She wouldn't think about what might come next if Gabe held her to her words down here. She just had to get out of Brian's dungeon, her body and mind still intact.
When she reached him, she pressed her lips against the leather of his boot and said, "Thank you, Master."
"Stand up," Gabe said.
She stood and he took her blouse the rest of the way off. For a moment, she panicked, afraid he was going to take her right here right now in some savage display, like the spoils of war. Maybe he was intent on proving himself to Brian.
She willed herself not to cry or beg. If Gabe got fed up with her, he might throw her right back to Brian, and the one thing she was sure of: anything Gabe did to her would be a thousand times more kind and merciful than anything Brian might do. She hadn't realized how sure she'd been of that until this moment.
Gabe removed the bra and flung it on the ground, then to her great relief, he helped her back into the blouse and buttoned it up, the destroyed bra abandoned on the floor. Her nipples hardened and pushed against the fabric. She may as well not wear a top at all.
He looked down at her, a slight smirk curving that beautiful mouth as he took her in. "Brian is right about one thing. No underwear. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes, Master." She wasn't sure if this was real or if Gabe was just helping her get out of Brian's clutches. She didn't know if he would hold her to all of this, but every time the word master came out of her mouth in relation to him, it felt more and more... right? Every time she said it, something low inside her gut clenched up, not in panic or fear, but... expectation. That couldn't be right? Could it?
"Let's go." His hand settled on her lower back as he guided her from the room.
"Oh Gabe?" Brian called after them.
"What is it?" Gabe said, now past the point of irritation.
"You owe me a drink."
"For what?"
"I think you know for what."
Gabe didn't reply. And he didn't speak again until he'd led her through the house and back to his room. She jumped when the door shut harder than necessary. "Sit."
Julie sat on the edge of his bed and looked down at the floor.
"Well?" he said.
"Well, what?"
"That little performance back there. Was any of it real or was it all just to save your skin?"
"I don't know."
He sighed. "Brian is not bluffing. If my collar is not around your throat by the end of the week, he will come for you, and what he does with you will be much worse for having been dragged through this charade. I can't babysit you every second of every day."
"You mean you actually would if you could?" Him being about to leave her down in the dungeon with Brian hadn't exactly built much confidence in his intentions.
"I don't want you like this-forced. But I don't want him to hurt you, either. And I might not always be around to stop him."
She felt the tears slipping down her cheeks again, threatening to turn into uncontrollable sobs.
Gabe knelt on the floor in front of her and took her hands in his. "I won't share you with anyone else. I won't punish or humiliate you in public. I won't damage you. I won't break your skin. I will not be easy. I will not compromise, and I'm a demanding bastard, but I take care of what's mine. I won't play a game with you. I won't pretend to be your master even to protect you from Brian. And I won't be managed by you, but if you give it a chance, I will awaken something inside you that you never dreamed was possible. I will make your body and soul sing for me. I will wrap you up in the kind of warmth and security you thought only happened in fairy tales. So, Julie, are you mine?"
Her breath caught in her throat. The tears seemed to have stopped mid-descent down her cheeks. She so desperately wanted to believe him. She didn't know if she was the kind of girl who could ever truly like the brand of sex and dominance he offered her, but she'd watched Annette, and even inexplicably Mina. She'd seen the deep peace that settled over their features whenever their masters were near. And she wanted that. So badly. She wanted to be happy instead of just existing. She wanted to feel like she belonged here. She wanted to feel like she belonged to Gabe.
She'd screamed that she wasn't his house cat, but being in the house without a relationship with him had made her feel more like an ignored pet. If he wasn't letting her go, wouldn't it be better to be with him than alone surrounded by people? And even if he let her go-she would never feel safe again because now she'd seen the ugly underbelly of the world. She knew what was out there. And if it wasn't Dmitri and his gang, it might be someone else.
Finally, she said, "Yes, Master."
"Good girl." But the expression of happiness on his face went light years beyond those words.
"If I hadn't called you master... if I hadn't begged you, would you have left me with Brian?"
Gabe didn't say anything for a long time. She thought he wasn't going to answer her at all when finally he said, "I don't know. I want to say no. I want to believe I'm not that big of a bastard. But I'm not the storybook hero I thought I was. I'm human like everybody else, maybe not as good as I thought. I'd lost all patience waiting for you to come to me."
"But...how could you reasonably think...?"
"I know. I know. I shouldn't expect you to fall at my feet in gratitude. While I'm absolutely certain you're wired like me, you haven't had a chance to explore it in a safe environment. And I know it's selfish as hell to want it given all you've suffered. But that's me. I want what I want. I want who I want. And one way or another, I always get it. It's late, you should get some rest."
Gabe got up off the floor and Julie stood and started for the door.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"I-I'm going to my room."
Gabe shook his head sharply. "No. From now on you sleep in my bed with me."
She couldn't stop the fine tremble that moved through her, or the tears that slowly rolled down her cheeks again as she undressed and got into his bed, old monsters haunting her again, niggling fears nipping at her heels like small dogs.
Gabe undressed as well and got in on his side. He pulled her close, and she stiffened. She'd actually wanted him. And as much as she should hate him for the past weeks of cold distant anger, she didn't. It was pretty impossible to hate him after he'd gotten her out of Brian's dungeon. Thinking of how much worse things could be, not just in Brian's dungeon, but if Gabe had never shown up at Dmitri's house did engender a sense of gratitude.
Why couldn't she give him this? She wasn't sure she'd ever be able to have sex like a normal person because she had no awareness of what it was supposed to be like. And she feared that every nerve ending in her body had been wired to expect some sort of assault when a man touched her. What if she couldn't experience anything intimate without reliving the things that had happened? It was one thing to be totally free from the expectation and to go through her life without cringing and cowering all the time, but would it be possible to have a sexual relationship? Even if it were what Gabe called vanilla? She was afraid this would only open up a gaping wound that she'd tried so hard to ignore—hoping it would miraculously heal itself and go away in time. Maybe she should have talked to the therapist after all.
Gabe pressed closer against her. She could feel his heartbeat and the warmth of his skin against her back. His heart pounded through her, causing her blood to awaken and stir. She, still wanted him. She just wasn't sure if she could let herself...
"Relax," He whispered in her ear. "We're just sleeping tonight. And I will go very slowly with you. I want you to trust me and feel safe with me and want everything that happens between us. I'm not Dmitri."
"I know."
"Maybe your mind knows. Your body doesn't yet. But it will." He ran his fingertips lightly back and forth along the curve of her hip for several long minutes until she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke the next morning, it took a while to remember what had happened.
"Julie." Gabe sat in a chair near the bed, d
ressed for the day in his standard jeans and white T-shirt, watching her.
"Y-yes, Master?" She wouldn't be stupid with him. She knew what he wanted her to call him. If she'd called him Gabe, or sir like the other girls, she was sure she wouldn't like his response. She wanted to at least try to make this work. If she couldn't clamp down her stupid, irrational attraction to him, she could at least-try.
"Sit up," he said.
She scooted up in the bed and he rose from the chair and joined her. He pulled a fabric tape measure from his pocket and wrapped it around her throat. He wrote the measurement down on piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket. "I'm going to order your collar today. After breakfast, your training starts."
The tears were warm and wet against her cheeks. She was so tired of crying. She'd gone weeks without crying like this. Now that she'd given herself to him, the low-level constant anxiety that she'd mostly gotten away from had returned.
"Enough," he said. "I'm not hurting you. You have no idea what will or won't happen between us. I have wanted you since the moment I saw you at the bar. I've thought about you from that moment to this one with no interruptions. You've wanted me. At least until you were taken."
"I-I still wanted you after that."
"What?"
The shock on his face and in his tone was enough to give her the courage to tell him the rest.
"When I was with Dmitri, every night I would imagine that you would come for me and take me out of there. It was the only way I could sleep at night, playing that rescue story over and over in my head." She couldn't decipher the expression on Gabe's face now. It had morphed into something like wonder.
"Then why did you try to run that night? Why didn't you trust me when I said I could help you?"
"Because it was a fantasy. I wasn't stupid enough to believe in those by that point. And you were definitely working with those guys. All the girls there knew it. Dmitri made a really big deal about your arrival with big threats if one of us displeased you. And I was afraid of you. I'm still afraid of you."
Gabe took her hands in his. "I will not make you suffer. I care for you. I care about how you feel. I don't want to harm you or share you. Asking you to trust me is impossible, and I should have known that from the beginning. So I'm going to ask you to stop fucking crying. Take a wait-and-see approach. Cry when it's really too much and things are really terrible and not a moment before. Do you understand me?"
Julie wiped her eyes. "Yes, Master."
"Good. Get ready and go down and have some breakfast. I'll meet you back here in one hour. Don't be late. I don't like to be kept waiting."
There was an insane alternate reality in which the order not to cry coming from Gabe somehow made it possible not to.
***
Gabe watched her walk away. She seemed so fragile. He had never been more aware of how breakable another person could be. Why was he so goddamned selfish? As he got into the shower all he could think about was how fucking goddamned selfish he was. He should leave her the fuck alone. But even if he did, Brian wouldn't.
Maybe he should let her wear the collar to protect her, but otherwise stay away from her. It would be the right thing to do. The noble thing. The gallant thing. It would confirm who he had believed he was when he rescued her that night at Dmitri's.
These days he felt he was more like Brian than whatever imaginary hero he'd thought himself to be. He took a quick shower, shut the water off, and dripped halfway across the bathroom in search of a towel. He put on some jeans and a white T-shirt and a black sport watch. He glanced down at it. Still forty-five minutes until he had to figure out a way to train her without destroying her. Or himself. Because if he broke this woman-if he damaged her in any way all because of the stupid shit he wanted-he would never forgive himself.
This wasn't just some girl to be fucked and trained. He loved this one. But if that were true, wouldn't he leave her alone? And how would that go? He was convinced this course of action would result in her happiness as well as his. Why should they both be miserable? If she gave him a week-hell, a few days, she'd learn to trust him. She'd fall under his spell for good.
Gabe shook his head as he left the room and headed down the hall and down the stairs to the main level. They could be happy together. He just had to find the right way to handle it.
He spotted her sitting in a far corner, her back to the main part of the room. Mina and Annette were sitting with her. It seemed like she was telling them and they were trying to reassure her. Mina looked up and spotted him and he shook his head to keep her from drawing attention. She went back to the conversation with Julie and ignored him.
Gabe went through the line and got some bacon and eggs and black coffee. Nothing heavy or crazy, just something to keep his stomach from churning. He took the plate and cup outside to sit beside the pool. This time of the morning, the pool was empty. It was quiet and peaceful out here.
He ate his breakfast and then pulled out the slip of paper he'd written Julie's collar measurement on. What would she like? This had to feel like an engagement ring, the kind of jewelry a woman would be thrilled to receive. It couldn't feel like a symbol of enslavement. Despite his certainty that she was more like him than she thought, a collar still wouldn't yet mean the same things to her that it would mean to someone like Mina and Annette who had embraced who they were.
He left his breakfast dishes on the table by the pool and went back upstairs. Julie sat on the edge of the bed waiting for him.
"Are you ready?"
"Y-yes, Master."
At least she kept getting the title right. She might not be sure about it, but she at least wasn't backtracking into the polite vanilla lie.
He sat down in the chair across the room, which he'd been in earlier. He'd let her have a little distance for a while. He needed to ask some questions first to assess things. Despite all the conversations they'd had during their dating period, he had kept it non-sexual and innocent because he hadn't wanted to make her uncomfortable or anxious.
"Have you ever had an orgasm?"
Julie seemed taken aback by the question, which was reasonable. Sometimes it was harder to talk about sex than it was to do it, but he needed some basic information. This wasn't meant to humiliate her.
"I-I think," she said, finally.
Gabe chuckled. "It's not the sort of thing you're uncertain about. At least not if the job gets done right. With someone else or by yourself?"
"By myself."
She looked sort of haunted when she said it and they both knew what she was thinking—that of course there had been no pleasure from the men Dmitri had sold her to. Gabe didn't want to cause her pain, but he wanted to know what he was working with. At least pleasure hadn't been tainted by the men she'd been passed around to. That was something at least.
"Toys or manual?"
She turned a deep shade of crimson and looked up at him startled. "Um, what?"
"You heard me. You're mine now, sweetheart. You've got no secrets anymore. Compared to the things you will do with me, this conversation is nothing."
"M-manual."
"You've never tried vibrators? No dildos or other penetrating toys?"
"N-no."
"And Dmitri's people-they didn't..."
"No."
Such a strange sense of innocence still clung to her, despite what she'd been through. And she thought she'd had an orgasm but wasn't sure. It must have been very weak pleasure if she'd managed it. An orgasm too weak to know for sure if it was an orgasm didn't qualify in his book. When she finally came at his hands she would motherfucking know it.
"How often did you masturbate?"
She bit the edge of her lip and looked away. "M-master, I can't do this..."
Gabe got up and crossed the room to her. She shrank from him as if afraid he was going to hit her. He hated that. He sat next to her and brushed the hair out of her face with one hand while the other lingered on her cheek.
"I'm not trying to embarrass you
. I need to know some things so I know how to proceed. I know this is awkward and uncomfortable. But I need us to talk openly and honestly. Okay?"
She nodded and looked down at her hands.
"So, how often?"
"I don't know. Not often. Only a few times really. I did it a few times when I was a teenager. It wasn't very satisfying, and I didn't know what I was trying to do so I stopped. And then..."
There was a long pause, as if she thought he would let her trail off and never pick up the thought again.
"Julie?"
She looked up. "I really...can't."
Gabe took a deep breath. He had to be patient with her. He'd always known even if this happened that it would be hard in the beginning. He couldn't magically erase the things that had happened to her. "Which would be easier? A peaceful conversation now, or a trip to the dungeon and then a conversation?"
The terror that came over her face made him regret saying that. But surely sharing a few embarrassing masturbatory details would seem like child's play next to a trip to the dungeon. He was trying to make it easier. But the look on her face, and the way every muscle in her body went rigid and seemed to freeze, made him realize that no matter how he'd imagined all this playing out in his mind, this was not the same thing as the other women he'd trained. They hadn't come to him so broken and afraid.
And Julie was right. It didn't matter what she was theoretically into if he couldn't get her through this initial terrifying beginning.
Before he could decide what to do next, or if he was actually going to follow through on his threat because she wouldn't answer a question, she started talking.
"The other times were at Dmitri's," she whispered.
A tight hard lump formed in the back of Gabe's throat at that, but he pressed on. "Were you by yourself or was it something someone made you do?"
"Well, I-I was never really by myself. But nobody made me-it was at night sometimes-when we were all supposed to be sleeping."
So it was for some sense of comfort.
"Did you ever have orgasms then?"