more. “I love you,” I breathed against his mouth. “Please believe me. I won’t hurt you. I won’t destroy you.”
“I want to believe you. God.” He lowered his head into the crook of my neck, inhaling deep. “I love that you smell like me. I love…I love you. I’ve never felt this before. It…fuck, it hurts.”
“I know.” I cupped his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “I will show you every day that I love you.”
His eyes darkened, a shadow passing over his face. The vulnerability taking over stole my breath. It hurt, knowing his sadistic ways. I hadn’t met many Dom’s but I knew, just like anyone, they were human.
“I didn’t think I could make you fall in love with me,” Matteo confessed, absent-mindedly brushing his finger in circles over my lower belly.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, a flutter of unease making my heart thump.
“It took me awhile to get any sort of emotion out of you. You talk like you’re reading a script.”
“I do?” I frowned, sitting up on my elbows.
“I’ve been a psychologist for over ten years. I’ve studied PTSD because I know that I have it. But I’ve never seen someone as closed off as you.”
“You made me laugh. I’ve cried. I fell in love. Those are all emotions that you helped bring out of me.” I pointed at him. “You did this.”
“It doesn’t always work that way.” Matteo sat up, leaning against the headboard. “When it comes to pain, how do you feel?”
“What do you mean?” Did I not show that much emotion? I knew I closed off my feelings…
“You shut off a part of your brain to protect yourself. It’s a common defense mechanism when a trauma happens.”
“But you’ve had trauma in your life and you have emotion,” I pointed out, sitting beside him.
“I’ve had more experience with masking my lack of emotion. But when it comes to pain—“
“It makes you feel alive,” I answered for him.
“Yeah,” Matteo slid his fingers between mine, brushing his thumb over the back of my hand.
“Do you need pain like I do?” I asked, watching his thumb move in circles over my knuckles.
“Why do you feel like you need pain?”
“Because…it’s all I’ve known. I wasn’t introduced to sex in a gentle way. Pain was associated with the pleasure I was forced to feel but then…” Memories roared to the surface. Pain. Torture. An unexpected pleasure. “I didn’t want to enjoy it,” I said, my voice small.
“Mae,” Matteo sighed. “I will help you enjoy the pleasure that pain can cause. We will make it be one in the same. Together.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Of course. We will be doing it for each other. I’m working on some research regarding PTSD and how BDSM can be used as therapy.” He grabbed his phone, pressed a couple of buttons and handed it to me. “This is a blog post from a submissive that was abused as a child. Read what she says about her Master.”
My eyes snapped up. “Her Master?”
“Just read,” he said, nodding towards the phone.
“My name is Kitten. That’s all you need to know. I lost my true identity when my innocence was ripped out of my hands at the brutal force of a man. A man I had trusted. It got to the point, it was all I knew. He started on me at a young age. Before I hit puberty. Before I had a voice of my own. Pain turned into pleasure, mixing as one. I didn’t understand why I loved the brutal force of his touch. Or why I anticipated each night that he came to visit me. A pedophile doesn’t want their victims to enjoy the abuse. It makes them look weak. I didn’t know this until it was explained to me by my Master.”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “This is intense.”
Matteo grunted. “It is.” He moved the page down a little bit on the screen. “Read this part.”
“My Master is my hero. Not just when he saved me from my nightmares or the demons that haunted my past. But when he saved me from myself. Why would a broken soul feel the need to live life to its fullest when they were never wanted in the first place? I had tried so many times to end my life but it was like something had prevented me from dying each and every single time. Master say it’s because God was keeping me alive for him. And I tend to agree.
When