Rebecca's Lost Journals, Volume 4: My Master (Inside Out #1.4)(9)

Stunned, I lay there a moment before a smile curved my lips and my lashes lowered. He was here. And he was willing to do things he wouldn’t normally do.

It was enough for the moment.

? ? ?

A

nd then the nightmare came . . .

? ? ?

I

was floating in the icy bay facedown again, alone. So cold and so alone. Everything went black and icy and then black again . . . and then I was above my body, watching it float.

In a heavy gasp for air, I sat up, shaking from the impact of the dream.

He was there, sitting up with me, his strong arms wrapping around me from behind. “Easy, baby. You’re okay. It was a bad dream.”

I sucked in a hard-earned breath and tried to bring the room into focus, the tension in my body slowly easing. He stroked my hair, reminding me he had gentleness in him and that it had been a long time since he’d let me see it.

“You haven’t had a nightmare in months,” he murmured.

“They’ve come back,” I whispered and let him pull me back down so that we were on our sides facing each other. He grabbed the blanket from the foot of the bed and pulled it over us. I rested my head on my pillow and he did the same on the spare beside me. Had we ever lain face to face like this in bed before?

“What time is it?” I asked, since the clock was behind me.

“Five.”

“No wonder I’m still tired.”

“You’re off today. You can sleep. Tell me about the nightmare.”

“I can’t.” How did I tell him what I didn’t understand? And I didn’t want to, anyway. The nightmares are like my journals. Sacred and for my knowledge and viewing only. “If I do I won’t get any rest.”

He didn’t push me, like he usually does. He simply took my hand, pulled it between us, and covered it. “Then sleep,” he said again, and this time I heard the familiar command in his voice.

I went to sleep. I suspect maybe we both thought it was because he ordered me to, but later, we both realized the truth. He’d already lost his control over me.

The next time I woke up, sunlight pierced my sleep-heavy eyes, and the bed was empty where he’d been. I was alone, just like I had been in the water. Any distress I felt over “his” absence faded into a replay of the nightmare, the sensation of floating facedown in icy water making me shiver.

An overwhelming urge to go to my mother’s grave washed over me. I had to go. Today. This morning. My chest tightened painfully and my guilt twisted in my gut. I hadn’t been to see my mother in a year. I just . . . I don’t like to think about her betrayal.

“Coffee?”

His voice startled me and I sat up, the blanket falling to my waist. He was in my doorway, shirtless, in only his boxers, and rippling with sculpted muscles. His gaze swept over my breasts and I tugged the blanket up to cover myself. That drew an arched brow from him.

I’m sure it did. It’s not like modesty has been at the forefront our relationship. Scratch that, and correction: our agreement. But he was in my home, and what I wanted from him had changed.

Okay, scratch that again. What I wanted hadn’t changed; I’d wanted more than a contract from the beginning. I just wasn’t willing to settle for less anymore.

I arched a brow back at him. “You made coffee?”

“I make coffee at my place.”

He did, but something about his doing it at mine didn’t fit his Master image, though I can’t say why.

He sauntered forward, muscles flexing, and he was the most delicious breakfast a girl could ask for. The mattress shifted as he joined me and offered me the cup. “I added your favorite creamer.”

He did those things for me. Bought the creamer I liked. Stocked my favorite bubble bath. But then, Masters cared for their subs’ needs, often in a quite sexy, sensational way. For us, though, I felt more like a child and he was the parent.

I sipped the hot beverage without taking my eyes off him. “Thank you,” I murmured, wondering about the way he was silently studying me. He was giving off a weird vibe. Uneasiness? Was he nervous? No. Surely not. Not him.

We stared at each other and neither of us spoke, an indicator that we both knew we were at a crossroads. We frequently talked politics, art, and whatever else came to mind, but we didn’t talk about us. About what we were, or could be, or would never be—and that was what was in the air. That was the crossroads.

“Come home,” he said, breaking the silence.

“You mean go with you to your home.”

“We live there together.”

But he didn’t call it my home. “This is my home. Your home is where I stay when our contract indicates I do so.”

“This apartment is merely a backup—”

“No. This is my home and it’s going to stay that way.” I suddenly wanted to get away from him, but the hot coffee made a fast departure impossible. It also made covering my naked body impossible. And I wanted to be covered. “I’m going to go shower. Can you please let me have some privacy?”

A flicker of hard steel flashed in his eyes before he took the cup from me and set it on the table. Before I could blink, he’d stalked to my side of the bed, scooped me up, and was carrying me to the bathroom. He set me down, turned on the water, and then wrapped me in his strong arms. “You want to shower, you can shower with me.”