Why? Why her, anybody but that motherfucking angel, anybody but his Angel.
Sade roared again. And again. Until his throat was on fire with the agony, until he tore the flesh at his wrists and ankles. But she didn’t return. No matter how much he yelled, cursed, threatened. She didn’t return. Panting in the silence, he prayed to whatever fucking God she believed in. Please don’t help her, don’t you dare fucking help her!
Chapter Six
Mercy paced in her room, hands over her ears to block out his screams, her stomach a quiver of nerves. She focused on the plan. Five days? What was she thinking? She’d panicked. Then when he laughed, her pride kicked in and she couldn’t bring herself to change it. She’d have to work up a contract. A real one. She could hinge something to the five days, like if there was any sort of progress, she could add another five days. And she needed rules for him. Strict ones. If he broke them, more time was added. At that rate she’d have his stubborn ass in therapy for the rest of his life.
She raced to the vanity table that served more like a desk, and dug out a pen then something to write on. After finding a journal looking tablet with seashells on the front, she sat and tapped her pen on the table, thinking of what should be first. Her emotions raced and she closed her eyes, focusing her energy into that place inside her where she conducted self-discipline. She let out a slow breath and took another one slowly in. Sade. What did he need? God, he needed to quit fucking screaming like that.
She pressed her fingers into her eyeballs for a minute. At hearing him coughing up his guts only to begin roaring again, she slammed the pen down and stalked to her drawer. Digging out a pair of pantyhose, she headed to his room.
Mercy threw open the door, letting it bang on the wall as she stormed over and knelt next to his head with the pantyhose.
“What the fuck is that?” he barked.
“I can’t concentrate with all this racket,” she muttered, stretching the leg of the pantyhose long and heading for his mouth with it.
He jerked his head all over—left, up, down, right—evading her. Next he snapped at her with his teeth and Mercy finally gave him a good whack across the face. The very brief second of shock allowed her to slam the pantyhose in between his lips. “There we go,” she cooed, quickly placing a knee on the side of his head so he couldn’t thrash while she tried to secure the damn thing. “The more you fight, the harder I press,” she grit, fighting the strength of his neck as he pushed with all his might. She finally got it tied and backed quickly away. “There.” she gasped, winded. “Much better.”
She got up and left, not even giving him one more look. She couldn’t stand to see that hate for her contorting in his face, anyway.
Back at her desk, she went through another five minute calming procedure before she could focus again. What did he need? He needed retraining. Re-shaping. What was she reshaping? His body responses to intimacy. His body responses to pain. Pleasure. His mental process with all that.
But where did she start?
His mind. No, his body in this case.
She took another breath and let it out, praying for clarity. Help me, God. Special case. Show me what he needs. Do I work from his mind, body, or heart?
They were synced but with the wrong things. Her eyes popped open and she wrote on the paper.
All three.
Of course all three, she knew this. Okay, so she’d work from all three. Engage all three at once. That was the key. Her father’s training began to pour back into her mind. Yes, the mind, heart, and body should always be engaged in that way. Mind… where logic and reason took place. Heart… where feelings and emotions resided. Body… the expression of the one or combined two. But it was matter over mind starting out. Pleasure is good. Pain is bad. Those are the messages the body is first hard-wired to give when receiving pleasure and pain. But when the two are forced at once, over and over while sexuality is still being shaped and formed, it can wire the brain that way—pain is pleasure. Pleasure is good. Pain is good.
She wrote that into her notes furiously.
His mind formed pain/pleasure connections and even when the mind reached the stage of logic and reasoning, where he knew that the pain and pleasure being perpetrated on him was unjust and wrong, there was no escaping the clutches of the hard wiring already formed. And his heart.
Tears burned her eyes and fell on the paper. His heart was still good. But he couldn’t see it. The self-loathing and shame over the truth of what happened and who he now was brought more anger and rage. And the fighting… oh God, not just the fighting. It was all the pain he engaged in, the sexual, mental and physical… he focused everything there because he couldn’t take the pain in his shattered heart.
She let out a sob and put her head on the desk. He used this pain to punish himself. For never being good enough. For trying so hard and never being good enough. He always got pain for his efforts. Always pain.
Oh God, was she crazy? To play therapist with him? What if she screwed him up even more somehow? Could he be more screwed up? God, she hoped not. Please don’t let me hurt him more than he already is.
She wiped her eyes and got back to writing. Time to come up with the contract. She worked on it and images of Sade’s torn flesh kept flashing. He’d yanked it right off at his wrists and ankles. Worried about him, she decided to finish up in his room. She needed to see him, make sure he was as okay as he could be, considering. Why was he suddenly so furious? What had he wanted that he didn’t get? All that to be untied? Didn’t seem likely. It was something way more.
He mumbled something that sounded like “What’s that?” followed by a clearly mumbled, “When do I eat,” then it sounded like “do I get to fucking eat in your little homemade google triage?”
She sighed and went over to him. Kneeling, she set the notebook down and ungagged him. “What answer do you want first?”
He turned his head and spit several times before eying her. “You are so going to pay for this, just letting you know now,” he said too calmly before his eyes darted to the notebook. “What are you writing? A love poem?”
“You could call it that,” she said lightly, picking it up, determined not to let his scathing words and tone bother her. “A love poem in the form of a contract.”
“Fucking lovely,” he said dryly. “Do you plan on getting my input, doc, or are you going to just take care of your needs in it?”
“My needs are not the issue here, this is all for you.” She got up, turned to the desk and sat, tapping her pen to re-focus.
“Sure it is. So what are we doing for these twenty hours of fix-your-fuck? Or do you need more time to make shit up as you go? How are you going to even manage this without google?”
“Verrrrry cute. For one, you’ll need to agree to be nice.”
He barked a dry laugh. “Because you can’t take the truth?”
“The truth doesn’t bother me when it’s true.”
“So is it the sarcasm you hate or the truth of what I’m saying?”
“It’s the sarcasm. Because it’s not true what you’re saying.”
“What if it’s true to me, don’t I get to have my thoughts on things? Pretty sure that’s standard even in the google-therapy spectrum. Doc.”
She turned from the desk where she sat about ten feet away and faced him. “You are surely free to think what you want.”
“But just not voice it.”
“Sarcastically,” she corrected.
He laid his head back down and stared at the ceiling. “So I can say it, I just have to candy coat it for the delicate doc.”
She pursed her lips, thinking more carefully about it. He should be free to speak his mind as long as he did it kindly. “That’s right.”
“Put that into the contract on my side of the deal then. I’m allowed to say what the fuck I want as long as I say it delicately.”
At hearing he planned to exploit that privilege, she squinted her eyes at him, ready to change her mind. Then he lifted hi
s head and looked at her with that hard, daring gaze. “That’s correct,” she answered in her most motherly tone and gentle nod.
That earned her a quirked brow before he dropped his head back down. “What about eating.”
“During therapy?”
“During fucking now! I’m starving. And when the fuck are you letting me out of my cage? Doc?”
She thought about that. Once he signed the contract, she supposed. She couldn’t keep him locked up for a week. If he were going to leave then… she was done. “When you sign the contract.”
He stared at her again. “So I get my freedom when I sign your contract. I like that. Nothing like coercion to ensure the success of therapy.”
“No, nothing like doing whatever it takes to ensure you don’t self-harm. And this love poem contract is that very means of protection.”
“How about I need to take a shit.”
She turned back to her paper. “You’ll need to hold it until I’m done.”
“And if I can’t?’ he spat.
“Then shit.” She waited for his response to determine if he were in dire need.
“Suit yourself.”
She rolled her eyes at the unspoken threat. “You are such a fucking brat,” she muttered, “I’m almost done here. I don’t think we’ll reach that extreme. If you would shut up for half a minute I could go a lot faster.”
“Whatever, hurry up.”
She went back to focusing while he somehow remained quiet. Five days. From 7-11 at night. Longer if he wanted. But not less. She didn’t put any details of the therapy other than as per her discretion. He’d have to accept, that’s all there was to it. Mostly because she didn’t have a plan yet. She did have some basic things down that allowed her to alter the contract.
He would allow her to call him Johnathon, the birth name given by his mother.
He would need to be kind and respectful.
He would be on time.
He would do as he was told.
He would perform homework.
He would keep all of it confidential. As would she.
She stared at the final product feeling like she was leaving out major things. Oh, she almost forgot the allowance for extension.
She wrote that if there were obvious signs of improvement—to be determined honestly by her—then she got another week of therapy added.
Standing while looking over it one last time, she walked the contract over to him and held it above his face to read.
He read out loud, freaking out at the first. “Fucking no to number one.”
“Why?”
He glared at her for many seconds. “Fucking. No. Is enough answer for you.”
The amount of venom in his gaze said it wasn’t worth the fight. Not today.
She scratched it off the list. “Fine.” She put the contract before his face again and he read for several seconds, head shaking. “So I have no idea what you have in mind for therapy—could be shock treatments for all I know—and I’m just supposed to sign this. And homework?” He gave her a hateful glare. “That’s way more than four hours if there’s therapy after therapy.”
“That’s how therapy works. You get the teaching then you go home and apply it. You know this,” she said.
“Stop using a fucking mommy tone with me.”
“Then stop acting like a belligerent child.”
“And what about my conditions?”
“What about them?”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“I can put them.”
“You can put them, fucking right you can, and yet you didn’t. Not even started, and already you prove to me you have no fucking integrity.”
“I forgot!” she yelled, jerking the paper away and staring at him with wide eyes. “Jesus Christ! Cut me some slack, I’m not your damn enemy, Sade.”
He stared at her, no, glared at her. “Slack? You want slack?” He gave a derisive snort. “Candy coated words, slack. What else does the good doc need? Gentle pussy eating? Gentle fucking? Gentle ass licking?”
She stormed back to the desk and sat, reading loudly as she wrote his demands. “If the therapy doesn’t work, then Sade and Mercy are DONE. DONE.’ There, I wrote it twice and capped them. And you can be so fucking sure that we will be done if I’m unable to help you. You can be so fucking sure,” she muttered, walking the contract back to him.
“Goooood,” he sang, like she were finally seeing his dark light. “So very good.”
She pulled the key from her pocket and took hold of the lock on his left hand.
“Fucking priceless,” he muttered. She looked at him and he wagged his other hand. “Right handed, doc. I can see this is going to be a quick week of therapy before you and I are done.”
She went to his other wrist, not allowing his anger to shake her resolve. She would definitely need to prepare hard to endure therapy with him. He was so pissed. Pissed she was forcing this, that’s all. He didn’t like being forced, not by her, not in this. If she were forcing him to bleed and hurt physically, that would be fine, but not this. As long as he cooperated and as long as he was nice—starting during sessions—it didn’t matter.
She unlocked his hand and braced for possible retaliation. He stared at her while rotating his blood-crusted wrist. She held the notebook before him at signature distance and handed him the pen, her heart hammering with the sudden threat pulsating in the air between them. He slowly took the pen from her hand and it took all she had to demonstrate she trusted him, pointing at the line where he needed to sign.
Never letting his gaze drift from hers, he slowly reached for the pen and apparently used his peripheral to sign. Then handed it back to her. She took the pen and his iron fingers latched around her throat, pulling her right to his face. She stared into his gaze, not fighting him, not physically anyway. She didn’t blink as she meshed her soul to his, letting her heart say it for her. I’m not your enemy. But I am here to fight your enemy. I am not backing down. I’m not afraid. Do what you want, just so you know that.
He shoved her away and she coughed and snatched the tablet back, standing to her feet.
“Where the fuck are you going,” he asked as she headed out the door.
“For a swim. You just earned a time out.”
She pulled the door softly shut, ignoring his laughter with all its unspoken threats of retaliation. She took a deep breath and headed to her room to change. He could bring his best fight. He was clearly under the false impression that she was incapable of standing against him. But she didn’t plan to stand against him. Just stand for him. Until he realized that change was possible. That’s all she needed to get him to see. The possibility was there. There for him to grab hold of. There for him to use. With or without her.
Chapter Seven
Sade fought his body. It was beyond burning for her. His sadistic fury was going to be a huge problem because he’d need it to head off his sexual perversions he craved worse than ever with her. The double-edged sword pressed relentlessly into his throat at every turn, flooding his muscles with reflexes he couldn’t seem to stop. He’d wanted to crush her esophagus in that second. But that fucking look in her gaze. That fucking look had encased his heart like a hot silk, caressing, promising, calling him out in ways that confused his mind. The contradiction was enough to break his fury long enough for him to let go.
For a swim. You just earned a time out. Fucking beautiful.
This was going to be hard. Maybe harder than he imagined. He’d have to fucking prepare for therapy with her. Just to keep from killing her.
He wondered how long she’d planned to leave him. How long would tell him a lot about her strength. If she left him too short of a time, she was easy. If she left him too long, she was pissed and that too made her easy. She had great self-control, he gave her that much. But he knew there was a hurricane beneath that façade. Again, points for having the ability to suppress it.
The door opened right at the exact moment he was thinking it
would be a bad time for her to return. In she walked, lighting his body up with that white bikini and sheer cover, hair and skin still wet like she’d just stepped out of the water.
She knelt next to his feet, key in hand, brows raised at his groin. “You know, your cock makes a great meter for reading you.”
“I agree,” he said, energy rushing through him at the prospect of freedom. “When I want to hurt you, it gets hard. When I want to be hurt by you, it gets hard. The meter ends there.”
She angled her head with pursed lips, eyes still on his cock, making him harder. “I wonder if…” She crawled along his side until she knelt next to the cock-o-meter now reading extremely hard. She stroked her finger over his length beneath the denim. “…maybe you’re wrong about your arousal with me?”
Fuck. His chest heaved now.
“Do you mind if I try something?”
“Pre-cum-therapy?” His hips rolled on their own, wanting anything. Desperate.
“You could call it that.”
“Suit yourself, doc.”
He barely kept the desire from the words as she opened his pants and he lifted to help get them lowered. “Can I free your legs so you can open them for me?”
Her casual question made his cock jerk. “You’re the doc.”
“You kick me and you’ll be tied up for no telling how long.”
“If I kicked you, I’d crush your chest, so, your dare, doc.”
She eyed him for several seconds. “I’m going to trust you to be smarter than that. Now, put your free wrist where it belongs so I can re-secure it.”
He did and she stooped to lock it back. He was so very glad she was trusting because while he couldn’t be trusted in the ordinary sense of the word, he had to have her touch. And who, what, why, when, or where, was irrelevant now. Not to mention his curiosity was burning up with the rest of him.
“I’m going to remove your pants and underwear for this.”
He accommodated her casual tone, raising his hips. He watched in amused fascination as she folded his pants and underwear and set them neatly next to her. Then she stood and removed her bikini bottom, slowly. Desire zapped through him and he yanked hard at the chains still holding his wrists. He wanted to take that. That right there.