On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(3)

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Every piece of paper was another link to the man who raped her. She just wanted some normalcy. Being back in her home actually gave her a sense of comfort. She’d worried it would bring back memories of the initial attack, but all she’d seen was her house in perfect order. From what she understood, Ian and Sean Taggart had made arrangements to put the house back together. Alex’s childhood friends were home on leave from the Army and they were trying their best to make things normal for her again, but Alex kept bringing all those files in. She just wanted a minute where she could fool herself that things were ordinary. Just one moment.

Alex scrambled, pulling the papers off the bed. “I’ll move them to the nightstand. I’m sorry.”

It was a king-sized bed, but more often than not, they ended up cuddled together right in the center so there was always plenty of space.

She moved gingerly, trying not to shift her left arm too much. It ached, a deep throb in her muscles. Every single movement pulled at her as though her skin was now too tight for her body. “It’s late. You should get some sleep. Come to bed.”

He ran a hand through his hair. He looked so much older than he had a week ago, his mouth turning down in a perpetual grimace. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He wouldn’t jostle her. Maybe she would get some sleep if he were in bed with her. “You won’t. There’s plenty of room.”

He shook his head, picking up the papers and holding them to his chest like they were something precious. “I move too much. I would end up next to you.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” He hadn’t touched her since before the incident, nothing beyond the merest brushing of his hands across her as he settled a blanket around her or helped her out of bed.

He sighed, a heavy sound. “Eve, you flinch when I touch you.”

Because she could still feel Michael Evans violating her. She could still feel his hands slapping at her as he tied her down, feel the knife he’d used to carve her up.

I think you perverts call this knife play. Play. I like to play, too. Tell me something, whore, does your husband play like this?

She shivered.

“You see,” Alex said, turning away. “You can’t even think about it.”

“I wasn’t thinking about you, Alex.” The whole time she’d been in that room Evans had kept her in, all she’d been able to think about was getting home to Alex. He was right there. He was six feet away. Why did it feel like a chasm had opened up between them?

“I can be patient, angel,” Alex said quietly. “It’s going to be okay, but for now it’s probably best that I don’t get into bed with you. You’ve been through so much. I can’t stand the thought of causing you more pain.”

But being apart from him was a different kind of agony. She was just about to argue when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The bandage around her neck had come slightly undone, and there was no way to miss the stitches that ran down her skin. She looked like Frankenstein, newly stitched together and unleashed on the world. Her face was a mass of bruises and her lip was just beginning to deflate.

Maybe Alex didn’t want to sleep with her for different reasons.

For years she’d been his submissive and he her proud Dom. He would take her to the club they belonged to and gain great pleasure from showing off her beauty.

She wasn’t very beautiful now. She was battered, and she wasn’t sure she would ever be the same again.

“What if I can’t get into slave pose?”

She found it comforting. Since he’d introduced her to D/s, she’d greeted him at least once each day by falling to her knees and allowing them to splay wide, her head bowed and palms up on her thighs. She kept a perfectly straight back even though she was bigger than many of the girls. She’d tried to diet, but Alex always stuffed her with sweets.

Her legs were scarred now and one of her ankles had nearly broken. What if she couldn’t be his partner? What if her days as his submissive were over?

He reached out for her, but then drew his hand back. “You don’t worry about that right now, Eve. Angel, I would understand if you never called me Master again.”

His words didn’t make sense. He was her Master. They’d made an agreement. They had a contract. They’d sat in bed one day shortly after they’d met and spent the day discussing what their contract would be. When they’d gone over hard and soft limits, they had kissed and played. When they discussed their duties to each other, he’d been deep inside her. Their contract was intimate and real. They were married. They talked about everything. A contract could be cold. Ian wrote up cold contracts because he didn’t love the submissives he took. But their contract had been warm and happy and it connected them.

What if he didn’t want her now that Michael Evans had used her?

She’d changed her whole life to be with Alex. She loved their life together. What if it was all over?

“I can’t have a baby.” Maybe that was what had put that dark look in Alex’s eyes.

He shook his head. “That is not what the doctor said.”

No. He’d been very clinical about the whole thing. He’d talked about damage to her uterus and losing one of her ovaries in the accident. He’d nearly performed a hysterectomy. The internal bleeding had been worse than he’d thought at first, but one of the nurses fought for her. It had been touch and go for a while. “It’s unlikely.”