So, I absolutely have to dedicate this update to jandjsalmon and shootingstella, because they are just the BEST!

Action is coming real soon, guys, I promise. Thanks for your continued patience and support, I have the most wonderful readers/reviewers!

I shivered awake, wondering why my legs felt so cold when the room was so warm. I cracked an eye open, and observed as Tate removed my bandages and careful rinsed the wounds with cold water and a piece of white cotton that looked suspiciously like one of his shirts. I bit my lip, touched that he cared enough to wake up early so I would be in less pain this morning.

"Tate?" I phrased it like a question though there was no one else I could be expecting. He looked up, smiling, a blush staining his face.

"I got a little carried away last night, huh?" His question was laced with embarrassment, like a kid caught making a little mistake, not marring someone's skin. I nodded. "You're still beautiful, you know that right?"

"No," I mumbled, louder than I'd meant to and knowing he'd hear me. He stopped washing the blood from my skin and sloshed the cloth down into the rust-colored water bowl beside the bed.

"Violet, Violet," he sighed, crawling up and between my legs, pushing me down with my back to the bed and leaning on his wrists above me. "We both know that isn't true, don't we?"

"Umm," I tried to look anywhere but at him, but his eyes were boring into my face, hollowing out my cheeks more rapidly than the starvation ever could.

"I've given up everything for you, Violet." Everything for you, more like.

"I know." He pressed a warm kiss to my closed lips, prying them apart with his own and slipped his tongue into my mouth, gliding it across the inside of my lip. He hummed against my gums, sending little vibrations through my throat. Tate pulled back and pressed his crotch down gently against my underwear, but I wasn't into it. Everything ached and my wounds stung and I was still weakened by last night's pleasure, but I knew he was a teenage boy and he'd need a little something now and again, and from the way he was rutting against my core, he wanted sex. I couldn't let that happen, so I pulled my mouth away from his.

Let me make you feel good, Tate," I whispered, trying to be as seductive as I could. He smirked.

"I feel good when you feel good," he mumbled, sitting back and holding a leg out to pepper round my cut thigh with dry brushes of his lips. I carefully slid my leg out from under his grasp and sat up, ignoring the stiffness in my back from holding myself up under Tate's torture last night. I slid my hands shakily down his chest and slipping my fingers into the waistband of his boxers. He was already hard, the outline of his dick was pressing against the fabric straining him and I felt my mouth get dry just thinking about it. What had seemed like a task before, to pleasure him, now felt like anticipation. I wanted to taste the weight and salt of him on my tongue and hear the sounds he made when I pleasured him. I dragged his boxers over his hips and down to his knees.

"Violet," his breath was shaky. "You don't… you don't have to…"

"Shh," I shushed him with a finger to his lips for a moment before pushing him to the end of the bed. "I want to," I added quietly, moving off the bad and round to the bottom of it to kneel before him. I placed my palms on his knees and let out a shaky breath.

"Like I said, don't rush. I love you anyways," his thumb and forefinger stroked along my chin and I glanced up to meet his eyes, reassurance plastered all over his face. It made me more confident, so I drew courage from his gaze as long as I could before dropping my eyes to the impossibly large problem at hand. I gripped him at the base and he shuddered, breath spilling through his teeth in what I hoped was pleasure as much as it was surprise.

"Gnhggg, Violet," he gargled, his chin falling hard on his chest and his fingers knotting in my hair, pushing my face towards his waiting erection. I complied, wrapping my lips hesitantly around the head of his dick and giving an experimental, hard little suck. "Shiiiiii" he squeaked, voice pitching all over the place. I took that as a good sign, so I slipped more and more of him into my mouth, until he reached the back of my throat, just pressing on my gag point. I hummed around him and he bucked, slipping harder down my throat and activating the gag reflex I had to work hard to keep under control. I closed my eyes and breathed long through my nose for a moment, adjusting to the sting and the pressure in my throat before pulling off him completely and spreading my tongue along the slit and sliding him back down my throat as far as I could, compensating for the excess with squeezing, limber fingers. His fingers tightened further and deeper into my hair, pushing me harder down onto him and pulling me off, on, off, fucking my face, but I enjoyed it more than I maybe should.

"I love you so much Violet, agh, I'm gunna make you come so hard after this I swear to godddd," he babbled and I rolled my eyes, internally smirking at his incoherence. I guess I must be pretty good at this. Or he was really, really desperate for it. It was strange, I could sense when he was close to his climax, his whole body tensed and rolled with the tension in his lower stomach, so I was squeezing his base harder and sucking him hard enough to hollow my cheeks before he even warned me.

"I'm gunna… god Violet, pull off if y-" I sucked harder and harder, jerking my mouth and hand up and down as much as I could whilst keeping the tight suction and it was obviously appreciated, because his hips jerked up as he started coming undone, spasms jerking through his body as he thrust up and down into my mouth and spilled his load down my throat. When he was finished he slumped back onto the bed and released my hair from between his fingers, but I crawled up his body and wrapped myself around his naked form anyway, wanting the closeness despite everything.

"Thanks," he managed and I smiled against his chest at the gesture.

"That's okay. It was kind of… fun," I confessed, wrinkling my nose in disgust at myself for even thinking that, but it was true. I'd enjoyed pleasuring him, it was a huge confidence boost, and he made the most appealing noises when he was enjoying himself.

"Want me too…?" He trailed off his question with fingers slipping down my stomach but I rolled away from him.

"Nah, you wore me out last night," I added a little laugh to put him at ease and he rolled onto his side, head propped on his hand, smirking like he'd won the lottery.

"Well, I am the master," he grinned, all dimples, but my light mood had dropped at the double meaning in his words. He was my master in more ways that one, he owned me now even though I didn't want him too. He obviously put two and two together with the dampening on my expression at his words.

"Hey, hey," he shuffled closer to me and wriggled his face around in front of mine until I met his eyes, though I was grateful he hadn't touched me. "You're my master more than I am yours, you know that much, right? What we have is just," he sighed, dropping onto his back. I had to observe him, he was so beautiful when he was searching for words like this, eyebrows knitted slightly together. "Intense. It's intense, Violet." I nodded.

"For me, too. But…" I trailed off, not knowing what I really wanted to see. It seemed so pointless to reason with him now or try to tell him what we were doing was wrong, because I wasn't so sure of it myself. If I convinced him to let me go home, I'm not sure I would have the strength to leave him, not really.

"Buuuuut?" He elongated the word to give me a chance to elaborate, but I just smiled and shook my head, rolling back onto my stomach and propping myself up, cocking my head to the side with a smile.

"But nothing. Not really. Tate… I'm sort of hungry," I hated having to bring it up, especially with the knowledge that he'd skipped meals for me, but I needed to remind him about the basics because he just didn't think in terms of survival.

"Oh!" His eyes widened and he leapt out of bed. "I got you food!" He rummaged through the bag for a moment and I sat up to admire the muscular planes of his back and the curve of his ass, almost disappointed when he turned around but mood improving dramatically when he held out a sandwich to me.

"Thanks," I smiled, ripping it open and taking a huge bite of one half before I'd even taken a breath. Tate perched on the edge of the bed, watching me with a smile on his mouth but an out of focus, almost hungry look in his eyes. I stopped eating, feeling guilty suddenly at the thought of how selfish I was being. I pulled the other half of the sandwich out and held it to him. "You gotta eat," I reminded him.

"No, no, Violet, it's all for you." Tate put his hands behind his back and pressed his lips together. I sighed, cramming the rest of my half in my mouth and crawling towards him. I pressed my lips to his, waiting for the tension to leave his muscles and his arms to curl around my waist. I pulled away from his mouth and smiled at him, keeping my face close to his.

"I love you, Tate." He hummed, smiling, eyes darting between my gaze and my lips, breathing heavy. I could tell he wanted to kiss me again, but I could feel his ribs against mine and that wasn't right. "Which is why you have to eat. I can't lose you, okay?" He nodded, though I wasn't sure if he was really listening, if he wasn't just caught up in my proximity. I held the sandwich up and pressed it lightly to his mouth. "Open, baby," I added the nickname because it always worked wonders, and true to form Tate opened his mouth and took a bite. We had to stay that way until the whole sandwich was gone, because he kept shaking his head and turning away, hating himself for eating what he'd set aside for me. When it was finished I sat back on my heels and he sat back on his, arms folded across his bare chest and lip jutting out in a pout. He was sulking.

"Want to take a shower with me?" I asked, desperate for some kind of response from him other than a betrayed glare he never fixed on me for more than a second.

"No."

"You mad at me?" It was absurd, but I didn't want him to be. Things were better when he was holding me. Even his punishments were better than his silence, his indifference. If I didn't have his affections, I didn't have anything.

"No. I'm mad at me." Reassurance, but he still wasn't looking at me.

"Why?"

"I'm failing you, as a husband." Was he slipping again? So soon?

"You're not my husband." I was feeling bold, but regretted it the moment his head snapped up and his cold glare and stiff expression settled on me.

"Maybe not on paper, but we've still got your wedding dress, baby. You're my wife as good as anything," he raised one eyebrow, daring me to argue with him. I opened and closed my mouth in disbelief but he didn't change his stance or his challenging expression, so I closed my mouth and stood.

"I'm going to shower."

"I'll probably join you in little while." With a bit of luck he wouldn't because I needed some time to contemplate and adjust to the fact that I was Mrs. Tate Langdon now.