His to Command #3: The Revelation

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Also by Opal Carew

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His to Command

Kate drew away and gazed up at Matt. The agony in his deep blue eyes sliced through her.

“I’m so sorry, Matt. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She stroked her hand along his whisker-roughened cheek.

He nodded, but shifted back. His arms slipped away from her. She missed the warmth of them, the feeling of security they gave her.

“Are you okay now?” His voice sounded flat and his eyes showed no emotion.

“I … think so.” But she wasn’t. Confusing emotions swirled through her. For so long, she’d believed that Matt was responsible for the pain she’d suffered. That Matt was a ruthless, uncaring man. But now she knew the truth. And she’d been horribly wrong. A sharp pain started in the pit of her stomach and spiraled through her.

The look of betrayal she’d seen flash across his eyes before they’d blanked of all emotion tore at her heart.

She had to get used to the idea that Matt had done nothing to drive her away. Yet she had left him, suddenly and with no explanation. He had thought she’d just walked away from their relationship.

Her hands curled into balls. Oh, God, he must have hated her.

“I think we should both get some sleep.” Matt stood up and walked toward the door.

“Matt … ”

He paused, but didn’t turn around.

“I … I’m sorry.”

He simply nodded and left the room.

* * *

As exhausted as Kate was, sleep did not come soon. Random thoughts swirled through her head in an erratic whirlwind, with no beginning and no end. She flipped back and forth restlessly while the mocking blue digits of the clock ticked off the minutes.

How could she have ever believed that about Matt? But at the time, she’d trusted Ileana. And why not? She’d been the hostess of the party. She’d been Matt’s friend. The party had had a BDSM theme, with people dressed as Masters and slaves. It had seemed like a game at first, going with Victor . He’d seemed charming, yet authoritative. When she’d followed him from the dance floor, she’d thought they would do some harmless role-playing. She’d never dreamed he would lead her to a cell and chain her up. Even then, she’d remained relatively calm, still assuming it was role-playing … and assuming he would stop if she said so. But he hadn’t even offered a safe word. As soon as she’d seen the leather whip, she’d told him she wanted to end it, but he’d just laughed. Then as he began to whip her, he’d ignored her cries of protest.

It had been a nightmare, and he had kept insisting it was Matt’s idea—to teach her to be a proper submissive. With each slash of pain, he’d beat the idea into her. Matt wanted this. He’d arranged it. Ileana had reminded her of it afterward when Kate had been limp with pain and anxiety. Ileana had arranged a ride home for her, but before she’d let her go, she’d given Kate a friendly caution that maybe she should steer clear of Matt if she really didn’t like this kind of thing, insinuating that she was surprised at Kate’s negative reaction to being beaten.

Kate had decided then and there that the lifestyle Matt was into-reinforced by Victor’s obvious pleasure at hurting her, and Ileana’s apparent surprise at Kate’s fear and anger over the event-was a horrific thing. It had also made her believe that Matt had to be a ruthless and cruel man who had totally fooled her. In her weak and confused state, her blurry mind couldn’t help but believe that about him. She could find no trace of the trust she’d once had in him.

Tears pricked at her eyes at how wrong she’d been. Not only had Matt not betrayed her, she had betrayed
him
. One, by believing what she had about him. And, two, by walking away without a word. Without even telling him what happened.

She realized now that she’d probably been so quick to flee without confronting him because she’d been afraid of his effect on her right from the beginning. Of what she became around him. She became weak and vulnerable. She would have let him do anything to her.

Now, she felt sick at the realization that she had hurt him. Badly.

He was angry with her, and he had a right to be. She’d walked away without a word. But worse, she had believed such a terrible thing about him.

She wished she knew how to make it up to him.

Tomorrow, the driver would come and pick her up and she might never see Matt again. Oh, God, maybe he’d been serious about wanting to invest in her company. Until now, she’d thought it was just a ruse to get her here, but now that she knew he was not the ruthless man she’d thought he was, she realized that maybe his offer to invest was genuine. Which must mean he still harbored feelings for her.

And now that he knew what she’d believed about him, he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her or her company.

She sighed. She’d find another investor. She had to. She wouldn’t expect him to work with her after this. But she didn’t want to leave things the way they were between them.

She drew in a deep breath and pushed back the covers, then padded across the room. Her insides quivering, she opened the door and headed for Matt’s room.

* * *

Moonlight from the almost full moon outside reflected off the snow, setting the room aglow in a soft light. Matt stared at the ceiling, aching inside, still reeling from Kate’s revelation about what had happened two years ago.

Fuck, when he’d heard her screaming, he’d leaped from his bed and flew to her room. In her sleep-hazed terror, when she’d awoken and seen him, she’d been afraid of him, accusing him of having hurt her. His gut clenched at the fact she could ever think he would hurt her.

And then he’d found out she’d thought he’d sold her to another man, as part of a role-playing scenario. Sure, that kind of thing happened. Some people liked to push. A different hand to bow to, a different sub to control. Sometimes it was just for the discipline aspect, sometimes it was for full-out sexual intimacy. He raked his hand through his hair. But he never would have shared Kate with anyone. She was his.

She
had been
his, anyway.

He had loved her deeply. Completely. Yet she’d obviously never trusted him.

Matt heard a knock at the door. What the fuck?

He rolled onto his side. “Come in.”

The door opened and there, silhouetted in the moonlight streaming in from the hallway window, stood Kate. She stepped forward and he could see the pajama shirt she wore hugging her body. Her breasts bounced softly as she walked across the room. The shirt hung to midthigh, leaving a good portion of her long, lithe legs visible. His heart thumped faster having her in his room like this. No bra. Possibly no panties. Only a soft shirt with buttons down the entire front. Not that he’d bother with those buttons if he were going to make love to her. He would rip that shirt off her so fast, her head would spin.

“What do you want, Kate?” He leaned over and turned on the lamp on the bedside table, then he pushed his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.

She gazed at him the whole time she walked toward him, her eyes big and full of emotion. Sadness? Pain? Fear? His heart clenched. Was she afraid of him?

Well, fuck, she thought he was the type of man who would hand her over to another man as a slave, without even telling her about it. Damn, no wonder she’d acted so strangely this evening. When she’d demanded to leave and he’d told her they couldn’t go anywhere until the driver returned, she’d probably believed he had intended to trap her here. God, no wonder she had been so jumpy, her eyes filled with panic.

And that’s why she’d run from him in the mall.

Good God, Kate actually believed—his heart ached—that he would hurt her.

His hands curled into fists. How could she ever believe that? He loved her and would do anything to protect her.

He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her. To scream at her that he would never, ever hurt her.

He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her with all the passion and desire he had locked inside. To claim her mouth, totally and completely, to show her just how deeply he loved her.

She stood by the side of the bed now. “I …” Her hands hung by her sides and her fingers curled tightly. “I’m here because … ”

Her hesitance tore at his heart.

“Damn it, Kate. What the fuck do you want?”

Kate hadn’t trusted him that he’d blanked out, thinking about what Kate might have endured. Did the guy have sex with her? Did he overpower her? His heart thundered in his chest as his heart-rate accelerated.

“Kate, what happened?”

Her questioning gaze flicked to his. “As I said, Ileana lied to me and told me—”

He held up his hand to stop her words. He didn’t need to hear it again. “What did this man do to you?”

Her gaze immediately dropped from his and his chest compressed.

“I … really don’t want to talk about it.”

Fuck. She’d turned white as a sheet. An overwhelming protectiveness jolted through him.

“Well,
I
really need to talk about it.” He patted the bed beside him. “Come and sit down.”

She drew in a deep breath, but stepped forward and sank onto the bed beside him.

“He took me to the room I told you about. In the basement. It had a thick door and the walls were of big, concrete bricks. He chained me to the wall.”

She spoke in a halting voice, clearly struggling with telling him, but she obviously felt she owed him this.

“Did he … force you to have sex?”

She shook her head. “Nothing like that. He made me face the wall before he chained me up. I thought he was just playacting at first. That it was a game. He said he was going to punish me.”

Matt and Kate had often played the punishment scenario, and it made him jealous now that she had even agreed to play a scenario with someone else, but she’d already told him she’d thought he had arranged it, so essentially she’d done it to please him. And if Ileana had told her Matt had ordered her to do it, she would not have argued.

“And he did,” Matt said.

Kate just nodded while she stared down at her hands.

“Tell me.”

“He used a whip. It …” She hesitated, then swallowed. “I never realized how much a leather whip would hurt.”

Damn it. She must have thought Matt a monster to arrange such a thing.

“God damn it, Kate, how could you believe I would even allow such a terrible thing to happen to you, let alone arrange it?”

She gazed up at him, her eyes shimmering. And, to his surprise, a little defiance flickered in those blue depths. “You did let it happen.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re angry with me because I believed you’d let it happen, yet you believed Ileana when she told you I’d left with another man. If you hadn’t believed her, then maybe you would have looked for me. Maybe you could have stopped it.” The vulnerability in her eyes tore at his heart. “Matt, why did you think I would do that?”

Damn it. The woman had no right to turn this around on him. “The evidence was there. You clearly enjoyed dancing with the guy. You disappeared with him after that. And when I still gave you the benefit of the doubt and tried to talk to you afterward, to find out exactly what did happen, you wouldn’t take my calls.”

Her lips compressed in an appropriately contrite expression, and he realized he couldn’t leave the blame hanging on her.

“And it didn’t help that I already felt you were slipping away from me. I sensed you wanted to end it between us for some time, but something held you back. So when I saw you in that man’s arms on the dance floor, then when Illy told me you had left with the guy … it seemed to confirm my worst fears.”

Guilt prickled through him. He’d handled so many things badly with Kate. Let things get out of control. And it had led to disastrous results for her in so many ways.

* * *

Kate gazed at his enigmatic, dark eyes. He knew about that?

She drew in a deep breath. “I was a little thrown off by things.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Things?”

She stared at her hands. “I mean … sexually. The way I”—she gazed at him and shrugged, realizing she just had to state it outright—“you know … become totally submissive to you. Giving up every scrap of control.”

“Kate, you can’t tell me you didn’t like it.”

“Obviously I liked it.” There was no way she could deny that. “But I don’t want to like it. I don’t like what I become.”

His lips compressed. “So you wanted to end the relationship before we even went to that party.”

His tone didn’t betray any hurt, but she knew him well enough to know she’d struck a nerve.

She drew in a deep breath while he watched her, waiting. But what could she say? It was true.

“Matt, it wasn’t you, it was me.”

“Fuck.” His eyes glittered with anger—or was it pain?—then he stood up and walked across the room.

“Matt, I know that’s a cliché, but in this case, it’s true. You’re comfortable with who you are, and that’s good. You dominate in the bedroom, and clearly that turns me on immensely. But it also frightens me. The way I become. I … ”

But talking to his broad back unnerved her. Was he even listening?

She stood up and walked to him, then rested her hand on his shoulder. “Matt, please look at me.”

He sighed and turned around, his face an emotionless mask.

“I’m sorry I believed what I did about you. That I didn’t take any of your calls. I shouldn’t have taken her word for it, but … at the time, I was so … so … ”

Suddenly, the whole thing came crashing back to her. The fear. The pain. And the devastating sense of abandonment and betrayal when Ileana had told her Matt had been responsible for what had happened. She sucked back a sob.

But the bottom line was, Matt had done nothing wrong, yet she had caused him immeasurable pain.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she said in a mere whisper. She gazed into his midnight blue eyes, mesmerized by the intensity of his stare, and she had to touch him. She stroked his cheek with her hand.

At the feel of his whisker-roughened skin under her fingertips, at the warmth of his body so close to hers, heat washed through her.

“Matt, I’m sorry. I never should have allowed Ileana’s lie to shatter my trust in you, but … what that man did …” Her words faltered as she remembered the harsh lines of the man’s face as he’d chained her to the wall, then the sharp slash of the whip against her skin.