When she realized the pain wasn’t intensifying or angry, but instead leveled out and faded, she faded with it, flowing along the sensation, allowing it to wrap around her, floating. She didn’t notice when he’d stopped until she felt the coldness of new lubricant on glass. Her body responded more quickly this time to the pleasure, grateful for it, lapping it up—desperate to please him.

He used the wider phallus again and increased the pace, pressing down on her back so she couldn’t rise up too much. His message was clear: he would be controlling the exact sensations she received. She would come on his terms or not at all. That realization sent an uncharacteristic flutter of something warm and electric through her stomach.

“Please… please… please…”

He stopped and untied her.

“No… please…” She thought untying meant he was done with her. Was he breaking his promise? Only teasing her again?

He chuckled but rolled her onto her back. Having the leather press against her back and bottom, stung, but she took a few deep breaths until it dissipated.

“Spread your legs,” he growled.

She obeyed the command, thankful and eager to have him touch her more. He fucked her with the toy as he lowered his mouth to her clit, licking and sucking on it until the dual sensations built to the point of explosion.

Faith moaned as she came against his mouth, squirming despite how sensitive her back was. He pulled away from her as her orgasm ebbed. She lay trembling from the force of it until he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

“Lie on your stomach.”

She didn’t have the will to do anything else nor did she have the mental energy to be afraid. He rummaged through the black bag and came out with a salve that he rubbed onto her wrists and gently massaged into her back and bottom. When he was finished, he pulled her into his arms and she lay against his shoulder, sobbing.

She’d thought she’d been done. She didn’t know where more tears had come from, or why. There were too many feelings and emotions to name. She was beginning to see why this appealed to those women, why Leo being like this had appealed to them. The feeling of complete helplessness and fear followed by a rush of endorphins and safety activated some primal code that made no sense to her but worked with the same reliability as the rising and setting of the sun. It was the code that activated bad boy attraction and the desire for the most inappropriate and doomed romance to work.

He stroked her back while she cried and continued to hold her when she was finished.

“You did very well, Faith. I’m so proud of you.”

She flushed at his words, and she knew she really had walked through the door this time. Though it hadn’t physically hurt as much as she’d thought it would, it had overwhelmed her. And these were the baby steps. The beginning. She shuddered in his arms at that thought, and he held her more tightly.