He huffed a soft sound before sipping the coffee, not complaining about it being black. Sunny never added anything to hers, and since she didn’t have guests, she didn’t have a reason to keep sugar or cream on hand.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that enough times. Assholes try to justify abuse by calling it BDSM. You’re not the first little sub some fucker has twisted up.”
“I amnota sub.” Sunny rushed out the words, realizing ‘Dom’ wasn’t the dirtiest word.Subwas. A Dom might be a jerk, but a sub was a doormat who accepted that behavior.
“You sure? Because I remember the other night, how you just about purred when we got our hands on you.”
“Sex is sex. Maybe you’re just good at it.”
“Oh, I am good at it, but I also remember that the only thing to pull you out of that panic attack was you kneeling, and Connor’s hand in your hair. You may notwantto be a sub, but that doesn’t change that you are.”
Sunny folded her legs, holding the cup between her palms, reminding her of the hot chocolate Garrison had had the other Devil-Dom get for her. “What are you even doing here? I’ve taken care of myself for a long time now. I am perfectly capable of continuing to do it.”
“Would it be so bad if I was interested?”
She gave him a look she hoped screamed that it was a stupid question. Of course it would be a bad thing—she had no room in her life for that measure of disaster.
He chuckled and set his coffee cup on the table beside the couch. “What? Come on, after the other night, you can’t blame me.”
“There are a lot of other women who would be a better fit with whatever you all want, I’m sure.”
“I’m not so sure, and trust me, I’ve had quite a few of them. You are special, Fox.”
The name warmed her, like something special between them, but as soon as it happened, she tried to push it away. Sunny didn’t need them to have any connection to bind them together. “You’ve said it yourself—you can make some guesses about my past. That should clue you in that I’m not a good bet. You and your friends have…” She paused, not sure how to phrase it. “Specific tastes. I’m not judging you, but I can’t fill that place for you.”
“Why not? You did fine the first night.”
“That doesn’t count. It was just a one-time thing.”
“Why does it have to be? Why are you so convinced that you can’t like that, that you have to be something or someone else?”
“Because I’ve done that, I’ve seen where it leads. I’m not—” Sunny stopped speaking, tried to calm herself down before she blurted something out she didn’t mean to say. “I just can’t.”
“But you want to?”
“Maybe,” she admitted, her voice soft. “Maybe I went there because I wanted to be able to walk away from it all, to stop dreaming about things that are bad for me.”
“That’s not what you learned, though, was it?”
She shook her head. “I learned that I’m screwed up, that I want something that almost destroyed me once. So, I appreciate your help, I really do, but Ican’tdo this. I can’t just give up my power again, because I can’t put myself back together if it bites me in the ass a second time.”
Trent stared at the girl, at all the fear on her face, at how afraid she was of him and herself and what she wanted.
And all that shame.
Boy, he understood that. Hadn’t he gone through the same thing? Hadn’t almost every person who discovered their kinks struggled against that sense of shame? People had that epiphany followed by a shitload of guilt created by a world that was quick to label them perverts and deviants. It wasn’t an easy path to come to terms with it all.
He wanted to reach out, to grasp her thin wrist and tug her into his lap. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and reassure her that she wasn’t twisted or broken or wrong.
Fuck, he wanted to prove it to her, but that was too far.
It wasn’t his place, and he knew it wouldn’t be welcome. Doms might give their subs what they needed, but there were limits, and those limits were set by the subs.
So he stayed put, no matter how little he wanted to. “You aren’t broken. You might be wired a bit different from the majority, but that isn’t a bad thing.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t risk anything.”
“You think I don’t? Because I’ve had my heart shattered more than a few times.”