Page 86 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

I tried to hide my smile as I managed to eat about half the omelet.

“That is... if you would still like to come over.” He sounded almost hesitant to ask.

“Yes. I’d like that.”

“Alice, I need you to know... I didn’t make that room for you to pressure you into moving in with me. But I had the room available, and I wanted you to have a place you could get away if you needed it.”

“I like it,” I smiled, taking another bite of my eggs. “And I don’t feel pressured.”

“In that case, I’ll see you this evening at six?”

“I miss you already.”

He rolled his eyes but looked satisfied with my answer.

The thing was, I knew a tamer when I met one. Brat tamers were just brats with power who beat us at our own game. Reuben Weston was so convinced he hated brats, and hated everything about brats, that he had missed the biggest, most obvious truth.

He was one.

“He snuck mushroomsinto my breakfast! I hate him!” I ranted at Sophie. We were sitting in the library, and she was flipping through a binder of recipes while I did some data entry on last week’s finances.

“But I had no choice but to eat them because, one, they were delicious, and two, he thought I was going to refuse, so I had to do it. Ugh, he’s infuriating.”

Sophie giggled, biting her lip. “You two are so funny. And you don’t hate him.”

“No, you’re right...” I sighed and stared out the window for a minute. “He’s pretty awesome. And surprisingly romantic.”

“Romantic?” She laughed, curiosity burning in her eyes.

“He made me a room in his house, with blue walls and a galaxy bedspread and glow stars on the ceiling.”

Sophie’s face transformed into the epitome of a puppy dog look. “Aww,” she whispered. “That’s so cute, he likes you.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Can’t figure out what I did to deserve his affection, but I’m not going to complain.”

I told her a little bit of the rest. When I got to the part about the paperwork he’d taken from my old Dom, Sophie set the binder aside and gave me her full attention.

“He asked me this morning before I left if I wanted him to work on getting the marriage annulled and my name changed back. I said yes. I still don’t know what that letter from Augustus said, and I still don’t know if Woodrow has my money. I’ll probably never see it again.”

“And you had no idea about the marriage?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t remember much. After that first day of him collaring me and whipping me, he left me overnight for a few days in a row. Most of it was a blur until I escaped.”

Sophie’s eyes unfocused slightly. “I kind of know what that’s like. My birth mom locked me in a metal cage in the basement, once... but,” she whispered, looking around, and then leaning forwards. She spoke very quietly.

“When Mark and I went on our honeymoon, we went to a cabin that had a bunch of BDSM equipment in the basement. It wasamazing. Anyway, there was a cage in there, and at first, I was really scared, but Mark made me this little nest with blankets and pillows and sparkly lights, and I got to sit in there and read in the evenings, and it put me right into subspace. And now I’m not afraid of cages anymore and I don’t have nightmares about it.” She smiled happily. “He said he would get me one for Christmas but we have to hide it, and I don’t know where to put it! Our cabin is so small.”

I smiled at the idea of Sophie sitting in a princess cage with her kitten ears, snuggled up with pillows and stuffies. I wondered if I wore my fox ears and my tail for Reuben if he would like that, and I took out my notebook and wrote down some questions that I wanted to ask him later.

That afternoon while I finished up the rest of my work, I hopped on Discord to hang out with my friends. I had so many tags that it took me forever to answer them all... so I just wrote up a brief summary of our entire relationship from the beginning without mentioning too many specifics and left it at that. People asked a lot of questions and gave a lot of advice. I got some ideas on what kinds of things I should ask him that evening, and they gave me tons of great ideas. I wrote it all down in my journal and decided that this evening, it would be my turn to get all the dirty details on Reuben’s backstory.

SmileMaker69 - don’t move forward if he doesn’t want to tell you about the accident that made him release all his subs. Unless you’re just looking for a playmate, that’s not the kind of behavior you want to trust.

Prettypleasekissmee - I second that. Also, ask what aftercare he feels like he can’t give, and what kind he needs himself. My daddy always needs aftercare the day after we scene because once he sleeps on what he did to me, he feels really guilty about it.

Makemeb!tch - Make sure he understands that you are in charge, and that you deserve all the candy and milkshakes that you want. You should have him put that in the rules.

Flooser - also when discussing rules, I suggest you negotiate that when you find a loophole, it’s allowed. He can’t punish you for loopholes. It makes the game more fun.

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