Like she had told him how going into the bathtub reminded her of all the times she had tried to drown herself under the water, and he had simply started drawing her a bath every night. He picked her up and carried her in arms, sitting down on one end and making her sit on him, with her back to his front and him inside her, not moving, not fucking, just still, so she began to associate the tub and baths with him.
Another time, she’d told him about how in the past having her asshole touched made her feel sick and dirty, how the thought of it still made her stomach turn. And he, deviant, dominant he, had tied her ankles to her wrists until she was obscenely exposed, and put a vibrator on her clit, his cock in her pussy, and his thumb in her rosebud until she had forgotten it had even been there, lost in the sensations. The next morning, before he left, he had turned her over the couch and spanked her ass, lubing her up with her own juices, and put a small plug in her backside, telling her not to take it out, not to touch herself, not to do a thing to it until he returned. The entire day, the weight of the object in one hole and the emptiness of the object in another had messed with her nerves until she had been on the deck, naked, her legs spread over the arms of the chair just to let the cool breeze give her overheated skin some relief. That was how he’d found her, and he’d caged her on the chair, leaning over, and pushed himself inside her, double penetrating her in a way that had made her mindless with sensations, her screams echoing over the mountains until she passed out.
But it wasn’t just her sexual hang-ups he was helping her work through. It was emotional too.
She’d confessed to him how insecure she felt, how she feared he would leave her one day and she didn’t know if she could handle that. The next morning, he had taken her to the closet, and stood behind her. Brining up his hands, he had told her to close her eyes. She had, and immediately something cold, metallic had touched the skin around her neck, making her breath hitch. She had opened her eyes to see a gold, thin choker around her neck, the metal warming to her body temperature.
“Just like your hair tie,” he’d murmured with his lips against her neck. “When you feel that insecurity, touch this, remind yourself who claimed you, remind yourself of the last six years and how I never let you go once, and ask yourself if you ever think I’d let you go now. The world could tilt on its axis, flamma, and I’d still be the most certain thing in your life.” A soft kiss. “You’re the oxygen that feeds my flames—without you, my existence is questionable.”
She touched the gold chain around her neck as he locked the door, taking her toward the helicopter in the early morning light. As she walked to the waiting ride, a thrill of excitement shot up her spine. She’d been fascinated with the thing since she had seen it on her first morning. She got to the side of the black helicopter and she turned around to look at the house, a gray and black sleek marvel of architecture half on the cliff and a little under.
Looking at the house, she remembered the day she’d confessed in the dark of the night that she didn’t know where she would go if she ever had to be alone, that she had nothing on the outside. He had listened intently with his arms around her, and the next day, he'd taken her to the safe in the study.
***
“Sit,” he told her, and she took a seat. He sat down next to her, turning his whole body toward her, handing her a manila envelope.
“What’s this?” she asked, curious about the content as she pulled it out. She looked over a bunch of legal jargon, most of it flying over her head, and turned questioning eyes to him.
He pointed at the first document. “That is the deed to this house. It’s in your name—Lyla Blackthorne—and it’s all yours.”
Stunned, she looked down at the paper again, and sure enough the words ‘property’ and ‘belong’ and her name, her new name, were there. While she processed it, the enormity of it, he continued. “I had this house built for you. You'll always have a place to go that is only yours.”
Tears welled up in her eyes as she clutched the document to her chest, the gesture, the thought, more important than he’d ever know.
He picked up a second document, his hypnotic dual light and dark eyes steady on hers. “This—” he handed her the second document “—is a marriage license, officially declaring you Mrs. Blackthorne. So you own everything I own, and you can go anywhere in the world and have a name.”
Fuck.
“But we didn’t get married,” she pointed out, not understanding how he’d gotten it done.