Rebecca's Lost Journals, Volume 4: My Master (Inside Out #1.4)(10)

He didn’t give me time to think, dragging me behind the curtain. And, damn it, I was weak. I did a whole lot more than shower with him. That man had me pressed against the tile wall and his cock buried deep inside me before the water was even hot. The sex had been hot.

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A

n hour later, dressed in jeans and a gallery T-shirt, with tall black boots, my dark hair brushed to a shiny mass, I was determined to be stronger. I walked into the living room to find him facing away from me on the couch, watching the news. He was so determined to stay with me that he’d grabbed his suitcase from his car and changed into clean clothes. I knew he was determined to do whatever he had to do to get me back to his proverbial castle where I’d be his submissive.

He twisted around, clearly sensing my presence.

“I need to run out for a while,” I told him before he could speak.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, pushing to his feet to face me.

My lips parted in surprise at how far he was taking this. “It’s nothing you’ll enjoy.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is it important to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s important to me.”

I didn’t take these as encouraging words to indicate he wanted more depth to our relationship. A Master made his submissive’s needs top priority—some of them, anyway, I had learned. He was simply trying to figure out where he gained control again.

For an instant I considered telling him “no,” but the need to go to my mother’s grave was growing more insistent. If I let myself get into a confrontation with him, my time to visit her could slip away from me. “Okay.”

His eyes lit with victory. “I’ll drive.”

Of course he would. He hated the practical used car I’d insisted on buying myself, when he’d wanted to buy me something fancy. Besides, even if I had a fancy car, the passenger seat just wasn’t the place for a Master.

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T

he drive to the town of Colma on the northern end of the peninsula is a short ten miles. It’s a quaint little place with only two thousand residents, and I’d like it, if not for the fact that it has seventeen cemeteries and about five million dead people. Even though I’m not superstitious, it bothers me. There is nothing that steals your control more than death, and death loves Colma.

“He” knew where Colma was when I told him our destination, and I was thankful that he didn’t ask questions. It fit our pattern. We don’t talk about our families, aside from the basics like who was alive and who was dead. So he knew I was visiting my mother. Or her grave. My mother was no longer anywhere I could visit her.

He parked near the grave and I didn’t wait on him to get out of the car. I tugged my jacket around me and started walking through the cold, breezy cemetery, feeling as if there was a concrete block strapped to each of my lungs, crushing them inside my chest cavity. He fell into step with me, and right then, seeing him as my Master and protector didn’t seem all that bad.

When I got to the tombstone, a simple white square with my mother’s name on it, I stood there, unable to stop the memories from playing in my head.

“How could you not tell me?”

She’d straightened in her hospital bed. “How did your knowing help anything?”

“You thought letting me think that he simply didn’t want me was better than letting me know who and what he was?”

“He was involved with dangerous things I didn’t want you involved in. He still is.”

“I want his name.”

“No. I will not die knowing he might drag you to the grave with me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, guilt assailing me. She’d been dying, and I’d confronted her with anger. But what was I to do? She’d smoked and taken horrible care of herself. She was dying and leaving me, and still she wanted to deny me my only other family member? The bite of more memories, of her dying, of the casket, of the pain, overcame me. One after another, I relived the moments that had left me alone in this world.

“Are you okay?”

I blinked to realize I was on my knees and “he” was actually there with me. How had I ended up on the ground? “Yes.” I pushed to my feet and he helped me. “I’m okay. I’m done here.”

“Is your father here, too? Do you want to visit him?”

I’d told him I didn’t know my father, but “he” had not listened.

That hurt. It hurt badly, reminding me how alone I am. “He’s not here,” I bit out. And apparently my Master had never been “here,” as in fully present in our relationship, either. I charged toward the car.

Once we were on the road, I thought of how bitter my mother was about men. How much I now think my father affected everything she was and everything she became. Maybe she’s warning me from the grave that I am headed there, floating in the dark, miserable waters of my own creation. Or maybe it’s just my mind using her as a tool to warn me of the same.

He drove us to some oceanside café, and the instant he placed the car in park, I turned to face him. “I won’t sign another contract. If you want to see me, ask me on a date.”

He just sat there, unmoving as stone, his expression an emotionless mask, until finally, he said, “You know that isn’t how I operate.”