The Submissive's Last Word (The Power to Please, Book 4)

by Ward, Deena

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s what I thought. It’s about the people, right? What they need from one another, what they’ll give and take. A power exchange.”

  He took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “And trust. It’s about that, too.”

  “It is.”

  “Gibson, I appreciate and respect that you want to protect me. But I’m going to say it one more time. I don’t need your protection. I can protect myself. I’m not all that inexperienced anymore. And what happened in the past is in the past. I only want to move forward.”

  He nodded warily, stiffly.

  “I trust you so much,” I continued. “I’ve never trusted anyone the way I do you. I know you’d never harm me.”

  If my words were having any impact on him, I couldn’t tell it. I hurried onward, compelled to have my say before he lost patience. “Even if all of that weren’t true, one thing remains. I have to please you. It’s not some passing fancy or an impulse of a moment. I must give you what you need. It’s like an ache inside me.”

  I touched his arm. “Now that I know why you aren’t sleeping, I can’t forget it or pretend I don’t know. You have to understand. You simply have to. We want the same thing and I have no idea why you’re fighting it.”

  “I’ve told you why,” he said.

  “That reason’s not good enough. I’m sorry. It’s not.”

  I struggled to find the right words, the phrases that would make him see it my way. “I’ve kidded around a lot about this stuff. I’ve said I won’t be your footstool, or I won’t be put in a cage, or this or that. It’s all just bluster, Gibson, me being funny. The truth is that I’d be your footstool in an instant if that’s what made you happy. And I’d learn to love it, because you do.”

  I thought his face softened somewhat, so I continued. “Whatever it is that’s missing, whether it’s something specific or not, doesn’t matter to me. I want to try to please you, to satisfy you.”

  “It might be more than you can bear,” he said, his expression cautious.

  “You’re right. It might. And if it is, then it is, and we’ll stop and we’ll have to work something else out. But don’t you think you owe it to both of us to at least try? To see how it goes?”

  Yes, I thought. He was looking thoughtful, he wanted to change his mind about this. I felt a surge of hope. Why shouldn’t he want it?

  I untied my robe, pushed it off my shoulders and let it fall in a pool at my feet. I held out my arms. “This is all I’ve got to offer you. It’s yours to do with as you wish. And if you’ll take me, you’ll give me everything.”

  He held my gaze, seeming to weigh my sincerity. He raised a hand, then let it fall back at his side. “I only want what’s best for you.”

  I pressed my palms against his chest, smoothed down over the cool fabric, the rise and fall of muscle. “Then fulfill what I want most. Let me sacrifice for you. The harsher it is, the better. Good. I crave it. Don’t deny me. It’s the greatest gift you can give me. Now kiss me. Please. I can’t stand that you’re not touching me.”

  He made a funny sound in the back of his throat, but he leaned down all the same and pressed his lips against mine. I whispered a “yes” against him, invited him to more by wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him closer.

  As he fell further into the spell of the kiss, my spirits began to rise. I had reached him. I must have. He stroked my back and over my shoulders, his touch growing more powerful with each passing second. Soon, one hand closed over my breast as the other tangled in my hair, yanked my head back and away.

  He squeezed my breast while he kissed and nibbled his way down my neck and across my shoulder. I sighed from the deliciousness of his hunger, his greed. He squeezed me harder and I muttered “yes” to encourage him, dug my fingernails into his back.

  He pulled my hair and bit at my ear lobe, then lower, down to my breast where he clamped down on my nipple and made me cry out. Again, I told him. Again. And he did.

  He pinched and kneaded and even slapped a few times and I welcomed every moment of it. I sought out his eyes, judging where he was, who he was. When he stuck his fingers inside my pussy and groaned at the wetness he found there, I saw what I’d been wanting to see in those dark eyes. Power. Unleashed.

  Yes, I egged him on. Closed my hand over his, pushed him harder, urged him to be rougher.

  He walked me backwards to the center of the room, then pushed me away, had me kneel on the padded floor, hands on thighs, thoroughly submissive, bowed. Waiting for the will of her master.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  My stomach fluttered as I watched him go to one of the open drawers and rustle around inside. I was panting from excitement and from relief that I had touched him. Relief that it would be okay now.

  Waiting for him. So hard to do. My palms were damp. Was I truly ready for this? I had better be, after everything I’d done to make it happen.

  Then he turned back to me. He held a pair of cuffs and I wasn’t sure what the other thing was. A long piece of black fabric. Maybe a blindfold or a gag. I swallowed hard.

  Then I looked into his eyes and a chill passed down my spine. The predator had arrived, for certain. His eyes gleamed with dark intent. I licked my lips.

  As he approached he seemed to grow in size, swelling into a massive hulk of determined sinew and steely muscle. And I was small, so very small, kneeling on the floor, shoulders hunched, peering up at this potent force.

  When he stopped in front of me, he towered over me, surveying my tiny person with greedy, fearsome eyes, and I trembled. He reached out a hand, a mighty paw of intimidation, unstoppable in what it might do, what it could so easily do.

  “Wrists,” was all he said.

  And I quickly raised them, offering him what he wanted. His hand closed around my arm and he snapped a metal cuff over my wrist. He repeated his actions on my other wrist, then he clipped then together, and dropped my arms, letting them fall back on my lap.

  He inspected my shoulders, my breasts. He pinched my nipple and half-smiled at the tiny noise I made in response.

  He ran his thumb over my lips, cupped my jaw. These weren’t gentle touches. They were statements of ownership.

  And then he was running the long piece of fabric he held between his hands. Blindfold? Gag? Which was it?

  He brushed my hair back from my forehead and I knew then. Blindfold. My breath hitched.

  His eyes met mine as he held out the blindfold and began to bring it up, to tie it around my head. I flinched slightly as he approached, an involuntary gesture spurred by nerves, intimidation and excitement.

  Life can turn on the slightest moments in time, a chance happening or an unwitting word, an unintended response. This was one of those times.

  I saw a tremor in Gibson’s hand. He blinked. The predator wavered. I inhaled sharply. He blinked again.

  And just like that, the unleashed beast disappeared.

  “No,” I said.

  He looked down at me, his eyes no longer gleaming with wicked designs, but passively patient, resigned, on lockdown. “I can’t do it.”

  Then he turned away, went back to the cabinet and carefully folded the blindfold and laid it inside.

  I was thrown. Didn’t know what to make of his sudden change.

  Because I flinched? Was that why he stopped? At first I wanted to cry from the letdown, but then I felt a surge of anger. Pure, heady anger grew inside me.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  He kept his back to me, futzed in the cabinet. “You’re not ready.”

  “This isn’t right. You can’t build me up like that then walk away. It’s not right.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  My cheeks felt on fire. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “I’m sorry you’re unhappy, but you’re simply not ready.”

  “And when will I be ready?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you have
all the answers, don’t you? Mister I-know-what’s-best-for-you. So go on.” I spat my words at him now. I was livid. “When the hell will I enter the mystical realm of being ready for you? Huh? Come on. You know everything.”

  He spun around to face me and there was more than a little fire in him. “You’ll be ready when you learn how to use a safe word!”

  I was taken aback. “I know how to use a safe word.”

  “Not from what I’ve seen.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I’ve tested you,” he said, “multiple times. Pushed you to the point where you should have used your safe word. You never did.”

  “Just now? Why would I have used my safe word? You hadn’t done anything.”

  “Not just now. In the past few weeks.”

  “When?”

  “Many times.”

  “Be specific.”

  “It’s not important,” he said. “You failed the tests. That’s all that matters.”

  “I disagree. I don’t recall you even once pushing me too far, or making me feel like I should use a safe word.”

  “And that’s why there’s no point in my telling you each individual instance. You don’t understand. Maybe you never will.”

  “I guess you get it all your own way, don’t you? You make the test, you administer and grade it. And you don’t have to answer to anyone about your methods or results. What are you? A dom SAT?”

  His jaw twitched. I savored his irritation, hoped it matched my own.

  “I don’t want it to be like this,” he said.

  “You must. You’ve made it this way.” My voice was becoming increasingly shrill.

  “I haven’t created this problem.”

  “Well I damned well haven’t, so it must be you.”

  “You won’t use your safe words!”

  “To hell with my safe words! I won’t be bullied by you! You can’t turn me into some wilting milksop.”

  His eyes blazed now and he was taut all over. When he spoke again, he tossed his words at me like daggers. “And I won’t be turned into Michael Weston.”

  My mouth fell open.

  If I hadn’t already been kneeling on that mat, I think might have lost balance and fallen. As it was, I slipped to one side, my butt on the mat instead of on my calves. The air seemed to leave my body and it took me a moment to remember to breathe.

  I struggled to make sense of what he’d said. Turn him into Michael? What did he mean by that? How could I possibly turn ... him ... into ...

  And then it began to make sense. It fell into place, and I understood exactly what he meant. And there was more than one level to the knowledge. My stomach churned and my eyes began to burn.

  For one thing, it meant he didn’t trust me. No trust. After everything I’d said to him that night, how much I trusted him and how he would never harm me, all the while he didn’t trust me in return. It hurt terribly, his lack of faith in me.

  For another thing, it meant that he was still hung up on that video, on what Michael did to me the night of my punishment, on what Gibson believed I allowed to happen by not using my safe word. I had moved on from that kind of thinking, but Gibson hadn’t.

  And why would he believe that I wanted to turn him into Michael? How could he even imagine such a thing? As if my wanting him to be selfish for once meant I wanted him to be a self-absorbed narcissist like Michael?

  Finally, it occurred to me that he might blame me for what happened between me and Michael. Surely not. But maybe so. The possibility was bile in my throat. What else was I to believe, when he said that I was trying to turn him into Michael?

  This was too much. I had to get away.

  I struggled to my feet, a task made more difficult by my cuffed wrists. Once upright, I stuck my arms out straight and looked anywhere other than at Gibson. “Unclip these.”

  He walked over, quickly flipped the clip open. I yanked my arms away when he tried to undo the clasps, too. As I took a few steps backward and away from him, I opened the cuffs on each wrist and dropped them to the floor.

  I searched out my robe and pulled it on, cinched the waist and headed for the door between the dungeon and the bedroom.

  “That didn’t come out right,” Gibson said behind me.

  I didn’t care. I wanted away from this place. Away from him.

  “I was angry. It isn’t what I meant,” he said.

  I thought it was probably exactly what he meant. If he said he regretted telling the truth, I might actually believe that.

  In the bedroom, I pulled on a pair of sweats, an old sweatshirt and some socks and shoes. I headed for the hall.

  “Wait,” Gibson said, coming through the secret door.

  But I didn’t wait. I ran from the room, down the corridor and all the way to my studio, the one place in that huge house that was all mine. Once inside, I slammed the door shut and threw the lock.

  I sat down right there, my back pressed against the door, and waited. His knock came in a few moments.

  “Go away,” I said. “I need time alone.”

  “Are you okay?”

  What a stupid question, I thought. I didn’t, couldn’t answer it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “Okay.”

  “Nonnie.”

  “Please leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry. For all of it.”

  I had nothing to say to that. I waited until I heard him leave, his footsteps slowly fading away into the distance. When I was sure he was gone, I stood up and went to the small bathroom and splashed water on my hot face before sitting on the sofa and snuggling up with the cuddly blanket I’d bought one day on a whim.

  I felt like I’d been in a car wreck or something. I was in shock. Was this real?

  I couldn’t see how it was possible for what was so good to go so bad so quickly.

  Was it only the night before that I realized I loved him? Right before he finally took my anal virginity? It was amazing, incredible, more than I dreamed it could be. Last night. Twenty-four hours.

  And now it felt like everything was shattered to bits. Broken.

  “I won’t be turned into Michael Weston.”

  I’d have rather he punched me than said those words. I tried to convince myself he didn’t mean them, that it was some weird compulsion that made him say it with no connection to anything real. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it.

  But he did mean it. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t fool myself.

  Twenty-four hours.

  My head pounded. I winced when I remembered how I’d revealed myself to him, how I pleaded with him to use me, to take me however he wanted. I’d been honest. He had not.

  At least I knew what was what now. He wasn’t denying me because I was too inexperienced, or because he thought I was still a poor injured bird. No, he wasn’t protecting me. Turned out, he was protecting himself, from me.

  God, I wanted to believe I was over-reacting. I loved him still, in spite of everything. I wanted to believe anything but what was glaringly obvious.

  That my relationship with Gibson Reeves might be over.

  I fell asleep on the sofa, many long, painful hours later.

  I woke late the next morning, feeling groggy and hung over. I made it to the bedroom without running into anyone, relieved further to find that Gibson wasn’t in the bedroom.

  I took a quick shower, dashed through drying my hair and putting on makeup, then threw on one of my nicer dresses, a pair of heels, snagged my purse and headed for the front of the house. I ran into Gibson at the bottom of the stairs.

  He looked shaken when he saw me dressed to leave. “Where are you going?”

  I brushed past him. “I have brunch with Lilly and Rose.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”

  I headed to the coat closet in the foyer. Gibson trailed behind me.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Not right now.”
>
  “Of course not. But later. When you come home.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “We need to clear this up.”

  I threw my coat over my arm, marched past him and stood in front of the window, looking out at the circle drive for Lilly’s car. “Thought you were pretty clear last night.”

  He exhaled a loud breath.

  “There’s Lilly,” I said, pulling on my coat and reached for the door.

  Gibson beat me to it and opened the door for me. “Have a nice time.”

  I didn’t look at him as I blew past, wasn’t in any state of mind for that.

  Lilly stepped out of her car, looking pretty and perky as she always did. She waved at me, then at Gibson, called out a hello and goodbye. I slipped into her car without a look back.

  Chapter 18

  Lilly proved to be a good distraction, and since she didn’t require much conversation from me, she was perfect company. Our brunch with Rose was lovely, and she was in good spirits herself, laughing with Lilly and sipping her mimosa with joie de vivre.

  It was over too soon for me, and I was disappointed when Lilly turned down my suggestion that we go shopping. She said she had to go visit Paulina, that she was doing alterations on some clothes Lilly had bought and they needed to do a fresh fitting.

  I had no idea Paulina knew how to sew, though I wasn’t surprised. The woman had many talents.

  When Lilly asked me to come along and see the clothes, said she’d put on a fashion show, I gladly accepted.

  It was a typical cold and gray day, and the Martins’ house was a welcome contrast, all Mediterranean warmth and color, and it smelled fine, too. Xavier was cooking.

  We went to the kitchen where we found Xavier bent over the counter, chopping up vegetables and dropping them into a big pot on the stove.

  Lilly walked over and kissed him on the cheek. “Whatcha making?”

  “My special stew,” he answered with a smile and a nod of welcome at me.

  “Yummy. My favorite,” Lilly said.

  “That might be why I made it.”

  “And that might be why I love you so much.” She sniffed at the pot. “Okay. Where’s Paulina? In her sewing room?”