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“And what if you can’t handle how I would fuck right now?” he demands, and I don’t miss the challenge deep in his voice, or the instant crackles in the air between us.
The words pierce my already wounded heart. “I’ll assume I can’t since you already do. I’m going back to Denver,” I say and my voice is remarkably calm when I’m quaking inside. I try to pull awayfrom him, but frustratingly he continues to hold on and his mixed messages are torture. “Stop holding me here. I’m giving you what we both know you want.”
“I asked whatif,Harper.”
“Which was spoken with the same intent you said ‘your apartment.’ To hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. Damn it, woman. I would never—”
“You don’t even want to fuck me. Apparently, I’m too vanilla. I’m going back to my home, which is Denver.”
“Home is here, with me and you are not even close to too vanilla for me. The answer to ‘what if you can’t?’ should have been ‘what if I can?’ What if I can handle it? Because I need you, Harper. I need you like I have never needed in my life.” His words are a deep, guttural confession. He needs me. I need him, too.
I breath out a shaky breath. “Why are we doing this to each other?”
“I did it,” he confesses. “I’m fucked in the head right now. I hate him but I don’t want him to die. He would probably feel relief if I was gone.”
“I don’t think he would. And you can’t go anywhere. You’d take me with you because I’d never survive it.”
His hand slides up my back, fingers splaying between my shoulder blades, his breath warm on my cheek. “You can’t be with me and not give me everything. When I get like this—”
“I know,” I say, aware that we are talking about those darker desires he’s alluded to in the past. “I’m not afraid of anything with you.”
“I would never hurt you,” he says, and then gives a bitter laugh. “I guess that’s not true. I hurt you tonight.”
“We hurt each other. We can’t do that again.”
“Agree. One hundred percent agreed. I need—”
“Me, too,” I whisper.
He eases back, studies me, a wicked burn in the depths of his stare, as he drags his hand over my breast, down my waist, to cup my backside and pull me hard against his erection.”
“Very certain,” I assure him, sounding breathless even to myself.
He plants me against the wall, tugs my blouse out of my skirt, and yanks it open, little buttons popping everywhere.
I gasp, and he says, “Now you’ll have to let me take you shopping.”
“I likedthat blouse.”
He slides it down my shoulders and pulls me to him. “I’ll buy you another and you’ll let me, understand?”
I laugh. “We’ll see.”
“Now you just want to be punished. I won’t let you down.”
Punished.
It’s not the first time he’s used this word and I wait for it to scare me, but I don’t feel fear with Eric. Just remnants of the pain we’d burned into each other, and I don’t want to feel it, or remember it. I want to forget. He uses passion and pain to bury his demons and I want to bury mine, too. “Punish me how?” I ask, my chin lifting, my stare boldly meeting his.
His eyes light with approval—I have not rejected the idea of punishment all together. He knows this and he understands the invitation I’ve given him to take me there, whatever “there” means to him. He tangles the silk of my blouse around my wrists, securing them behind me, and just that easily, I am at his mercy, but then haven’t I always been? Leaning in and pressing his lips to my neck, his teeth grope the delicate skin, goosebumps splattering about my skin here and there. I suck in a breath, every part of me on fire. My nipples, my sex, even my skin is tingling. “You’re mine.” He drags his gaze to mine, the gleam of possessiveness and white-hot lust in his stare. “Say it.”
I’ve told him the idea of depending on him scares me and I see this for what it is, him pulling down that wall. Forcing me to tear it down, showing me there’s no pleasure in fear. But this is not just about me. It’s about him, his need for control, and inside of that demand is the question of trust. Do I trust him? He needs my submission and for someone who has battled for my independence for years now, and just felt so very alone, I’m surprised how much I need it, too. “Yes,” I whisper. “I’m yours.”
But it’s not enough for him. He wants more, “I own you. Say it.”
“Yes,” I concur, but I dare to add, “Do I own you, Eric?”
