One Cut Deeper

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  Sounded like heaven.

  I fed Sheba, whipped up the cheesecake and got it in the oven, and started a huge batch of chili for dinner. If it was going to snow, we had to have chili and cornbread. Chuck roast trimmed and pieced, onions chopped, chili simmering on the stove.

  And Charlie still wasn’t up.

  I pulled the cheesecake out to cool. My stomach growled, but I couldn’t stomach chili for brunch. So I fried enough bacon for two, scrambled some eggs and toasted English muffins.

  Not a sound from the bedroom.

  It was almost scary. He’d never slept this long.

  I left the bacon and eggs on the stove to warm and tiptoed down the hallway. Peeking into the room, I saw him sitting on the edge of the bed. His head was bowed, his arms braced on his knees, but he wasn’t moving.

  “Charlie? Breakfast’s ready.”

  He didn’t lift his head. “Thanks, but I’m not very hungry. Just set some aside for me. Go ahead and eat.”

  “Are you all right?” I started toward him, drawn to help him, or at least stroke him, hold him. He needed something. Immediately. My instincts screamed at me that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what.

  Straightening, he pushed up to his feet and turned enough to toss a smile over his shoulder. “Just sleepy. I’m going to jump in the shower.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom. Without giving me a hug or a good morning kiss. Plus he’d already had a shower. I remembered the way he smelled when he came to bed last night. Gnawing on my lip, I made the bed and tidied up my stuff I’d slung all over his room. Yet he still didn’t come out. Sighing, I returned to the kitchen and ate my lukewarm breakfast. Alone.

  When he finally did join me, he poured a cup of coffee but didn’t take any food. He sat down at the table and stared at the board covering the door. “Smells good in here. You’ve been busy today.”

  “When I took Sheba out, it definitely looked like a storm brewing. I figured we’d want to stay inside most of the day.”

  He nodded, but still wasn’t looking at me. “I might have to go out, even if the weather gets nasty. I don’t like not having a door, though honestly, the plywood will be harder for an intruder to get through than glass.”

  “It’s New Year’s Day. Nobody will be selling doors today.”

  He nodded again, but he didn’t seem to hear me. “I need to replace some of the security components. The motion sensors were disabled too easily and the floodlights didn’t come on until it was too late. This guy’s good. Real good. I’ll use that to our advantage.”

  “Did you find anything when you went out last night?”

  He jerked his head around, his eyes narrowed. “You remember that?”

  “Vaguely,” I replied, taken aback by his intensity. “You said you were going to check the property.”

  He smiled. “I think I’ll have some of that breakfast now.”

  But I wasn’t fooled as he slowly stood and went into the kitchen. Despite his smile, he didn’t move like himself. He held himself differently, stiffer, and I’d never seen him move so hesitantly. Almost like—

  “Are you hurt?”

  “It’s nothing serious.” He sat down and picked up his fork, as if he’d told me his favorite football team had scored a touchdown. “I had an idea I want to explore in the next few days. It’ll make me feel better when you’re here by yourself.”

  “How did you get hurt?”

  “Have you ever had any self-defense classes?”

  “Charlie!” He arched a brow at me for raising my voice, but I didn’t care. I slipped out of my chair and knelt beside him, running my hands up his jean-clad thighs. “How did you get hurt?”

  He set his fork down and flattened his palms on the table. His eyes closed, surrounded by dark circles. His lashes were dark against his pale cheeks.

  The T-shirt. He never slept in a shirt. Lightly, I brushed my fingertips up his sides, and though I barely touched him, he couldn’t hide the flinch. His right side. I pushed his shirt up to reveal a large bandage taped to his skin. Hands shaking, I was afraid to touch him, afraid to hurt him.

  “I found Tasker last night.” Charlie shrugged, though it must have hurt. “He fights dirty. But not as dirty as me.”

  “Did you go to the hospital? Without me?”

  He leaned back in his chair, a catch in his breath telling me even a slight movement caused him pain. But he kept his palms on the table. “Of course not. It’s just a nick. I cleaned it, put a couple of staples in, and bandaged it. I’ll be right as rain in a day or two.”

  Right as rain. That saying had never made sense to me. Drizzling, overcast, gray, chilly, gloomy. Not right.

  “You put staples in. Yourself.”

  He shrugged again but still didn’t look directly at me. “No big deal when you’ve had the kind of experience I’ve had over the years. Really, it’s nothing to worry about.”

  His hands trembled on the table, a slight tremor, but I didn’t miss it. I’d never miss the way he moved or held his body. Not my Master. “You’re hurting.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, I’m about a four. I took a few ibuprofen when I got up. That’ll be enough to dull it a bit.”

  Why couldn’t he look at me? Why hadn’t he touched me? At all? I’d never seen him so withdrawn and distant, as though he wasn’t even here. Not in spirit, at least. I wanted him, here and present, his strength around me, his skin against me. I wanted his calm, powerful energy bathing my senses. Not this bleak, empty man with Charlie’s smile but not his light or spark. I didn’t know how to bring him back.

  Distraught, I pressed my cheek against the bandage. His breath rushed out in a groan, even though I was careful not to press on the wound. He didn’t move or say anything, but the front of his jeans bulged, growing by the moment. His breathing quickened.

  And then I knew.

  Charlie was a sadist with a taste for blood. Pain and blood, a volatile combination. Even his own pain would drive him crazy with lust. And being the kind, caring master that he was, he’d been trying desperately to avoid exposing me to that danger.

  Because it was dangerous. We hadn’t indulged in heavy play since Christmas Eve. Neither of us had needed to feed that beast.

  But it certainly roared to be fed now, even if he wasn’t willing to indulge because he wanted to protect me.

  I turned my head slightly so I could brush my lips across his ribs, across the breadth of the bandage, to skin again. Soft, gentle, warm kisses.

  “Ranay.” His voice vibrated with just enough threat to make me moan in response. “This is a bad idea.”

  I trailed my tongue over the tape, making sure to overlap with his skin so he’d know what I was doing. One corner was loose enough that I could grip it in my teeth. I tugged a little, enough to make him feel the stretching of his skin.

  One big hand clamped on my nape, fingers tangling in my hair. He jerked me away, palming the back of my head.

  I licked my lips and his fingers tightened so hard I winced.

  “Bad. Idea.” Each word lowered, brutal with intensity. “Stop now. Before it’s too late.”

  “Your needs are my needs, Master.”

  He liked the breathy tone of my voice, the hitch of fear. I’d learned enough not to hide my emotions. He wanted it all. He wanted to hear me cry out and scream. That was part of his kink.

  He lowered his face toward me, his teeth flashing. “I. Will. Hurt. You.”

  I didn’t know how far this would go, but I couldn’t make myself care. Not when I wanted him so much.

  “Good.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  He stood up so quickly that his chair tumbled to the floor with a crash. His unrelenting grip on my nape dragged me to my feet, as well. Without releasing my head, he swept his free hand across the table. Dishes clattered and broke on the hardwood. He grabbed my hip with his other hand and I let out a squeak as he hefted me up onto the table. But then he released me and backed away, breathing
hard. His face drawn, his eyes tortured with the darkness in him, warring against his need to keep me safe.

  I wouldn’t let him draw away. I couldn’t. I slid my fingers beneath the bottom of my sweatshirt and started to lift it over my head.

  “Stop.”

  His command vibrated through me and I couldn’t not obey. Even if that meant he walked away. Forever. The ultimate curse of being so submissive I needed to be owned. I needed to be his slave. Even if he ordered me to leave and never look back, I would be forced to comply while sobbing all the way out the door.

  He bent down, wincing at the pain in his side, and pulled something out from beneath the cuff of his jeans. When I realized what it was, my stomach turned to cold, hard lead. A knife. It looked small in his hand, about the size of a normal pocketknife, until he pressed the end and a blade shot out. Slim and silver and wickedly sharp.

  He set the knife on the table beside me and I stared at it like a rabbit eyes a hungry wolf.

  “I found Tasker.” He paused, his voice softening. “I kept my promise.”

  I dragged my gaze away from the knife to search his face. Charlie’s face with soft curls and a gentle smile and a hint of a dimple in his cheek. But it wasn’t Charlie’s eyes staring at me. Nor the cold, hard sadist. This was the man with empty, dead eyes. The predator.

  “What promise?”

  “Before I left Blake’s employ, Tasker’s job was to track down a mistress who’d run off with her rich john’s baby. The client was a complete bastard. I suspected he’d been abusing the woman horribly, and she’d fled to protect herself and her kid. But no one took what was his, so he hired Blake to find her and bring back his son. He didn’t care what happened to the woman. So you can imagine what Tasker did when he found her before taking her child away.”

  I swallowed hard, watching his face. I couldn’t understand how he could speak so flatly, so normally, about hurting and killing people. I wanted to ask what he’d done in Blake’s employ, but I didn’t want to hear anything that might... I couldn’t even think it.

  “That’s just one case I know of. He easily had twenty, thirty kills to his name. He was Blake’s best employee.”

  “Employee?” I had to clear my throat to make the words come out. “Employees don’t kill people.”

  “They do if they’re hired assassins.”

  He worked for the same woman at one time. My stomach churned and I pulled my knees up against my chest, huddling on top of his dining room table. The man I loved. My Master. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know. Denial. Stupidity. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to know the truth.

  He left that life. He works for Doctors Without Borders now.

  “Tasker won’t hurt you. Ever. I took care of it.” He stood there, hands loose at his sides, unimpressive in height and brawn, nonthreatening, with hollowed-out eyes that would suck me under and suffocate me. “I killed him. With that knife.”

  I stared at him, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  “So the real question now is whether you still trust me. Whether you’d still let me touch you. Even if I use that knife to cut off your clothes. The same knife I used to kill.”

  Silence stretched between us, broken only by my soft sobs. I don’t know why I cried exactly. I’d sensed there was something not right with Tasker as soon as he touched me. If he hurt that woman and other people, as Charlie had said, then he deserved whatever he’d gotten. But I didn’t want Charlie, my Charlie, to be the one who’d done it. Even if he’d done it for me.

  That same not-rightness dulled his eyes now and promised only death, with enough sadist in them to promise suffering first.

  The only senseless death, here, was my naive trust in this man. A murderer.

  “Don’t cry for him, Ranay. He was a horrible person.” His voice broke and he looked away, running his hand up into his hair to tug at his own curls. “I’m a horrible person. I tried to keep you from touching that filth in my life but it wasn’t meant to be.”

  Even now, knowing what he’d done, he was still my Master. I still ached for his big hands and his smile. I understood better, now, that those glimpses of the soft, kind Charlie were rare and priceless. Something he didn’t show to just anyone.

  Who was the real Charlie? The killer? The dog lover? My Master? The sadist who hurt me so well that I wanted to die from sheer bliss?

  Even knowing that he’d killed Tasker, I couldn’t see him as horrible. He’d killed a man who’d killed many other people. That didn’t make it right, but I could understand it. Especially if he thought the man might have hurt me. Remembering how Tasker had glared down into my eyes, I didn’t doubt I would have suffered in his care, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed a second of it. Not like with Charlie.

  “You’re not a horrible person. Not you.”

  “You don’t know the real me, kitten.”

  He said it so wistfully it broke my heart all over again. I wanted to jump down off the table and wrap my arms around him. No man who looked at me like that, all broken dreams and shattered hope while calling me kitten and taking care of me, could be horrible. I didn’t believe it.

  “Say the word and get it over with. I promised to free you when I became bad for you, and this is bad. I’m not feeling very stable today.”

  He thought I’d tap out. Red. Over and done. That’s why he’d ensured I could say it when I needed to. So I could force him to let me walk away.

  That would be the smartest thing to do. After all, the man I loved more than life itself had just told me he’d killed someone. To protect me.

  I waited until he looked at me, dark, sad eyes of grief and despair. I opened my mouth, watching the way his eyes iced over, preparing himself to lose me. I hoped I’d given him joy and pleasure. I thought I had. I’d tried so hard to please him.

  I said one word only.

  “Charlie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cotton tore and shredded beneath his knife, an awful sound in the silence. Watching him slice up his own T-shirt, I could only imagine what it’d sound like for that knife to cut through flesh instead. My stomach heaved, but I didn’t budge from the table.

  He wouldn’t hurt me. I knew it. I knew him. Better than anyone.

  Do you? Really? a little voice whimpered deep inside me. He killed someone. Maybe you’re next.

  He grabbed my foot and the whimper escaped. Using a strip of cotton, he bound my ankles together. Then my knees.

  I couldn’t look away from his empty eyes. That first night, when he’d taken me in complete darkness, had his eyes looked like this? If he’d been hiding the truth from me even then. There was a monster in there with him. Sometimes the monster wore a Charlie mask, but right now, the monster was fully exposed in nightmarish detail. My Charlie was nowhere to be seen.

  And yet I sat there, crying, waiting for the monster to tell me what he wanted me to do.

  I hated my weakness. My stupidity. I deserved to have my throat slit and my naked, abused body dumped somewhere in a ditch if I was stupid enough to sit here and let a killer tie me up and do whatever he wanted with me.

  “Give me your hands.” His voice flowed over me, trying to calm my ragged nerves.

  Waiting for me to comply, he watched my face, a small smile quirking his lips. He saw the battle between my will and my flesh. My fruitless struggle against the weakness in me that demanded I obey without question. It was a different kind of pain, wholly internal and soul deep, and he reveled in it. I was trapped by my own urges and completely unable to refuse him. I didn’t want to reject his orders in any way. Even if he was a monster. And that’s what he wanted most of all. My trust, even when I knew what he was.

  I lifted my shaking hands and his smile deepened with approval, but his eyes were still completely devoid of emotion. He wrapped the strip around each wrist, tight enough the cotton cut into my skin, and then bound my hands together. The ends trailed like tattered white flags down my forearms. My breathing quickened, frantic littl
e pants that would make me pass out if I couldn’t get a grip on my fear. My muscles were so tense that my limbs kept moving sporadically, twitches I couldn’t control. He wrapped another strip around my neck, and even tied loosely, the cotton reminded me of his collar. It settled me a little, enough that I didn’t hyperventilate.

  Gently, he pushed me down to lie on my back on the table where we’d shared our first meal together. “You’re so beautiful. Like a rare, priceless butterfly fluttering against the glass, unable to understand why you’re trapped. Why anyone would hold something of such beauty against its will...”

  “It’s not against my will.”

  His smile faltered, though I’d meant to reassure us both with my words. “If I were a better man, I’d order you to walk out my door and never come back. Then you’d be safe, away from me.”

  Instantly, fear and fury raged inside me, a hurricane of emotion that made me tremble. “No,” I breathed. “You can’t do that to me. You wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  It was a simple word, but carried a multitude of questions with it. Why him? Why did I still trust him? Why did I still want him even with his ugly secret exposed? Why did I need him so much? Why would it break me as nothing else had managed to do, if he forced me to leave?

  “I love you.”

  He flinched as if I’d taken his blade and jabbed it straight into his heart. “You can’t love...this. Maybe Charlie, the man who brought Sheba to your clinic for months to slowly gain your trust. Maybe even the sadist, because he hurts you so well. But not this. Not me.”

  Most people would think I’m nuts. They wouldn’t understand. But for me, submission wasn’t an act, a scene I played out for a limited amount of time and then walked away. It wasn’t just a mind game. Submission was my whole being. He’d gripped my chin, peered into the shattered remnants I’d put back together, and claimed that broken chalice for himself with those big, merciless hands. He treasured me, flaws and all. For that alone, I’d love him forever.