Break Me Read Online Free Page A

argument. “You can tell me anything.”
    It wasn’t permission to talk about it that he was granting, but his request for me to do so, helped me move forward.
    “He wanted my space and my café because he wanted to expand.”
    “What was his name?”
    “I…” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and closed my eyes. “T… Tim. His name was Tim.”
    “Good girl. Now, open your eyes and talk to me about Tim.”
    Slowly, I did. Slowly, Jared came into view. And slowly, I began to feel calm in the midst of inner turmoil. “I haven’t talk about him for so long.”
    “Then now is a good time to start. I didn’t know him, but surely he wouldn’t want the memories to be painful, but rather bring you joy.”
    “He wouldn’t. He’d be pissed, actually.” I knew he was pissed. Wherever he was, he was pissed. I could feel his disappointment in the way I’d chosen to live since he died. I would never be able to explain to anyone how I could feel something like that across space and time, but I did. He’d been that much a part of me.
    It might have been my own subconscious talking in my head last night, but I knew it was from him too. My gut knew it. My heart knew it. It’s what he’d be telling me if he could talk to me.
    “Then…”
    I nodded. “He’d come into the café every day. He was all about wearing me down. He tried the highhanded stuff. Big, bad businessman. I laughed. I rolled my eyes. But, it never angered him. Frustrated, yes. My defiance definitely frustrated him.”
    “What changed things?”
    I smiled. I couldn’t stop it from pulling at the corners of my mouth. I tugged Jared’s coffee cup to me and pulled the cardboard sleeve from it. I needed it, something to fiddle with, to keep my hands busy as I talked. “He started to walk away from the counter one day when I’d said no in some very creative ways, but he turned back and got so close to my face… He said if he wouldn’t get arrested for assault, he’d pull me over the counter, sit in a chair, pull me over his knee, and spank my ass the way I deserved.”
    Jared’s eyes widened for a second before he barked with laughter. I laughed with him. It felt good. For the first time since that night, I laughed without hurting so much I thought I’d crack. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t forced. It came from deep down inside.
    When Jared pulled himself together and allowed me time to do the same, he asked, “And what was your reply to his statement?”
    “I said please. There was no thought in the word, it just came out. I had never been spanked before, but I already had a crush on him and I didn’t know how to get him to see me as more than an annoyance. That was my in. I wanted it. I wanted the tone of voice he used, the heat in his eyes. I wanted him to touch me and that was when I knew he wanted the same thing.”
    “He was your introduction in BDSM?”
    “If you can call what we did BDSM. Everyone, I guess, has their own definition and what it means. It wasn’t about the pain and toys and scenes for us as much as it was simply the way we existed with each other. He gave me a sense of purpose and a measure of centered calm I’d never had. I loved him. He taught me so much about myself, how to accept myself, and about how I wanted to live, that the things I enjoyed weren’t weird or wrong. They were a part of me and Tim wanted all those parts of me.”
    When I stopped talking, I hadn’t realized I was crying until Jared reached across the table and wiped my tears with his thumbs. I cried harder and he sat there, my face cradled in his hands, letting my tears soak his skin and fall through his fingers.
    I laid my hands over his, letting his warmth and strength sink into me. It was cleansing, this crying. It was different than the sobfest I’d had last night when I got home. That was heartbreaking. That was the pain of loss all over again. That was the anger at Tim’s death coming out, and for him doing what he swore he’d never