Make Me, Sir Read online

  “You tried to get a rise out of me,” Holt said. “Did you really want me to switch you harder?”

  Tensing again, she shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

  Marcus frowned. One more time where her insolent behavior didn"t make sense. She didn"t like pain. Sometimes a sub wanted a dom"s attention, but Gabrielle already had that.

  He shook his head. Analyze later, Atherton. Right now, he needed to know what had caused her response, and since she didn"t remember, they"d go through it step-by-step. “Holt grabbed your hair,” Marcus said. Moving slowly, he curled his fingers into her hair and pulled.

  If anything, she softened against him.

  Holt grinned. “Well, that certainly wasn"t it.”

  “Then Holt said something to you. Do you remember what, darlin"?”

  “He did?” She bit her lip and frowned at the younger dom. “You grabbed my hair, and you bent over and—” Her muscles started to tense.

  “Gabrielle,” Marcus snapped.

  She jerked and looked up.

  “There we go. Stay with me, darlin".” He stroked her shaggy hair, and she eased back with a tired sigh. “Holt, can you give it to her piece by piece?”

  Holt"s mouth flattened, and he squeezed Gabrielle"s hand. “I don"t want to scare you again, sweetheart, but we need to find out what did this. Do you understand?”

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  She nodded, but her body stilled. She might not consciously remember the cause, but something inside her did.

  “You little brat,” Holt said.

  Gabrielle"s exhalation was almost a laugh.

  Smiling, Marcus rubbed his chin across her head. Nothing kept this spitfire down long, did it? The knot in his stomach loosened.

  “Guess it wasn"t that.” Holt smiled and fed her the next part: “You obviously want to be beaten hard…”

  A tiny flinch from her, but no fear.

  Holt nodded. “…or maybe you"re a dirty slut who—”

  Gabrielle"s body turned rigid. Her eyes went blank.

  “That"s it.” Marcus lifted her chin again. “Gabrielle, look at me. Now!” he snapped.

  The bond he"d established with her reached deep, and she shuddered. Her eyes focused on his.

  “Good girl,” he murmured. “You"re a very good girl. Stay with me, darlin".”

  Because you’re scaring the hell out of me when you don’t.

  She sighed and leaned into him again.

  Marcus glanced at Holt. The dom"s face tightened with unhappiness and guilt.

  “I wanted to find out if she liked being called names.”

  Quite a few subs got off on a dom calling them slut or whore or dirty. “You weren"t out of line, Holt. I"ve never seen such an extreme reaction to verbal humiliation. This is something from the past.”

  “Yeah, well.” The dom ran a hand through his hair. “You going to work on this with her?”

  “Definitely.”

  “All right then.” His expression turned harsh. “If you discover who taught her that kind of fear…I"d enjoy giving him a lesson in manners.”

  Marcus nodded. So would I. As the other dom walked away, Marcus stroked Gabrielle"s pale cheek and studied on the matter.

  “Dirty slut.” Some women might be disgusted, some affronted, some turned on.

  But Gabrielle"s reaction seemed closer to a catatonic flashback. What could have happened in her past to set such a trigger? The most likely cause would be…

  His arms felt so good, and he shed heat like the sun on a summer day. Gabi pressed her cheek against the smooth shirt covering his muscular chest. She should get back to playing decoy, but her body didn"t want to move. She stared at the stocks. They"d released her, carried her here, and she didn"t remember. How could she have blanked out? As fear spiraled up her spine, she took a death grip on Marcus"s suit. Don’t let go.

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  At her movement, he ran his knuckles over her cheek and used his thumb under her chin to turn her face up. His intense scrutiny felt as if he could see through her clothing, even her body, all the way into her inner self. She couldn"t look away.

  “You ever played out a rape scenario, sugar?” he asked in a rough voice, as if the ugly word had abraded away the smoothness.

  As her skin turned cold, nausea wrung her stomach like a dirty washcloth. She dug her fingers into his forearm and encountered only rocklike muscles. “No.” No no no. “No, please, Sir.”

  “I see.” He released her face and curled his strong fingers around hers, anchoring her in the present. “When were you raped?”

  Her air disappeared as if he"d hit her in the solar plexus, and her next inhalation struggled against the constriction in her chest. “How…how did you know?”

  His eyes stayed steady on hers. “I didn"t, darlin". But now I do. When?”

  She swallowed. “Ten years ago. I got caught in a gang war.”

  “Mmm.” The unemotional acknowledgement somehow let her breathe. She looked down, watching how his thumb traced small circles on the back of her hand.

  Slowly her muscles unknotted.

  “Does a man taking control bother you?”

  “No. It all happened in the past, and I deal with it okay. That"s why I didn"t put anything down on the questionnaire as a problem.”

  He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Don"t lie to me, darlin".

  Look at me now.”

  She tried not to flinch from the intensity of his blue gaze. I don’t want to talk about this; I just want you to hold me.

  “When does being dominated cause problems?” And as if she couldn"t understand the question, he nodded toward the stocks.

  Okay, so maybe sometimes she didn"t do so well. “I never thought about it.”

  And I never want to.

  Even as he kept her gaze trapped, he stroked her cheek gently, and as always when he mixed all that power with gentleness, everything in her melted. His eyes softened, and he murmured, “Little sub.” He kissed her forehead. “Think about what you felt in the stocks…and tell me about the last time you froze.”

  She said lightly, “Well, seems like once—”

  “Don"t be acting up, Gabrielle.” His fingers took her chin in an all-too-effective control. “I want to hear about the last time something made you sick and scared.”

  No sidestepping would evade his insistence on answers. “I dated a guy for a while. He"d pull my hair and fuck rough, and I liked it. A lot. But he called me names once…” Her hands turned clammy, and she tried to look away.

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  His hand tightened on her face. “Stay with me here, Gabrielle.” His sharp eyes cut through her fear like a knife. “Tell me the words he used.”

  “Slut.” The word reverberated in her skull, and her pulse filled her ears like breaking waves in a storm. She swallowed, forcing nausea back. “Whore. Cunt.

  Stuff like that.”

  “Ah, there we go. It"s all tied to the words.” He was silent a minute, thinking, then frowned at her. “You"re still shaking, darlin". We"re going to sit a piece while you take a bit of rest.” His hand slid to her nape and pressed her head against his shoulder. As the noise in her brain diminished, she could hear the slow beat of his heart, and each thud somehow settled her world.

  She heard him speaking off and on… Coaxing the rough-voiced dom to give a construction job to a teen with a bad rep. Someone with a light Hispanic accent talked him into joining a poker night the following week. The techno music changed to classical—Rachmaninoff.

  He held her firmly, his arms never loosening. Sometimes he"d drop a kiss on top of her head as if to let her know he hadn"t forgotten her. And she felt more content right there, right then, than in just about forever.

  Eventually he sat her up, laughter in his voice. “You falling asleep there, sugar?”

  She shook her head and remembered t
o answer. “No, Sir.” A second"s pause and she risked looking up. “Thank you.”

  “You"re very welcome, but we"re not quite finished, darlin".”

  Oh dear.

  “First, and I mean for you to remember this: verbal humiliation is a hard limit for you. You tell any dom that before you start a scene. Do you understand me?”

  A hard limit meant a definitely won’t do that. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good enough. Now I want to use a few of those words and see how you react.”

  As he waited for her nod, he took her hand.

  To brace herself, she gripped his wrist. “Okay.”

  “Slut,” he said softly, his eyes watching her closely.

  She winced, then took a breath.

  “Dirty slut.”

  Same reaction.

  “Cunt. Fuckhole.”

  She"d heard them before, could hear the nasty voice as—she pushed the memory aside. “I"m fine.”

  “You"re brave, darlin", not fine. There"s a difference.” He kissed her forehead.

  “So rough sex or force doesn"t bother you—only the words?”

  That didn"t make sense, did it? Staring at the scars on his knuckles, she tried to think. “I… When…it…happened, other stuff had happened first”— Danny and 78

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  Rock dying. The slicing pain down her face, blood everywhere, and—“and I was numb, I guess. Not feeling anything at all, but…I couldn"t shut out the voices.”

  “Voices.” He rasped the word, emphasizing the s that made it plural. Under her fingers, his wrist muscles flexed to iron.

  If he had directed that icy fury toward her, her heart would have stopped—

  instead his anger made her feel as if she wasn"t alone in an unpredictably violent world. She stroked her hand over his forearm, ruffling the golden hair.

  After a few seconds, he took a long, slow breath and kissed the top of her head.

  “All right. Just the words. I do like knowing you wouldn"t freeze if someone attacked you”—he smiled slightly—“so long as they didn"t call you names.”

  Her laugh sounded like a hiccup, but better than nothing. “I can guarantee that.” A guy had jumped her three years ago, and she hadn"t frozen at all.

  Apparently a man"s knees only bent one way.

  “Good girl.” His brows drew together. “I do not like that a few words can paralyze you so badly. You didn"t even think about a safe word. What if you weren"t here but playing somewhere in private?”

  “I…” She"d known from her date"s reaction that she"d scared him. The thought of blanking out like this terrified her. And all because of a few nasty words. “I didn"t lose it with you.”

  “Little trainee, if you didn"t trust me with your body and with your emotions to some degree, you wouldn"t have returned after the first night.”

  “Oh.” She"d have tried to return for Kim"s sake but might have failed if he"d truly scared her. Even now her body seemed to sing, safe, safe, safe. “Good point.”

  “From your reaction to Holt, having someone else say the words is too risky.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers absentmindedly. “But you don"t react enough if it"s me. Of course, you knew I"d say them. Maybe I should surprise you.”

  She huffed a laugh. “I don"t think the other doms would like you ruining their scenes.”

  “No. But we might could find a different method.” He frowned. “Still, you should get some professional help, Gabrielle. Talking through this with someone—”

  “I did have counseling afterward,” she interrupted. “This didn"t come to light then.” Or during job evals. Of course, I didn’t want to believe I had a problem. “But now… Well, if I can"t fix it myself, I"ll get help, but there"s no way I can do that at this time.” Sorry, Agent Rhodes, but I need to visit a psychologist. I’ll go back to playing decoy later. Tempting. Nonetheless, she"d stay. For Kim.

  But God, what if someone—a killer—called her names? Her skin chilled. She needed to get over this now. “You said „a different method." What do you have in mind?”

  He hesitated. “This might be too realistic, might raise more demons than we want to deal with right now.”

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  His use of we wiped away the chill. She wouldn"t have to face her fear alone.

  “Go on.”

  “The Shadowlands has a yard for people who want to play outside. Sometimes Master Z closes it down and sets up”—she saw him reject the r word and choose another—“capture games. Submissives are given a head start and then chased by their doms. They might get punished for their escape or fucked or both.”

  Marcus grabbing her. Pushing her to the ground. Holding her hair and… Heat slid through her, hot enough to liquefy her lower half. Until she imagined a man—

  any man—forcing her, and she chilled.

  “I will be damned,” Marcus said slowly. “I wouldn"t have thought the idea would excite you, but it did. For a moment. Tell me what turned you off after that.”

  The sharing came easier this time, maybe because he listened so carefully. “A stranger grabbing me and holding me down.”

  His brows drew together. “What excited you?”

  She looked away, a flush of embarrassment heating her face. Yeah, tell the nice dom that he turns you on.

  His warm hand cupping her cheek, he forced her to look at him. “Talk to me, sugar.”

  “You,” she whispered. “You grabbing me.”

  “I see.” He stroked the underside of her jaw with his thumb. “Most women want to choose the man who stars in their fantasy, darlin". Especially ones with a history like yours. But acting out a capture fantasy wasn"t what I had in mind.”

  “Then what?”

  “A game of hide-and-seek. And when I catch you, I"ll call you nasty names.”

  “Get real.”

  “I am. The gardens feel dangerous, especially with others acting out their chase games. If you are sufficiently nervous…I think it might work. For tonight, all I want is for you to say a safe word rather than freeze. That will, at least, make you safer if you"re in a BDSM scene.”

  Not a rape fantasy, just a children"s game. Her mouth still felt too dry, her heart too fast. “But only you?”

  His eyes held complete understanding. “Me. I am the only one who will chase you. No one else.”

  She nodded, feeling like a bobblehead doll she"d won at a carnival years before.

  “Yes.”

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  Chapter Nine

  Marcus tucked Gabrielle behind the bar where Cullen could keep an eye on her and went to change out of his suit.

  When he returned, he stood off to one side for few minutes, amusement trickling through him. Apparently she"d recovered enough to sass Cullen; he"d gagged her with a ball gag, which not only silenced her but added the humiliation of making her drool around the rubber ball.

  Cullen occasionally stopped mixing drinks to wipe her chin and—from the way her color came and went—give her hell. New submissives often misread the sociable bartender, figuring him easygoing. They rarely made the mistake twice.

  Marcus strolled over, pausing to exchange greetings with the various members around the bar.

  Cullen glanced at Marcus"s black jeans and sleeveless T-shirt. “Nice to see you in real clothes for a change. By the way, I found your trainee too mouthy to tolerate.”

  Marcus looked at Gabrielle.

  She stared at his clothing as if she"d never seen a dom in jeans.

  Suppressing his amusement, he waited until her gaze rose to meet his, then looked at the gag in her mouth and let his disappointment in her behavior show.

  To his surprise, her eyes reddened with tears before she turned her head away.

  Something twisted inside him. The bond between them continued to develop.

  She not only trusted him, but she wanted—needed—to please him. So there
was hope for her after all. But the connection went two ways, being balanced by his need to protect and nurture. And possess. He found he didn"t like seeing her under someone else"s restraints. “Release her, please, sir,” he said to Cullen.

  Cullen unsnapped her arms and handed her a cloth before undoing the ball gag. She wiped her face, scrubbed the spit away, and glared at Cullen.

  When the bartender looked at her in disbelief, Marcus clenched his jaw to keep from laughing.

  “Here I thought Andrea was bad.” Cullen grasped her hair in his big fist and growled at her, “Apologize, sub, and thank me for the lesson.” The sheer power he put into the words had her stammering out an apology and thank-you before she could get her sassy attitude back.

  The people seated at the bar laughed.

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  Marcus regarded her carefully. Although flushed, she displayed no pleasure at acquiring an audience with her behavior. Whatever reason she had to misbehave, it wasn"t to attract attention the way his ex-wife had done. Thank God. “Come, Gabrielle, before you get in more trouble than you can survive,” he ordered.

  When Cullen turned his back, she stuck out her tongue. As laughter rippled around the bar, she hurried to Marcus"s side, her eyes dancing with mischief.

  In the dim bar, her smooth, pale skin almost glowed. He ran his knuckles over the sweet curve of her cheek and tucked a silky curl behind her ear. “Little brat,” he murmured.

  She grinned at him.

  Unable to resist, he bent to take her soft lips, pinning her between him and the bar so her body plastered against his. High breasts, lush ass. And when her arms circled his neck, he simply let everything go and savored kissing a yielding sub.

  This sub—Gabrielle—who made every other submissive seem bland. He nipped her bottom lip to tease her mouth open, then swept inside her mouth. She kissed him back with a hungry urgency. His arms tightened as he lost himself, plunging deeply and taking everything she offered so generously. When he hardened, she moaned and rubbed against him.