Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t be that person again.
“Stop,” I gasped, my whole body shaking as I fought against the pleasure building inside me. “Sir, please, you have to stop.”
CHAPTER 3
Heather
“You don’t want me to stop,” Ryan said, his fingers never pausing. “Your body is telling me exactly what you need.”
“No.” I struggled against his hold, panic rising in my throat. “I can’t… this isn’t who I am anymore. Please, just stop.”
Before he could respond, I twisted away from him, stumbling off his lap and nearly falling as my legs gave out. The training underwear and the sweats were still tangled around my ankles, and I kicked frantically to free myself as I backed toward the dining room.
“Heather, wait—”
“No!” I turned and ran, my bare feet slipping on the hardwood as I fled to the far corner of the dining room. I sank down against the wall, pulling my knees to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible.
“Just leave me alone,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. “I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll clean the house and do the laundry and I won’t crash the car again. I’ll be the perfect wife, just please don’t make me—”
“Don’t make you what?” Ryan’s voice came from the doorway, gentle but insistent.
“Don’t make me want things I can’t have,” I sobbed. “Don’t make me be someone I’m not supposed to be.”
The look of incomprehension on my husband’s gorgeous face wrenched my heart.
“Babe,” he said. “I don’t want you to be anyone other than yourself.”
I couldn’t do it. I knew whatever I did I would only make things worse. The instinct to protect myself, to keep my sanity, took over. It made no sense at all, and I could see that even as I headed down the worst possible path. My mind grasped at some abstract level that sanity would never come, let alone stay, if I acted so irrationally, but it didn’t matter. I had to make this stop.
“Bullshit!” I yelled, surprising myself with the loudness of my own voice, the rawness of my tone. God help me, I knew I could do a convincing impression of a fucking bitch if I had to. “You’ve done nothing but try to change me since we met.”
Ryan’s brow furled. I watched him work hard to keep the absolutely appropriate expression of bemused disbelief off his face.
“This isn’t working!” I screamed. “I’m… I’m out of here. Don’t…”
I stood up, one hand out in front of me in a stop gesture, the other down between my thighs to cover my pussy, as if I could retain some shred of dignity that way.
“Don’t follow me,” I finished, my voice cracking. “I’m going to pack my things and figure out how to get out of this fucking town.”
Ryan took a step toward me, his face a mixture of hurt and confusion. “Heather, you don’t mean that. You’re upset, but we can work through this—”
“No, we can’t!” I backed further into the corner, my hand still pressed between my legs. “This was a mistake. All of it. The marriage, moving here, pretending I could be what you need. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” His voice was softer now, almost pleading. “I love you exactly as you are. I don’t want to change you—”
“Then why the training underwear?” I shot back. “Why the spanking? Why are you suddenly acting like some kind of… of dominant husband when that’s not who you are?”
The words hung in the air between us, and I saw something flicker across his face—doubt, maybe, or recognition.
“Because,” he said slowly, “I thought it was what you needed. What we both needed.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” I grabbed my sweatpants from the floor, trying to pull them on with shaking hands while keeping myself covered. “I don’t need anything from you except for you to let me leave.”
“I’m not letting you leave.” The firmness in his voice made me freeze. “Not like this. Not when you’re running from something that could help us both.”
“Help us?” I laughed bitterly. “How is this helping? How is any of this helping?”
But even as I said it, I could feel the lie in my bones. My body was still humming with unfulfilled need, still craving the very thing I was running from. The training underwear lay discarded on the living room floor like evidence of my surrender, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at them.
“I need to go upstairs,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I need to pack.”
Ryan stepped aside, and I bolted past him, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind me, I heard him sigh heavily, then the sound of his footsteps moving toward the kitchen.
In our bedroom, I pulled my suitcase from the closet and began throwing clothes into it haphazardly. Where would I go? I had no family nearby, no friends outside of Scipio. The NMA had helped me start over once, but going back to them now felt impossible. They’d want explanations, and I couldn’t—wouldn’t—tell them the truth about why I was leaving.