Page 6 of Reclaimed

He struck my face hard with the back of his hand. I stared at him, open-mouthed, my hand against my stinging cheek. I was not dealing with the old Ray anymore, that was for sure. Hitting anywhere near the face had always been a hard limit for him; he’d refused to do it even when I’d asked if we could include it in a roleplay. But now he was showing no hesitation at all, and no regret.

“You said you’d never—”

“And you said you would always be mine. I guess we’re both capable of changing our minds.”

“Ray, I—”

“Master,or I’ll do it again.”

I held my arms up in front of my face for protection. “I can’t call you Master.”

“You seemed perfectly capable of it before,” he said with a sneer. “Used to relish it, in fact.”

“My Master is someone I can trust. That used to be you, but not now. I don’t know who you are, but I know I can’t trust you.”

“You’re going to talk to me about trust? After you left me for another man?”

“People leave relationships all the time. It’s not a sin.”

He looked like he really was going to strike me again, but he held himself back. “You have no choice but to trust me. I’m all you’ve got.” And then he turned and left before I could say anything more, and I heard the scraping of metal on metal as a key was turned sharply in the door. I didn’t cry – I was determined not to – but my eyes were watering slightly from the burning pain spreading across my skin. There were no mirrors in the room, but it felt like my cheek must have been bright red. I half-expected to see blood when I took my hand away. I was still in utter shock that Ray could have done something like that to me. A spanking or a paddling wouldn’t have rattled me as much as this had. He’d done those things before, and I could reconcile them with my lingering hope that this was an extension of our previous exploits, and that when Ray realised I truly wasn’t consenting, he’d let me go. But this… there had been such disgust and hatred in that blow… Was this the relationship he wanted now? Was this what he’d taken me back for?

*

He returned a few hours later with a cup of tea. I backed into the corner when he approached, but he didn’t seem angry. He reached for my face and, ignoring my flinch, gently turned my head to examine my cheek. He sighed. “You mustn’t anger me like that, pet.”

“Everything about me angers you.”

“That’s not true, but you mustn’t speak to me like that. I know you can do better.” He pressed his thumb gently into the swollen skin of my cheek, causing my eyes to start watering again.

“Why would you care? You want to hurt me anyway.”

“Because it’s what you deserve.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Is it crazy for a man to punish his sub when she transgresses?”

“It is if she’s not his sub anymore.”

He paused in his ministrations and turned my face to his. “You can try to deny it if you like, but you’ve been my sub ever since that night you first called me Master. I know you better than anyone, Callie, and I know you can’t just switch that off. Your body and your mind belong to me. You may have tried to share them with someone else, but they have always been mine.”

I didn’t reply. Anything I said against him would sound like a lie. I didn’t want to be his again, but the intensity of the exhilaration, the passion, the trust… was undeniably greater from the heady vantage point of subspace than it could ever be in a normal relationship.

He stayed sitting beside me on the bed while I sipped my tea, and I struggled to keep myself from shaking in response to his proximity.

“The sooner you stop fighting this, the easier it’ll be on everyone.”

“I’m not going to stop fighting you; I’m going to get out of here.”

“Hmm. We’ll see.” He took my cup. “Get up.”

“No.”

“Get up.”

“Make me.” That was the wrong thing to say. He thrust his hand into my hair and tugged upwards, hard, forcing me to kneel up on the bed. I cried out in shock and pain, and he stopped pulling but didn’t loosen his grip.

“Are you going to do what I tell you now?”

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