CRY FOR ME
A Story of Dark Desires
Charlotte DeCorte
Published by DelSin Publishing, LLC at Smashwords
Cry for Me
Copyright 2011 by Charlotte DeCorte
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from DelSin Publishing, LLC. DelSin Publishing, LLC and the author assume no liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Image Credit: Sergey Pristyazhnyuk
Cover Design: CGM Web Designs
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Writing as Claudia D. Christian
Cry for Me
Sevastian always made it a rule to never fuck his woman while she cried.
The simple answer was because he enjoyed creating her precious tears.
The complex answer as to why he enjoyed it had yet to be fully solved.
Sevastian studied each perfect tear as it rolled down Ava’s reddened face. Hypnotized and obsessed, he crouched before her as she sobbed from their latest round of play.
This time she was the poor, ravished maid and he the selfish, despotic aristocrat.
Others had seen them as innocent schoolgirl and hard taskmaster, adoring nurse and arrogant doctor, lady of the manor and faithful butler, and a hundred exciting different personalities.
Sevastian craved her total surrender. He needed to watch Ava lose control. Only when she screamed, when her lovely face scrunched up into a nearly unrecognizable mask of misery, did he feel something almost as blissful as Ava’s exquisite suffering.
Freedom.
Sevastian, the son of Russian immigrants, had never known this delicate perversion existed inside his cold, orderly mind. Excellence, hard work, and efficiency had been the guiding forces in his structured life since time memorial. Sexuality had naturally fallen right in line. Sevastian fucked the way he worked—intent yet removed, satisfied only by accomplishment.
Then he met Ava. Lovely, glorious, ridiculously emotionally-complicated Ava.
Ava who cried at his command.
Ava who cried as he beat her tender backside with a riding crop.
Ava who cried at his feet just to feel again.
Unable to resist another moment, Sevastian leaned forward to kiss one blessed tear. It tasted of all things forbidden and wondrous.
Ava’s maid character mistook his gentle gesture for leniency. “Oh, my lord! Please forgive me for disrupting your slumber! I truly thought your Lordship hadn’t yet arrived this morn.”
“Save your rubbish apologies for someone who cares to hear them. I’m hardly done punishing you, girl.”
Ava’s face rumpled again in preparation for another tearful torrent.
“Tears won’t save you now, you silly slut. How many times have I told you to never awaken me with the clumsy efforts you call cleaning?”
Sevastian, an aloof man who found it difficult to emote in public, slid into one character after another with gifted ease. Tonight’s romp as a sadistic aristocrat needed little prep work. Neither of them followed a script—which at times might have served them for their dialogue could be laughably stuffy—but aside from a costume change, spontaneity dictated everything.
Well, perhaps not everything.
Although currently trussed up over a padded bench, naked bottom crisscrossed with welts, and eyes heavy with morbid anticipation, Ava demanded only one thing from him.
To make her cry as hard as he possibly could.
“Please forgive me, my lord! I promise I won’t do it again.”
Sevastian stood up. He pushed Ava’s chin up with the tip of his crop. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re lying to me. Whatever shall I do about it?” His diabolical smirk promised he would try very, very hard to come up with a proper solution.
* * *
Ava kicked her unbound feet in rabid enthusiasm. Her watered gurgles were a hideous contrast against her usually pleasant voice. Sevastian, fully in his element, taunted her as he made her count out each stroke against the back of her thighs.
“What did you say?”
…
“I can’t possibly hear you through all that screaming.”
…
“I’m afraid that one doesn’t count.”
…
“We’ll have to do it again.”
He paused in mid-swing. Leaning down from his considerable height, he whispered in her ear, “I don’t know if this is actually fair to you. Can you even count without using your fingers and toes?”
Ava’s voice cracked. The urge to kiss him made her want to break character for a moment. “No, your Lordship.”
Sevastian adjusted their play to fit her new parameter. “Well, then. I suppose I shall have to teach you. Although you’re quite the drudge, I’m sure even you are capable of simplistic learning.”
Ava smothered a snort. Overachieving, brilliant, and independently wealthy as a result of her beautiful mind, she never had a problem with learning. Excellent grades, top schools, and coveted internships celebrated Ava’s many varied natural talents. Troubleshooting via risk management was the one that had made her an obscene amount of money.
Her particular problem came from thinking too much.
Unfortunately, Ava usually saw everything as a dilemma to dissect and analyze. Mental noise buzzed incessantly, making it difficult to relax.
Coffee or tea? Magazine or book? TV or DVD? Red or black? Conference X or Conference Y? Brunch or lunch? Speaking engagement 1 or Speaking Engagement 2? Blue or yellow? Gym or walk? Dinner or takeout?
The most trying times were when a complex anomaly miniaturized everything else in her life. Coating her thoughts, reactions, and focus, it put Ava in an unnatural state of heightened cerebral fixation. As a result, Ava’s vision narrowed into a speck consumed by the stubborn aberration.
She dreaded those days even as she relished the challenge. Being able to sift through a thousand possibilities, seeing the eventual outcome for Plan A versus Plan B, creating contingency operations, all of it demanded a steep price.
Ava couldn’t eat.
Days went by with no memory of what little she had consumed. It was only later, after solving the issue that Ava would see the few food wrappers scattered across the kitchen counters. It was barely enough to feed her for one day much less four. The scale usually dipped a couple of pounds on the light side during these stretches.
Ava couldn’t sleep.
The gears whirled shy of the overheating point. Dreams became the breeding ground for more probable solutions and issues. She never felt rested. During those times the nights served only as a marker between light and darkness. Once Ava was free from issue containment, a full day sleeping in a windowless guest room (especially prepared for these times) followed. It always took a minimum of two additional days to reset her internal clock before the hellish process could begin all over again.
Ava couldn’t cry.
Whatever caused her mind to speed up also caused her tear ducts to shut down. Immersed in an impersonal world of calculation, Ava couldn’t feel emotion. All her mental resources demanded pure intellect. Nothing could penetrate the crystalline wall between her thinking and feeling sides. The end result would leave Ava a functioning, human automaton.
“Now this is eleven. Say ‘eleven.’”
Ava gasped the word.
“I didn’t quite hear it. We’ll have to do it again.”
Her life, while accomplished, had definitely been missing someone like Sevastian.
* * *
The strange part of loving a woman like Ava came one unexpected morning.
Sevastian had been seeing her for over a year after being introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Their courtship consisted of two sleepovers a week, three dinners, and no more than five phone calls in a seven-day period.
Other women he had dated complained bitterly of this regiment. They felt underappreciated and ill-used, often comparing themselves to being just another convenience like his laptop or cell phone. In many ways they were right.
Not because they were conveniences, but because they were work.
Frequent self-rumination wasn’t Sevastian’s strong suit, but he understood the differences between himself and his ex-girlfriends had more to do with a lack of wanting to share his true thoughts than an inability to share his life.
How could he share something undeveloped and uninspired?
That all changed when he met Ava.
She was the first woman Sevastian had been with who didn’t demand to see him more often. Ava respected his need for distance. Like her, he was also independently wealthy, courtesy of the IT Bubble. Other women had seen Sevastian’s status as a reason for him to spend all his time with them. They couldn’t understand Sevastian’s obsession to keep working—even if he only worked on developing pet projects.
Ava understood him because she also worked like a devil. A confirmed workaholic, therefore not one to judge, Sevastian sometimes felt he was the one intruding into her world whenever they met up during a sparse break. During these visits Ava’s emotions would run the gamut; open, incredibly generous with access to her inner sanctum of likes and dislikes to closed, stingy towards the point of curt rudeness.
Ava’s openness charmed him. Her stinginess—not so much.
Sevastian wasn’t surprised to learn sustained relationships were one of her singular failings. He was, however, surprised at the rush of guilt he experienced when wondering if this is what his ex-girlfriends had felt in his distracted company.
Luckily for them both he wasn’t one to experience rejection from her inattention—at least not any he admitted to. Sevastian liked Ava and wasn’t anywhere near ready to put a civilized end to their entanglement. Her fickleness did puzzle him enough to ensure she didn’t have another lover. (The private investigator confirmed Ava’s fidelity.) Sevastian just couldn’t pinpoint a reason as to why she behaved so radically different and it began to bother his curiosity.
Eventually he broached the subject during breakfast.
“Ava?” He waited until she looked up from a decadent meal of French toast, pancakes, fresh fruit, bacon, buttered toast, and scrambled eggs. “Why the change between last night and this morning?”
She opened her mouth once. Twice. A shadow dimmed her cheerful mood. “Do you really want to know?”
“I did ask the question.”
“Okay.” Ava inhaled deeply and blew out her breath aggressively. “I have a problem. A strange one. I’ve gone through a whole matrix of cause and effect and while I’m sure I know the cause, I’m unsure as to why I have this particular effect.”
Sevastian set his fork down beside his plate and placed folded hands into his lap. “Explain further.”
Ava hesitated before plunging forward in a mad rush of words. “I stop feeling things. Every time I get really involved in a project I just stop feeling. It takes me a couple of days to regain my emotions. Last night I was still coming out of it. This morning I’m not.” Ava gestured to their breakfast. “I’m hungry now. I wasn’t yesterday or the day before.”
Sevastian processed her frenetic explanation. “That’s why you cooked so much food this morning. When was the last time you ate a full meal?”
“Five days ago. I think.”
“Ava, this isn’t good.”
She flushed and looked away. “I know.”
“What are we going to do about this?”
“You mean you want to help?”
“Of course. I like you very much.”
Ava smiled. She squeezed the table’s edge. “I noticed something last night. Something that changed things. Remember when you, ah, spanked me that one time?”
Sevastian thought back to the night before. Ava was on her hands and knees. He had slapped her on the left hip right before he came.
“Yes. I remember.”
“I started feeling again after you did that.”
He digested her answer and followed through. “Pain brings you back.”
“I believe so. Of course, I’m not sure but it did seem to bring everything back into focus. Do you think you can do it?”
Sevastian held his hand up. “I need clarification first. You’re saying you’d like me to hurt you…hit you…until you start feeling normal again?”
Ava nodded.
Sevastian ruminated, pondering if this would turn into something dangerous. “I’ve never hit a woman before.”
“Well, that’s good,” she nervously giggled. “I’ve never done this before or ever asked anyone to do this to me. I still can’t believe I’m sharing this with you.”
“In all these years you’ve never done this before with anyone else?’
“No. Is that so hard to believe?”
Sevastian suffered the current. “Why me?”
“Because I think you’re like me. Just the opposite.” Ava giggled again. “You’re so closed up. There has to be something inside.” Her shy confidence waned. “It’s only a theory. Perhaps your striking me coincided with the natural realignment of my personality. Perhaps there’s nothing below your surface and you’re just an emotionless Russian.”
Something settled hard in his stomach. He resisted the urge to defend himself. “How long have you been like this?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Forever.” She laughed a frivolous thing. It disappeared as a meaningless sound meant to minimize space between confessions. “My mother always told me to keep hold of my humanity…to not lose myself inside myself.”
Sevastian wondered if that ability had ever existed for him. “Did she think you were—”
“Crazy? No, I don’t believe so. She thought I was an inevitable contrast between herself and my father. He was the academic. She the artist. Cliché after cliché starting with opposites attract to if you love him set him free and he’ll come back to you.”
“Did he?”
Ava smiled and shrugged. Her eyes glistened. “You know questions often reveal more about the questioner than the questioned.”
Sevastian shifted in his chair, suddenly uncomfortable with her statement. Before he could answer, Ava cleared her throat. Once. Twice. “Look, Sevastian. You don’t really need to do this. There’s no point in doing any of this, okay? If I’ve unnerved you—”
“I’m in.” The implications of what he just agreed to do hadn’t yet set in but the thrill already had. Sevastian’s mind spun with the possibilities as something foreign unfurled inside of him.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes.” His first adult act of real spontaneity felt wonderful even if a bit frightening.
“We’ll need to test this theory several times, Sevastian. It will probably get messy.”
“I can handle it if you can. What exactly would you need me to do?”
“I hadn’t really given it too much thought.”
Sevastian pinned her with his incredulous stare.
“Oh, all right. I have thought about it.” Ava coughed once. “I would like you to hit me…like you did last night…only more of it. Maybe you can, I don’t know, punish me?”
“Punish you?” Sevastian looked down at his food. The shapes lost any meaning of normalcy. Reserve flaked away as desire possessed his inhibitions. “You want me to come over and then hit you. For how long? Every time or just when you ask me to?”
“Just when I ask you to. Unless we like it and then…” Ava’s voice trailed off into a tight whisper. “For all I know this won’t work.”
Sevastian’s head jerked up as if pulled by an invisible string. “I already told you I’m in. We have to try and see if this helps you. I want to help you.”
“You do? I appreciate it, Sevastian. I really do.”
He reached out and folded his hand over her wrist. “Tell me what you think we should do to start.”
She peeked at him from beneath a fall of hair, once more caught in delightful shyness. “I thought we could alleviate some of the strangeness if we pretended to be other people.”
“Role-play, yes?”
“Yes. We could role-play while we did this. It’ll be like a game.”
“Role-play how?”
Several splotches made interesting patterns on Ava’s fair skin. They mesmerized him almost as strongly as her reply did. “I thought you could be the one in a position of power and I would be the one without it. After all, how else would you be able to hurt me?”
“Hurting you is what I have to do to make you better.” His quiet pronouncement fell between them.
“Yes, it is.”
Sevastian considered her discomfited posture and downcast eyes. “Would you have brought this up if I hadn’t?”
“No.” She spit the word out as if it were a dirty, disgusting thing.
Her vehemence shocked him. His hand dropped. “Why not? Don’t you trust me?”
Ava looked up from her plate. “No, not yet. Not completely but I hope this will change that.”
In that moment, shelved into the space in Ava’s mind between ‘Trust’ and ‘Don’t trust’, Sevastian found himself wanting to be categorized in ‘Trust’ more than he had ever wanted anything before.
“Since you’re being honest, Ava, it’s only fair that I am too.”
She stiffened, as if bracing herself for unwelcome news. “Okay then. Go ahead.”
“I like it when you cry.”
* * *
“Take off those rags you call clothes.”
Ava sniffled and obeyed.
“Now come over here and sit on my cock.”
She settled herself over him, perversely frustrated when Sevastian laid his hands high on her back and away from her sore bottom.
His voice gentled from the sneering tone of before. “If you keep crying I won’t make you feel good. You want to feel good now, don’t you?”
Ava nodded, thrilled to know of the comfort awaiting her, yet dissatisfied. Guilt gnawed at the edges of her contentment. Their interactions were all grounded in glorious order.
Punishment first. Pleasure second. Peace third.
Ava’s need had become their ritual, a sacrament for all things to be measured by. What was dirty could become clean. Tranquility made out of overwhelming chaos and emptiness filled.
So why did she want to break their sacred array? Why did she want more? Why was she plotting a way to stay in the first column longer?
Sevastian’s hand pulled Ava down by putting firm pressure on her neck. “Kiss me, my filthy girl. Kiss me and make it better.”
She pressed her open mouth against his. Sevastian tasted of all things wonderfully familiar yet delightfully strange. He was the same man she had been sleeping with for almost two years but different. Play relaxed him, made Sevastian into someone he could never be outside of this room.
Cruel without conscience.
Petty without reasoning.
Happy without boundaries.
Perfect without pressure.
“Open your legs wider. Good girl.”
Ava sighed as she felt him slide into her. Their gentle rhythm was a wordless welcome, communicating that despite their play they really were still just Sevastian and Ava—even if she was increasingly enthralled with the violent side of being not-Sevastian and not-Ava.
“Are you ready to be my love?”
Ava’s tongue caressed his; swallowing Sevastian’s words like the precious delicacy they were. He always asked her this question when they made love. It was their safeword phrase, one designed that long ago morning when her admittance cleaved life neatly in two.
Usually she answered, “Yes.” The games stopped and normalcy took over. This time her reluctance betrayed her.
Exquisite pain, that beautiful harbinger of all things silent and profound, had already opened her up. It filled all the empty spaces with light brought by blinding snaps of sensation. Ava, cured of her strangeness for another day, had come back into the world, fresh and able to be one with it again. So there was no reason to continue their play.
None except that Ava didn’t want to finish.
She wanted to slip back into emptiness. She needed it to justify prolonging Sevastian’s torment.
He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Confusion flashed, curving contours into his brow for a moment, before falling away. Sevastian kissed her one more time before pulling her head back brutally. He ignored her pained cries and twisted harder. With one hand clenched in her disheveled hair, Sevastian ordered, “Ride me and make it good, you little slut.”
“Yes, your Lordship.”
“Harder!”
Using her knees for leverage, Ava rocked up before slamming back down. Mindful of the hand still knotted in her hair, she worked his cock just as he liked it and tried to bury her guilt.
Unfortunately, Sevastian’s obstinate contrarianism made it impossible. He yanked her forward, pressing his lips hard against hers. He punctuated each criticism with a sharp crack against her backside.
“Not like that!”
…
“Your fucking is just as inept as your cleaning. How many times do I have to show you how it is to be done?”
…
“Do it again! That’s right. Up slow…down fast…good girl!”
…
His abuse wasn’t enough. She needed more. The monolithic space inside her demanded it. Something dirty fused onto Ava’s craving, clouding the purity of purpose. Her hips faltered and she suffered the viciousness of Sevastian’s tongue.
“Are you stupid? This isn’t what you just did.”
…
“I swear you’re vexing me on purpose. You are, aren’t you?”
…
“Answer me, idiot!”
“No…yes! No, my lord.”
Sevastian forced Ava onto her back with one wicked snap of his wrist. “Well, which is it? Yes or no?”
“I don’t know!” Tears leaked out. They flowed as a maddened expression of overloaded, conflicting sensations. Her mind spun erratically. Had she forgotten what all this was supposed to be about?
“That answer is completely unacceptable. Am I going to have to beat you again?”
Ava didn’t cry harder because of Sevastian’s threat. She trusted him. She trusted him with this dark, unreasonable side of her psyche. She feared she’d taken things too far already. She’d never had him hit her for as long as he had tonight. Now would be the time to call it. Games over. Normal life back.
Her craving consumed her, narrowing all of Ava’s focus onto one thing.
Pain.
Ava damned all her mental calculations, abandoned her guilt, and jumped into the abyss.
“Please beat me, my lord. I’m so unworthy of you. I’m a disgusting woman. Weak and worthless.”
* * *
Danger spiked. Sevastian yanked Ava off the bed and slammed her face-first into the wall.
“Don’t move an inch, my little slut.”
She babbled a nonsensical mix of vexing pleadings and husky promises.
Sevastian took the cheap cotton and deliberately tore it from her body. Ava’s submission drugged him. He wanted to reassemble her clothes just so he could repeat the violent process.
“You’re defying me at every turn. I’ve been merciful to you so far, haven’t I?” Ava’s silence inspired him to dig his fingers into her neck. “I asked you a question. I expect you to answer it.”
She hiccupped several times. “Yes, my lord.”
“You’re a bad girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes!”
“What should I do with you?”
“Whatever you want.”
Sevastian leaned into her. “Your agreeability won’t save you now, idiot. Obedience would have but you didn’t want to be a good girl, did you? No. You wanted to be bad. Very bad. Isn’t that right?”
Ava nodded frantically.
“I’m going to hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Yes!”
Her wail made him nuzzle her naked back. “Beg for mercy and I’ll reconsider.” Sevastian couldn’t resist tasting Ava’s skin. He shuddered. The need to tear into her, to make her cry, to make her feel for him drove Sevastian dizzyingly close to the edge. “Beg me now.”
She turned around carefully. Wetness trailed down her flushed face. Ava’s disheveled hair, swollen eyes, flushed skin, and trembling lips had never been as beautiful to him as they were at that moment. Sevastian wanted to worship her. She was his goddess; the benefactor of a life he never knew existed but could now never live without.
Ava pressed her face against his, whispered the profane, and leaned back.
It took him a moment to realize the moisture gliding down his cheek wasn’t an imprint from her tears but spit. The explicit favor of his beloved idol broke apart his reserve. Sevastian lost himself in the glorious maelstrom of freedom.
The freedom to be terrible.
The freedom to be unprincipled.
The freedom to be loved.
“You fucking whore! Never? You think to say ‘never’ to me? You dare spit on me?” He released her hair in favor of her neck. “Open your filthy mouth! Now!” Sevastian waited until Ava complied before releasing a burst of saliva. “Swallow!”
She trembled beneath his hand. It tightened. Sevastian watched her gasp for several moments before releasing the suffocating pressure. “Clean me off.” He stiffened, locking his limbs to stave off the shivering her small, agile tongue created.
“I’m not sorry.”
Sevastian slammed Ava back into the wall. Once. Twice. “Your provoking of me will only make things worse for you, my girl.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t, do you? I’ll be sure to remedy that.” Sevastian grabbed Ava’s arm and tossed her onto the bed. “On your stomach. Ass in the air. Now!”
He waited until she reluctantly obeyed before picking up the discarded riding crop. Sevastian flexed the malleable device. “You’ve lost your mind to push me this far.”
“Please, my lord. Please.”
Sevastian looked to her, poised between himself and his other wicked self, awaiting her denouncement. “One last time. Are you ready to be my love?”
Ava turned her face towards him. Her eyes spoke, no, demanded he give her what she needed. What else could he do but comply?
Sevastian grinned and patted her cheek with insolent care. “Don’t blame me when you find yourself unable to sit for the next week.” With that cheerful warning, he raised his arm and struck.
Over and over again the crop landed against her writhing body.
Over and over again Ava screamed.
Over and over again Sevastian laughed.
When his last strike split the skin, he lunged forward and licked the blood off her back. He kicked her legs apart, pulled down his pants and thrust into Ava. Pounding into her like a demon possessed, Sevastian found breaking his rules was bliss. Fucking his woman while she cried was better than anything in the whole world.
* * *
Ava’s hips snapped up as far as his hands allowed her. Digging deep, his fingers were an effective clamp. She had no choice but to stay bent, open to his invasion.
Which had gone on for hours.
Sevastian had fucked her, dangling Ava over the edge, only to pull away and punish her.
He had whipped and spanked her repeatedly, ensuring she’d be wearing his cuts and bruises for weeks. He had made her crawl for him. He had shoved himself in her mouth. He had held her against the wall while thrusting his fingers between her legs.
He had used her thoroughly.
The most delicious part hadn’t been the physical pleasure found in Sevastian’s torments. It had been the razor balance he kept between cruelty and kindness. Drugging kisses followed sharp cracks across her thighs. Gentle hair ruffles came after vicious tugs on her scalp. Crushing hugs chased rough pushes to the floor.
Even at his worst, Ava had felt crazed devotion from Sevastian. His attention fixated on every part of her experience. Their faces were often only inches away. Flayed open, Ava was his to inspect, his to judge, and his to use.
Ava screamed in demented lust when Sevastian abruptly bit into her shoulder. Nothing had ever felt as good as the violation she had just actively instigated. Ava had never felt so loved.
“Do you want to come?”
Sevastian’s throaty growl thrilled her. She rasped the words in answer, “Only if you give me leave to, my lord.”
“That’s my good girl. She’s come to heel like a good bitch, hasn’t she?”
Ava wanted to babble love words to him. She wanted to kiss his feet. She wanted him to tear her into oblivion. Ava instead nodded frantically and hoped he would be pleased.
“That’s too bad,” Sevastian hissed in her ear. “You don’t get to come tonight. Instead, you get to suffer for being so defiant. Thank me for seeing to your punishment.”
Ava whimpered her thanks. When he turned her over, she did little to stifle the shrill yell. Her entire back and legs were a hot, throbbing mess. Sevastian’s grip on her thighs birthed another ragged cry.
Sevastian looked down on her. “Are you going to defy me again?” Sevastian’s wolfish grin widened much like her thighs—vulgar and remorseless. “I hope you do, slut. Then I can fuck you again…just…like…this.”
Ava fastened on his beloved face as he came. She observed Sevastian in a way she had never took the time to before. Ava studied every ripple, every tic. She adored how his mouth curled into a luscious pout. She noted the way his beautiful, blue eyes hardened before losing focus. He looked empty, deflated of everything except peace. His blond hair assumed the angelic qualities of a halo.
Watching him, knowing what had to be endured to achieve drugging bliss, Ava knew things could never be the same. In knowing, she understood exactly what she wanted now. She wanted this to be their life. Always. No games. No stringent methodology. Just this.
Ava smiled; giddy to share this bit of hard-earned knowledge. She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Sevastian?”
He tiredly kissed her palm and grinned. “Are you ready to be my love?”
The abyss hurled her out. Shame decimated her.
* * *
Ava’s liquid misery intrinsically tied Sevastian’s freedom into a messy knot.
She wasn’t surrendering to him anymore. Somewhere along the line Sevastian had lost her.
It was intolerable.
Sevastian’s sleepiness evaporated. He sat on the bed. Her tears were separate, apart from him and all they shared. They castigated him.
“What did I do wrong, Ava? Did I go too far? Did I hurt you too much? If so, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She looked at him, face miserable and heavy with emotion too great to share.
“Please, Ava. Tell me what I did wrong so I won’t do it again.”
She scrambled up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for doing this to you.”
Sevastian squeezed Ava’s waist while burying his face against her shoulder. “No, it isn’t. I misread you tonight. I was too caught up in the moment. That kind of irresponsibility is unforgivable.”
“Stop. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Her voice warbled, becoming a tiny, repentant thing. “I told you already. It’s me.”
“What happened?”
Ava stilled. Her breath stuttered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The blood leeched from his face. “Did…did you feel…did you feel that I raped you?”
“No!”
Ava shoved him back. The horrified expression convinced Sevastian of her sincerity. Relieved, he sank into the bed. “Thank God. I don’t know what I would do if you thought that. I’d want to die.”
She sniffled. “No, it’s nothing like that, Sevastian.”
“Then what happened? Why are you crying like this?”
Her entire back seemed to ripple from the force of holding her tears at bay. The marks he put on there, once beautiful, now reflected ugly brutality. Nausea soured his stomach. “I went too far.”
“You didn’t go too far. I did.”
Sevastian shot back up. “No, Ava. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m to blame for this—not you.”
“Please stop!” Her arm whipped out. As a barrier it was more than effective. “I know you’re trying to be thoughtful by taking the blame onto yourself but this isn’t something you need to shoulder.”
“Then explain it to me.”
His hard, clipped words seemed to have the effect of a slap. Ava pulled her legs up and withdrew into herself.