Rude Awakening Read online

  She swiped her eyes with the back of one hand, and he was struck by the fact her tears were silent, no sobs accompanying them, no hitches of breath or the thickening of her voice. Had she been conditioned so much she was even afraid to cry?

  Who the hell is this man?

  “It’s possible I may know him,” he said, startled that he’d voiced his thoughts.

  “Which is why I won’t tell you his name. It’s bad enough I’ve run from him—and he’ll come looking for me, you can bet on that—but to have you confronting him, if that’s what you had in mind… No, it’d make things worse for me.” She shivered and unlocked her arms, reaching for her drink only to hold it to her chest.

  “You might want to drink that before it gets cold,” he said, leaving the subject of her Master’s name behind them for now. “You’ve had quite an ordeal, and being out in the snow won’t have helped.” He ploughed on, “Do you wish to stay here for a while until you feel safe enough to find a place of your own? I assume you’re not planning to return to him.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going back—ever—and I don’t rightly know what I’m going to do. I can’t work at the library again—he’ll look for me there—so maybe I ought to bugger off to another town or something, get completely away.”

  “Maybe.”

  He stood slowly and walked into the laundry room. The quick wash he’d set her clothes on had finished, and he transferred them to the dryer. “Your clothes will be ready soon,” he said as he returned to the kitchen. “Shall we go into the living room so you can warm up a little more? I’m worried you might suffer from a chill and want you as warm as possible.”

  She cocked her head, giving him a quizzical look, as though his concern was utterly foreign to her, and he guessed that it undoubtedly was.

  “I don’t know why you’d give much of a shit, but yes, that would be nice.”

  He let her walk ahead of him and smiled at her word choice. Despite her way of speaking having initially made him cringe, he found her openness, her honest answers, refreshing. Especially since she’d now given him a brief description of her life prior to finding herself here. That she felt comfortable enough with him to revert back to her old ways was a step in the right direction. Her Master hadn’t completely cowed her, hadn’t stripped her of everything she’d been before she’d met the hateful man, and that was something to be grateful for.

  In the living room, she sat at one end of the sofa while he sat at the other, close enough to see her facial expressions but far enough away to give her space. She stared at the fire, cup still nestled at her chest, and he studied her through lowered lashes, surprised he found her quite attractive. She wasn’t his usual choice. He had a penchant for blondes with a few layers of fat on their bones, but her face appealed to him, her waif-like body bringing out his urge to nurture.

  “I can explain a little about the proper rules, if you like?” he asked. With their sexual leanings in common, at least they had something to discuss. “About how play should be directed. It really isn’t what your Master led you to believe. In other circumstances I’d offer to show you, to take you on as my sub until you’d learned all the rules, but with the state you’re in, I really don’t think it’s advisable. You’re vulnerable and, well…”

  “I don’t think I could handle a spanking tonight,” she said, turning a weak smile his way. “Besides, you’d think me a right tart if I agreed, and I don’t fancy being labelled as something else I’m not. I mean, Master… He said I was all sorts of nasty things.” She gave the fire her attention again.

  “I wouldn’t think you a tart. There’s nothing wrong in two people indulging if they’re both consenting. My concern is more about playing while you’re vulnerable and unsure of the rules. It isn’t my style to prey on women susceptible to upset due to their emotions being a little topsy-turvy.”

  She laughed, not unkindly, and looked his way again. “Topsy-turvy?”

  He sensed she was gently mocking his way of speech, but that was okay. If it meant she laughed and smiled like that, he’d let her do it all the time. She was like a constantly kicked puppy—all the instinctual bite thrashed out of her—although he thought, given the chance, the right environment, and the right Master, her bite and her bark might be encouraged to return. How sad that she’d been reduced to someone so unsure, where one moment she was lost in her thoughts and the next a smidgen of her former, true self tried to penetrate through the person she had been forced to become.

  He wondered whether he should take her on, encourage her to be who she really was. Would she even want that on the back end of such a traumatic D/s relationship? He shook his head. What was he doing? He should never have even thought about it. Ridiculous to expect her to jump into something new when old wounds still lay exposed and festering, still raw and open to infection. But, God…he had a hankering to mend this broken bird, to watch her fly with new wings and soar through a sky void of mean, dark clouds and storms.

  “Tell me a bit,” she said, cheeks flushing. “Tell me what I should have had, so next time—if there is a next time—I’ll know what to expect.”

  She dug her elbow into the settee arm and rested her chin in her hand, her gaze fixed firmly on the rug in front of the fire. Harry frowned, thinking a little conversation wouldn’t hurt. But maybe it would.

  “If I tell you how it’s supposed to be, won’t you feel upset that you didn’t have that?” he asked.

  “Not really. Everyone has at least one shitty relationship—don’t they?—and that was mine. We’ve all got to move on, learn to trust new people. I’m not stupid, I know damn well there will be things that set me off, remind me of him, but fucking hell, I can’t live the rest of my life all scared and whatever, can I?”

  He sensed she was covering up the pain with her bright tone, but if him talking went some way to helping, talk he would.

  * * * *

  “Wow,” she said quietly when he’d finished. “So if I was your pupil, you’d want me to speak up, to tell you what I wanted?”

  “Of course. How else is your Master to know what your threshold is? It isn’t a Master’s right to override your desires, more that he must accommodate them, incorporate them into play and enjoy making you happy, meeting your needs. This…this person you’ve been involved with used you for his own ends. I’m sorry if that hurts, but I can’t allow you to go along thinking he was correct in what he did. It also sounds to me that he’s naturally controlling, because to strip away your identity, to manipulate things so you’re only reliant on him… That’s a dangerous man to be involved with.”

  He looked at her to gauge her reaction, to see how much he could say without tipping her over the edge. Who knew what she had in her mind, what images played over and over, what emotions roiled inside her, set to send her crazy the moment she let down her guard and allowed herself to remember? She appeared awed, not devastated, though—the latter being how he’d thought she would react. It seemed she was more resilient than he’d given her credit for, although he wasn’t fool enough to think she wouldn’t suffer from the horrors she’d been through. It would take time to fully cherish this tiny woman, to have her totally believing what he said and understanding that she hadn’t been the one in the wrong.

  He found himself admitting he rather relished the idea of being the one to bring her out of herself, to watch her blossom under his tutelage.

  Don’t, Harry. It’s a big undertaking. And who’s to say she’d even want that?

  As though she’d read his mind, she said, “Tomorrow, I want you to show me. I want us to do some mock play where you instruct me on the way it goes, what happens.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, disliking the squirm of nerves in his belly that he would be taking advantage of her.

  “No,” she said. “I might be hurting, I might have things in my head I shouldn’t bloody well have, but I want to learn. Just pretend I’m someone from that club you told me about, someone you’re taking on
—you the teacher, me the pupil. It’ll be all right, honest. I just want to see how it’s really meant to be, because then it’ll help me get over this shit. Then I’ll understand and no bastard can hurt me ever again.”

  “But you hardly know me,” he protested, thinking her mad to want to succumb to another Master so quickly.

  “Doesn’t matter. I can tell you’re not a prick.”

  He bit back a laugh but couldn’t prevent a smile twitching one corner of his mouth. “All right, but first I want to remove that collar. Would that be all right?”

  She nodded, and he was pleased to see she didn’t touch it. He stood and walked to his sideboard, opening a drawer and extracting a large, sharp pair of scissors. He had no idea how else to remove it.

  He returned to the settee and sat beside her. “I don’t think I have anything else I can use to take it off. I can only hope me sliding these between the collar and your neck won’t cause too much distress.”

  She eyed him, then tilted her head. “Do it. Take the fucking thing off.”

  She closed her eyes—so much trust there—and he gently eased one blade of the scissors beneath the collar. It indented her neck, but thankfully, with the leather being thin, he was able to snip it quickly. He let it fall into her lap, and she opened her eyes to stare down at it.

  “Get it off me?” she asked, hands held up as if it might taint her if she touched it again.

  Harry pulled it off her lap. “Would you like me to dispose of it?”

  She nodded, closing her eyes again, and he stood, walked over to the wicker waste bin and dropped the collar inside.

  To take the sting from the monumental thing she had allowed him to do, he said brightly, “How about tomorrow I take you out, get you some new clothes?”

  She snapped her head to face him, widening her eyes.

  He raised a hand to stop her saying anything. “We’ll go shopping in another town if that makes you feel better, have a nice day out, and then, after we’ve eaten dinner, we can begin your first lesson. How does that sound?”

  She blew out a breath, straightening her shoulders. “Bloody brilliant. Here’s to tomorrow, the first day of my new life.”

  Chapter Four

  Ruby couldn’t believe she was about to go shopping with a complete stranger—couldn’t believe she was staying in his house, either. He sat opposite her in his kitchen sipping his morning coffee. The posh man had Italian blended coffee beans, which had to be ground and then filtered. Aromatic coffee scent surrounded them, and Ruby found the smell pleasant but the taste foul. Maybe it was her council roots, but she’d be happy with supermarket home-brand instant—a bitter taste but decent on the pocket.

  “Could you pass the butter, please?” he asked.

  Butter? What happened to good old-style margarine? Ruby knew deep down she was way out of her depth. She’d thought Master was upper class and posh, but this man really had it all about him. Even in the way he sat—his back straight, not slouched as he gazed down at the newspaper. Charm, confidence and sexual masculinity oozed from every move, pore and presence.

  Yep, out of her depth.

  “Which pot would that be?” From where she came from, marg was taken straight from the tub, no faff of transferring it from a perfectly reasonable tub to a pot because it looked pretty. Seriously, who had the time?

  Harry chuckled, leaned over and took a weird-looking thing with a lid, which he lifted to reveal the slab of rich butter.

  So now she knew the weird-looking pot with a lid now contained butter.

  “You can eat anything you like,” he said. “It looks like you could use more meat on your bones.”

  Was he taking the piss? She was fat all over. Master had monitored her eating habits. The bastard had even put chains on the fridge and cupboards so she couldn’t snack while he was out. He’d fed and clothed her…and controlled every little way of her life. She raised her hand to her neck to touch the collar that had contained her for so long, only to find a bare expanse of neck. Master kept all the keys to her freedom on a little chain at his waist—the one to her collar just another to keep her with him.

  “The coffee will do,” she said, not willing to risk another pound to her weight.

  “This isn’t something your Master was teaching you, was he? You do realise you’re underweight? You look pale and fragile and really need some food.”

  Each one of his words sounded like the truth, but years of constant verbal and mental abuse from the man who claimed to love her had filled her with self-doubt. She’d been taken over, had insecurity ingrained inside her from his brainwashing.

  “He did, didn’t he? Another one of his little control games?” Harry asked gently.

  Ruby watched him fist the newspaper and she flinched. After so many times of watching hands fist in the same way, only to be struck moments later…it was all still so clear in her mind.

  He cursed. Ruby gazed at him in wonder—the curse so shocking it took her out of her fear and instantly brought on surprise. She hadn’t expected to hear a word like that from him. He got up from his seat, placing his paper down on the table, and went to his knees in front of her. She refused to back away from him. He wouldn’t hurt her. Despite knowing that on a subconscious level, she kept chanting calming words inside her head—force of habit. Sweat beaded on her forehead—why, when she wasn’t scared, she didn’t know—and she tried to keep her shaking hands contained in her lap.

  Ruby expected him to touch her, lash out at her. Instead, he looked at her. He saw right through her, she was sure of it, past the waves of insecurity and the battle she fought to be the fun-loving Ruby with him—previous name remaining a secret—to the shell of a human being she became under the hard lessons from Master.

  “You’re terrified, I can see it,” he said. “I don’t usually curse. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

  Harry appeared deep in thought, and all Ruby wanted to do was reach out and reassure him. But something was stopping her. In her heart of hearts she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, and part of her loved her new name simply because Harry, her white knight, had given it to her. But if she lifted a hand, touched him, and took away the distance, what more would she open herself up to?

  “I’d never hurt you. In all my life as a Dom, I’ve never struck a single female or any of my subs in anger or for proper punishment. I adore them for the pleasure and trust they grant me with their minds and bodies.”

  He took one of her shaking hands in his. Ruby let out a rush of breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. His touch was firm but not painful. He held her gently, as though he was of the old-fashioned mindset—he was the man and she a woman to be taken care of. There was nothing threatening in his action, he merely offered her comfort. With no further speech, he allowed her to become accustomed to the simple act of him grasping her hand. Unable to resist, she stared into his eyes, trying to see if she could read his intentions. He stared right back.

  What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Did his hand warm or tingle from her touch or was it a simple gesture of consolation?

  The act of kindness flowed through her mind. Master had fucked her over harder than she’d ever realised. How long had she been with him? Three years? Longer? And in all that time—once she’d moved in with him—she couldn’t recall a tender touch, kiss or caress. No kind words of comfort. Bitch, slut, whore, filth—all the degrading words that had filled her days. Nothing had ever been good enough or right. Every punishment had been exactly that—a punishment meant to hurt, not to enhance their love life.

  It suddenly dawned on Ruby—since meeting Master and being in his life, she hadn’t experienced a proper orgasm since the first one she’d had, on the night she’d moved in. The terrifying ordeal she’d been through after climaxing without permission had taken their budding relationship into a downward spiral she’d had no chance of ever escaping. At least now Ruby could admit that if she hadn’t got away, she’d be leaving her old room at Master’s in
a body bag…or worse, dead, dumped outside in his back yard.

  Ruby shivered and averted her gaze from the man who was demanding access into her head, the very soul of her being. Through it all, Master had never fully conquered her mind. For the longest time she’d thought of escape, forming the best-laid plan. Her escape had worked, and as she sat here now, trying to avoid Harry’s penetrating gaze, she couldn’t help but be relieved by her random luck on him finding her.

  He caressed her palm with his thumb, rotating little circles over her skin, the touch nice and gentle after so much pain. Ruby leaned her head back and closed her eyes in bliss, loving the contact of another person who didn’t have plans to harm her. He circled her wrist, fingers strong, bringing her right back to how she’d felt with Master. His finger and thumb touched, his grip tightening, and the sudden feeling of being trapped brought her up short. She yanked her hand from his grip, drawing her delicate and easily breakable wrist to her chest.

  “You’re skin and bone, Ruby.” He spoke softly, his hand falling to her thigh.

  Ruby glanced at his hand but didn’t pull away, even though she wanted to be alone, far from the fear of an outburst of anger. At the same time she craved the touch, the intimacy from him.

  He represented peace.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  Her stomach decided to tell the man otherwise, letting out a huge growl.

  Fucking feed me.

  A blush spread over her face and neck. She wanted him to feed her and wondered if she would allow it if he did. Harry smiled, resting his hand on her stomach.

  “Eat something for me,” he said.

  Each touch he gave was clearly designed to calm and soothe her.

  Ruby nodded. He took a ripe, juicy piece of peach from a bowl and raised it to her lips. She obliged him, opening her mouth and taking the chunk. The melting sweetness burst on her tongue, and she couldn’t stop the moan of approval.