Chapter 49


    Mae stumbled into the Conve. The elegant barn was deserted, the board bearing the alphabet


    letters the overseers had used to exin this horrible game still in the middle of the open space.


    She didn’t know how to turn on the lights, so she left the door open. There was enough moonlight from


    that and the windows to guide her as she pushed open the heavy doors of what had been horse stalls


    and were now either elegant “cells” for naughty subs, or pens for horse and pony y. She found one


    that had a twin bed in it. With a sob she threw herself down on the mattress, grateful for whatever


    person had left soft cotton sheets in ce.


    She jerked her ruined stockings off, then removed the corset, dropping both carelessly onto the floor.


    Rolling onto her side sheid her palm over the hot ce on her ass. The skin was sensitive to the


    touch, the residual pain equal to the deepest marks on her breast.


    “Mae.”


    She rolled, looking at the open stall door where a man stood silhouetted in the faint moonlight. She


    wasn’t surprised, but she wasn’t happy either. “Go away.”


    He disappeared, and Mae blinked back tears. It was totally unfair of her to be disappointed that he’d left


    when she told him to, but right now she couldn’t manage fair. Her feelings were too jumbled.


    Xavier returned, toting two heavy floor candbras. The massive iron things went with the elegant


    Spanish style of the mansion, but when he ced them on either side of the room and flicked a lighter,


    all she cared about was that he’d made it light when she wanted dark.


    “Leave me alone, Xavier.” She didn’t call him Master, using it to push him away.


    “I won’t.”


    “What more could you want from me?”


    He dropped to sit on the floor, back against the wall. “I have no right to ask for anything more.”


    “That’s right, you don’t.”


    “But I want to know why you ran.”


    “You almost branded me. Me.” Mae spread her arms. “I don’t even have a tattoo, because I couldn’t


    commit to a design. I was going to let you brand me, burn me, with whatever you wanted.”


    “Is that why you’re upset?”


    Mae clenched her fists, longing tosh out at him, to break that calm until he felt what she did. “Yes.


    And no.” She ground out thest word.


    “Then why?” His eyes bored into her, and despite the walls of anger she’d erected, she felt herself


    responding to themand in his gaze.


    “I ran because…because I was disappointed that you didn’t do it.” Mae leapt to her feet. “I don’t even


    know you. I’ve never seen your face. But I wanted you to do it. I wanted to have you brand me so that it


    would always be there. I’d always feel you touching me.”


    Xavier rose slowly to his feet. She held out her hands. “No. Don’t touch me. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand


    that you’re so calm when I feel like I’m breaking apart inside.”


    She knelt on the bed, inching back until she hit the wall, now as far away from him as she could be.


    “You make me feel things that I can’t even understand, and it didn’t mean anything to you.”


    “You think that I don’t feel.” Xavier’s voice was thick with pain. “There are days the rage inside me is


    enough to make me want to rip my own skin off. I hate myself for wanting this.” He cast his hand out,


    seeming to include all of Las Palmas in the gesture. “But it’s the only thing that gives me any fucking


    peace. You think I don’t feel what you do? When I touched you for a minute everything was quiet.


    Everything was okay. No one’s given me that before.”


    Mae let out a breath, her shaking subsiding as she listened to him.


    “You have no idea how much I wanted to brand you. To mark you. But I can’t have you.”


    “Why not?” Mae whispered. Couldn’t he see that she wanted him, needed him, for more than just the


    game?


    “Is that really what you’d want, Mae? You’re ready to always be the obedient submissive, to spend your


    time bound and gagged instead of petted and fucked?”


    She opened her mouth to say yes, but then looked away.


    “I didn’t think so.” There was defeat in his voice.


    That irritated her. “You need to understand, my whole life is built around being a submissive.” She


    shook her head. “No, that’s not right, at least not totally. How I’ve yed, before—the bratty sub, the


    girl who gets spanking and cuddles and wears cute lingerie… that defines me. And has since I was


    sixteen.”


    Xavier’s gaze sharpened. “Sixteen?”


    Mae leaned back against the wall. “I grew up in this nowhere town. My mom wasn’t around, and my


    grandma raised me, but her health was bad, and she didn’t really know what to do with me. When I


    was in high school, I started ying around online. I found these men who were willing to send me


    things in exchange for watching me y with myself on webcam.”


    “I’m sorry, Mae.”


    “It’s not like that. I mean looking back I’m horrified, but I was lucky. Nothing really bad happened to me.


    Eventually there was this one guy. He told me that I was his baby girl, his sweet little girl, and that


    meant I had to do what he said. I got stuffed animals and cute toys in the mail.”


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    “A Daddy Dom?”


    “Exactly, though it took me a long time to learn the terms. He introduced me to D/s.”


    “You weren’t even legal.”


    She shrugged one shoulder, not wanting to defend her past right now. “Without him and that


    rtionship I wouldn’t be who I am now. When we started you called me ‘little girl.’ For a long time


    that’s who I was. That was my kind of submission.”


    Xavier shook his head. “A Daddy/little rtionship is not the same as a Master sub rtionship.”


    “I know. That’s why I’m here. After a while it wasn’t enough. I got older and the man who’d introduced


    me to all this wasn’t as interested, especially because I wasn’t happy ying with stuffed animals while


    I had a plug in my ass. I wanted something more. But that kind of submission is part of who I am.”


    “There’s more to you.”


    “You’ve proved that.” Her words were wry.


    Xavier reached for her, but stopped just short of touching her. “Just because you’re masochistic doesn’t


    mean you have to have pain y. How you submit is your choice.” He retreated to the far wall.


    “Because who you submit to is your choice. There are plenty of excellent Doms here who’d be careful


    with you.”


    “But not you?”


    “I will not cor or be bound to a sub. That’s a personal rule I’ve had for a long time.”


    It wasn’t unexpected, but still hurt.