 67 of Bitter Truths

“What makes you come, Halsey?” he asks sternly. “When your partner is strong, giving, gentle, rough?”

“Um, I guess all of those.”

“How? Does he decide, or do you tell him where? Does he ask or take? Does he make you feel safe or used?”

Cocking my head to the side, I study him blankly, thinking over sex with Griffin. He’s never exactly asked me what I want, and much of our sexual experience has been led by him. Strangely, the rougher he is and the more demanding, the more I feel. I think I crave his need.

“I guess, used? I like it when he makes me, um, orgasm.”

He cocks his head to the side while he studies me, his mouth tilting the slightest bit. “Okay, so you like it when someone dominates you?”

“Maybe.” I’m unsure how to respond and uncomfortable with the conversation and how he might interpret my answers.

Does this make me more fucked up or less? I’m both worried about what he might say or do and how this entire conversation feels overall. It’s freeing but also disturbing in the face of the intimacy of the conversation and with whom I’m speaking about it.

He leans back in his chair, and it squeaks in the quiet, as he says slowly, carefully but with an intensity that sends a tingle of awareness down my spine, “I think you’re a submissive, Halsey.”

“A what?”

“A submissive. You like it when others dominate you. Not like your rapists, but with someone you trust. Someone who knows how to take you to your limits and in which you can give them control, and it satisfies you.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I whisper, visions of sexy romance novels running through my brain. Is he talking about whips and chains? Or sitting on my knees in a corner, shit?

“Allowing someone else to decide is freeing. It’s like giving up your control to God or something. To truly trust someone else to know what you need and give it to you eases the burden you carry, and I think that is how you take back your control,” he says firmly.

For a moment, I stare at him wordlessly before a knock interrupts us, and I jump clean out of my skin. He sighs and glances at his watch with a frown. “Our time is up. Do some research and bring back any questions you have for me.”

I mean, he just dropped a literal bomb in my lap, and now he wants me to go home and look it up on the internet like an assignment?

What the fuck?

Nodding, I stand and walk toward the door, pausing with my hand on the knob when he says quietly, “Halsey?”

“Yes?” I whisper, staring at the swirls of wood in front of me. I’m fucking dazed, and I don’t know how to process what just went down. Is this even normal?

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of here. This is natural, especially with someone who has experienced trauma. If I’m right, this may be exactly what you need to see progress in your journey.”

“Okay.” I exit before he can say more, rushing down the hall like the hounds of hell are on my heels.

Once outside the building, I tip my head toward the sky and breathe deep, hoping to leave behind this conversation, but it trails me all the way home.

My mind is blown. I don’t know what to think or how to feel, but my stomach is filled with a flurry of tingles, and I feel strangely both weighted down and light.

Chapter Twenty

You showed me the light and then cast me into darkness.

GRIFFIN

I’m sitting on the couch glaring holes into Max, who’s perched on the opposite end with an uneasy expression and sweat rolling down his forehead. Yeah, he should feel fucking uncomfortable. He’s lucky I didn’t beat his ass, although apparently, someone else did the honors for me.

Max has a black eye, bruised jaw, and when he grimaces at me, his lip splits open, and he licks the blood away.

Ignoring the pulse of rage, I look away because I can’t stand to look at his lying fucking face. Fuck. Is this how Halsey feels when she looks at me?

Thankfully, Halsey comes in with an intense look of concentration on her face, tearing me from my painful fucking thoughts. She glances up with an absent smile before her head whips back around, and she stares between us with wide eyes.

Her pretty gaze skims over me quickly before she looks at Max, and I clench my hand into a fist when she steps forward, and says, “Max, what’s happened? What’s going on?”

---