The Reluctant Dom Read Online Free PDF Page A

pain slut like some are. We have very specific routines and rituals we've developed over the years that help her stay calm and focused and deal with life.” He motioned Seth over to a chair in the corner. Seth walked over and sat, his mind reeling.
    "When we were first dating,” Kaden continued, “she worked at a restaurant near USF. That's where we met. I went in after class one day. She was beautiful. I never believed in love at first sight until I met her. She claimed she was a klutz in the kitchen, always getting these weird injuries, mostly cuts and burns on her arms. She always had something. I had no reason not to believe her. Until I talked her into spending the weekend at my apartment and she got up to make coffee."
    Kaden's gaze drifted, his mind's eye traveling back in time. “She didn't hear me get up. I walked into the kitchen and watched her take a knife out of the drawer and lay it against her arm. She closed her eyes like she was saying a prayer or something and when I screamed, she jumped.
    "I wanted to haul her to the hospital. I thought she was trying to kill herself. She was so upset I'd seen her, she got dressed and ran out. I panicked, I couldn't find her. She wouldn't answer my calls, wouldn't come to the door at her apartment. I finally staked out her workplace and made her talk to me.
    "She wouldn't tell me why. She broke up with me right there even though she was crying and ... it just felt like she didn't really want that. I can't explain it. I begged her to talk to me and she wouldn't. I knew I was in love with her and it was killing me that she wouldn't talk to me. I knew she'd had a crappy life but I didn't know everything."
    Kaden wiped his eyes. This wasn't easy for him. “I went in every day after class and would sit and try to get her to talk to me. When she quit a few days later, I finally got one of the other waitresses to tell me where she went. Then she told me something else. ‘She loves you but she's scared of people. If you want her to open up to you, you need to prove you're not going anywhere and won't hurt her.'
    "I was losing my mind. After three weeks I waited for her at her apartment one night and begged her to let me talk to her. She finally let me in and she was like a fucking zombie, man. She looked like a dead woman. She told me she loved me, but that she couldn't see me anymore. I was sitting there on the couch trying to talk her into changing her mind when she got up and walked to the kitchen. Before I could get there, she'd cut herself."
    "Fuck!"
    Kaden nodded. “Then she started screaming. She screamed and cried and she let me hold her. I sat there on the floor with her for an hour and she finally told me about her father and the shit that happened to her growing up. What she did to deal with it. She told me she wanted me to find someone ‘normal’ who could feel emotions without cutting them out of her flesh.” He studied his hands for a minute. “I told her I didn't care. I loved her. That I wanted to help her."
    He took his glasses off and laid them on the bookcase. “She tried. Man she fucking tried. I got her to move in with me. Every day I felt it building in her. Like a volcano. But the weird thing was, the more I felt it building in her, it's like the deader she got outside, right? She came home from work all happy one afternoon and I saw she had a new burn on her arm."
    He looked at Seth, his eyes glistening again. “I got so fucking scared and angry that she'd hurt herself. I just lost it. She'd promised not to do it anymore. I should have known better, that she couldn't stop herself. We got into a fight, screaming at each other. I grabbed her and hauled her into my lap, yanked her pants down and spanked the crap out of her."
    "Fuck!” Seth couldn't imagine Kaden blowing his cool. He'd never seen his friend lose it, ever. He was the hothead, Kaden always coming to his rescue.
    Kaden smiled. “I felt like shit, like fucking dirt. Then she fell off