Obsession (Steel Brothers Saga Book 2) (22 page)

“Relax, baby. Let it go.”

I breathed in and let it out slowly.

And he thrust his cockhead past the tight circle of muscle.

God, the pain! I clamped my hands around the bars where they were tied and let out a loud moan.

“Breathe, baby. In. Out. The sting will stop. You tell me when you’re ready.”

A few more breaths, and the pain died down. I was full. So full of Talon’s cock. And I wanted nothing more.

“I’m ready now.”

“Okay, baby, I’m going to go in quickly. It’s best that way.” He pushed his cock far into my ass.

I had never felt so full. Never felt so close to anyone in my life. I had never known how intimate this act could be.

“I’m going to come out now and then go back in. Remember, if you need me to stop anytime—”

“God, no.” I bit my lip. “Please don’t stop.” I wanted to jerk my hips backward into him, taking his cock, but because I was tied I couldn’t.

He went in slowly again and then withdrew.

But what I wanted was fast. I wanted him to really fuck me. I wanted him to know how much I trusted him.

“Talon, please…”

“What?”

“More,” I said. “Harder.”

He jammed into me. How I longed to touch my clit. I was on fire, but my hands were bound.

“You like it, baby?”

I nodded into the pillow. “Yes.” God, yes. It hurt, yet it tantalized me, shooting prickles of pleasure outward, to every last limb. It was wrong, yet so right. How was I feeling this in my clit? But I was. I so was. I wanted to come. Wanted to touch my clit so damn bad.

“It’s so good, baby. You’re so tight. Feels so good around my cock.”

He increased the speed a bit but still not to the point I wanted.

“Damn it, Talon,” I said into the pillow. “Faster! Fuck me faster.”

This time he obeyed me. He jammed his cock inside me and then out again and then in, faster, thrusting.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

If only I could reach my clit… If only… And then it didn’t matter, because I was splintering into an orgasm so intense, so rapturous, that I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began.

“God, Talon, God. I’m coming! I’m coming!”

“That’s it, baby. Come. Come for me.”

I continued wailing into the pillow, my whole world fusing into this one intimate act with this man I loved so much.

And still he thrust.

“Tell me you like it, Jade. Tell me you like it.”

I
forced
my withdraw from her tight sweet body and curled into a fetal position at the foot of the bed.

Tell me you like it, boy. Tell me you like it.

How could I have said those words to her? What kind of monster was I?

“Talon?” Her sweet voice came from the head of the bed. “What happened?”

She was out of breath. I had interrupted her in the middle of an orgasm.

I couldn’t answer with the truth. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, blue eyes. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for this.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Could you untie my wrists, please?”

I lay, still curled up, hearing her words and comprehending them but unable to move.

“Please?” she said again.

I jerked my head up. I couldn’t leave her tied up when she was asking to be released. She trusted me, and no matter how misplaced that trust was, I had to honor it. Willing my muscles to move, I crawled to the head of the bed and unbound her.

She sat up, rubbing her wrists. “What happened?”

“I…told you. I wasn’t ready for this.” There was a grain of truth in the words. I’d had anal sex before, despite my past. But anal sex with Jade… God, the pleasure… I’d been so inside myself, inside her, feeling everything she felt, feeling the love, the trust…

She smiled. “Talon, I love you, but that’s bull, and we both know it. You were enjoying yourself. Now what happened?”

Yes, I had been enjoying myself. Why had I said those terrible words to her? “I…can’t…”

“You can’t what?”

“Can’t…”

She caressed my cheek with her soft hand. “It’s okay.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all. I had been so close to her, one with her, and I had ruined it. My eyes filled, but I willed the tears not to fall.

“Do you believe I trust you now?”

I cleared my throat but couldn’t speak for a few seconds. Then, “You’re amazing,” I said softly.

She smiled again.

“I…”

“What?”

“I’m not worthy of you, Jade.”

She dropped her beautiful ruby-red lips into an O. “Why on earth would you say that?”

I let out a scoff. “Because it’s true, that’s why.”

“Isn’t that for me to decide? I chose to put my trust in you, and you didn’t let me down. We’ll try another time. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” I said. “There are things you don’t know.”

“I’m right here. I’ve got two good ears, and I’m a good listener. Tell me anything. I promise it won’t affect how much I love you or trust you.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Something happened to me… Some unimaginable things.”

“What kinds of things?”

My vocal cords froze. Chills dashed through my neck, and I was paralyzed, unable to speak further. After a moment or two of silence, she crawled toward me and snuggled up to my body, her skin like silk.

“I will never pressure you to say anything you’re not ready to say,” she said. “But I can promise you that nothing will change my feelings about you.”

And in that moment—that moment where she had showed me the ultimate trust—I actually believed her.

* * *

“
L
ast time
at the end of our session, we decided we would talk about what happened to you when you were ten,” Dr. Carmichael said.

I sat in the usual spot, clenching the arms of the hunter-green recliner. I nodded.

“Do you want to go there today? Are you feeling up to it?”

I couldn’t help chuckling. “If I waited to until I felt up to it, I’d be dead and buried before it happened.”

“I understand. We will get to it, Talon, but it’s not absolutely essential that it happen today.”

“So you’re letting me off the hook?”

“You’re not on any hook. What you say here is your choice. If you’re not ready to talk about that, would you like to try the guided hypnosis today? Maybe we can find out what you were dreaming about when you ended up with your hands around Jade’s neck.”

I didn’t like the idea of someone inside my head any more than I liked the idea of talking about certain things, but I desperately needed to figure out why I had ended up in that position with Jade. I had to, if I wanted a future with her. As it stood now, I would not spend the night with her again until I was certain I would never hurt her.

“All right,” I said to Dr. Carmichael. “Let’s try it today.”

“Some people are more comfortable on the couch during this kind of session,” she said.

The idea of being on a shrink’s couch freaked me out a bit. “I think I’d rather stay in the chair.”

“Why don’t you pull the handle to let it recline. I need you to be relaxed, Talon, or this won’t work.”

I released the lever and let my feet rise. “Understood,” I said.

“I’m going to dim the lights, and then we’ll begin, okay?”

I nodded.
Now or never.

Dr. Carmichael came back and took the chair opposite me. “Are you comfortable? Do you need a pillow or a blanket?”

“I’m fine.”

“All right,” she said. “The first thing you need to know about hypnosis is that it’s more than a state of relaxation. It can be any state where you disassociate and become more focused and more suggestible. Do you ever have flashbacks, Talon?”

I fidgeted, gripping the chair as usual. I nodded slightly.

“I understand that’s a difficult thing for you to admit. But I’m asking because I want you to understand that during those flashbacks, you’re most likely in a state of self-induced hypnosis. I think it’s necessary for you to know that before we proceed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing for you to be concerned about. I will guide you through your hypnosis session, and if you become uncomfortable or if for any other reason you want to stop, it’s important that you understand that you can stop at any time. You will remain in control.”

A shiver ran through me. I nodded.

“What sort of things trigger your flashbacks?”

“It can be anything. A glass of water on the table. Or…” My girlfriend massaging an intimate part of me. I wasn’t ready to tell her that yet.

Dr. Carmichael nodded. “You’re reacting to a posthypnotic suggestion when you have a flashback. Otherwise known as a trigger. In these instances, hypnosis is not relaxation at all.”

“How can I be reacting to a posthypnotic suggestion? I’ve never been hypnotized before.”

“It’s a phenomenon known as environmental posthypnotic suggestion. It occurs when a person’s been through a traumatic experience, and certain triggers cause them to relive the emotional and physical trauma that they experienced. For example, someone who’s been shot could react to any sound that sounds like a gunshot—a firecracker for instance, or a car backfiring.”

I nodded, still shaking a bit.

“I want you to understand all of this before we begin. I will do my best to keep you relaxed, but if you feel yourself tightening up, you just tell me that you want to stop. All that said, do you want to proceed?”

Was I really ready to relive all of this? Because that was no doubt what would happen. “Doc, let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Say you have a patient who’s been through a horrific experience, a childhood trauma, and it has colored his whole life. Can he recover?” I’d asked this before, but I needed to hear the answer again. Needed to know I was going in the right direction.

“Does he want to recover?”

I closed my eyes. “Very much so.”

“Then he can, but he must first face what happened to him. Only then will he be able to deal with it and move forward.”

Words I’d heard many times before. I cleared my throat. I needed to do this. For my brothers, for Marj, especially for Jade. And more than all of them combined, I needed to do this for myself.

“Let’s do it then, Doc,” I said.

“Then close your eyes, and we’ll get started.”

* * *

W
armth coated my face
, and I shut my eyes against the sun’s rays. I inhaled the scent of beach—sand, coconut sunscreen, that slightly fishy scent that was actually pleasant. The waves crashed to the shore, the sound of them soothing. I breathed in the salty air. My energy rose as the ozone swelled from the crashing waves, fueling the air with oxygen. I lay on top of a plush beach towel on a chaise longue, my knees elevated, my back relaxed.

All was right with the world. I opened my eyes. Next to me Jade sat, her lush body clothed in a silvery-blue one-piece that matched her eyes. She looked over at me and smiled, and my heart thundered. My fingers were entwined around hers.

I closed my eyes again, breathed in deeply, and let it out slowly. Tension seeped out of my muscles, and I melted further into the lush towel covering my chair. The sun’s rays heated my skin, and then a cool breeze drifted over me. I moved my feet on either side of the chair and wiggled my toes in the sand.

“Are you relaxed?” came a voice from across the breeze.

I nodded my head slightly.
Yes. I am relaxed.

Whispers met my ears, voices… Something landed on my cheek. Probably a bug. I swatted away, but still it was there, pressing on my skin.

And the whispers became louder.

“Come on, boy,” a voice whispered. “You think you can take me on? Do it, boy. Show me how strong you are.” And then an eerie chuckle, black and evil.

I rose from my chair to face my tormentor.

“Come on, boy. Show me what you got, boy.”

I cowered, rolling into a ball to the sand.

“You think you’re so tough, don’t you, boy? You can’t hurt me. You’ll never know who I am. I’ll never answer for what I did to you.” And then the eerie demonic cackling again.

The cackling that brought the rage rising through me.

I stretched out on the sand.
Get up. Get up and show him. Get up and show him you’re not a scared little boy anymore. Get up, Talon. Get up.

My muscles tensed, and I grabbed hold of something… It felt like the leather arm of the chair, but when I looked down, it was just a handful of sand.

Get up, goddamnit. Get up.

I summoned my strength, called on every bit of fortitude and courage I possessed, and I stood. I stood my entire height of six feet three, and I towered over the masked maniac who taunted me.

“Decided to get tough again, boy? Show me. Show me what you’ve got.”

I pulled my hands into fists and forced myself toward him.

For once, I noticed his eyes. They were brown, brown and evil.

With all my strength, I pushed him down and landed on top of him in the sand.

“How do you like that, boy?” I taunted. “How do you like that?”

I punched his nose, the blood spurting on my face. And then, as he coughed and sputtered, I put my hands around his neck. His arms flopped at his sides, the tattoo of the flaming bird seeming to move as his muscles flexed.

“You like that, boy? You like how I choke you like that? Do you, boy? Tell me. Tell me you like it.”

With a jolt, I was back in my lounge chair, the sun shining on my face. Jade was beside me, her hand still entwined with mine.

* * *

I
opened my eyes
, and I was in the hunter-green recliner in Dr. Carmichael’s office.