Page 19 of Free

But I understand.

“Isn’t it the oddest thing how an act that would scare ninety percent of the population makes us feel safer than a baby swaddled in its mother’s arms.”

“But it didn’t feel like that,” he whimpers. “Not without you guys.”

Of course, it didn’t. He was looking for love, and instead, he found abuse. I reach up and take his face in my hand. He sighs and rubs into my touch like a cat.

“How do you feel now?”

He doesn’t hesitate to answer.

“Like I’m coming out of my skin.”

“You need to work up to it, Remi. You can’t start out at a ten. Like an engine needs to warm up before it operates at peak performance, so too does your body need to acquiesce to the knowledge that pain can be a pleasure. Otherwise, you’re simply being lashed. He might as well have hung you from the whipping pole.”

“He did,” Justin adds with a low and dangerous growl.

It’s like I’ve been dropped into the middle of a snowstorm. It’s taken over all of my senses. All I can see, taste, hear, or smell is white. There’s a howling wind rushing between my ears as the vision of the ruination of Remi’s strong and proud body blows through my imagination.

“Baby girl?”

Justin’s voice comes from far away, yet I can feel his hands hovering, raised and open, ready to catch me if I fall.

I dig my nails into the softest part of Remi’s body, the thin layer of fat covering his hips, and relish the way his head bows and the sound of him hissing in pleasured anguish.

It takes me less than a minute to make my decision.

“Follow me. I’m going to show you how to pull pleasure from the pain.”

I start stripping off right there in the living room, leaving a trail of clothing down the hallway. I’m already bare when I make it to the bedroom door. I don’t bother to braid my hair back, and I don’t grab my pillow, but already I feel myself slipping into the scene I’ve set in my head.

Justin is still fully clothed, still loitering in the background. I can all but feel the tension roiling off his shoulders.

Remi is half-hard between his legs, unsure of what I’m doing but on tenterhooks either way.

“Do you remember our first time? The first time we took you to our bed?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he breathes with wide-blown pupils.

“Strap me,” I demand and finally look towards my husband. “Like we did that night.” Remi acts as if to move, but I place my hands on his chest and hold him still. “You stay right here. I want you to see what it looks like when a Dom makes his submissive scream in the right ways.”

Justin’s gaze flick between us.

My chest is heaving, and I beg without my voice—I plead with my eyes, with the flexing of my hands, with anything I can except for my words topleeeeaselet me have this!

“You weren’t looking for pain,” I say to Remi, staring at Justin. “Some people are, make no mistake about that. But Justin doesn’t hurt me. It’s a biological fact that when all those chemicals are coursing through your bloodstream a little slap and tickle can feel good. Real good. But I have never, not once, asked Justin to hurt me. If I did, we’d be sitting in a mental health clinic, not strapping me to the bed. That’s not the game we play.”

I wipe the tear away that tries to escape down my cheek.

I’m not a moron. We wouldn’t be here to have this conversation if Justin had even the slimmest concern that Remi wasn’t in a safe headspace to be in our bed. But I know, like I know my own name, that Justin probably took matters into his own hands in regard to Remi’s mental stability as well.

That, though, is a conversation for tomorrow.

Right now, I know what Remi needs, and I’m going to give it to him.

With a jerk of Justin’s chin, he reaches behind his back and tugs his shirt off over his head, dropping it to the floor.

“Assume the position, wench.”

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