And I won’t eat a single bite. Because Wolf can drag me from Baltimore to Georgetown. He can lock me behind his twenty-foot walls. He can take me down to the basement and make me come harder than I’ve ever come in my life. But he cannot break my will.
I pick up my goblet and sniff at the dark wine. “I thought white goes with chicken.”
“I prefer red. And I always get what I prefer.”
Feckin’ gobshite. I put my glass back on the table.
“How was your day?” he asks, like we’re auditioning for some 1950s sitcom.
“Fine.”
He offers me the platter of chicken.
“I’m not hungry.”
His face shows no emotion as he helps himself. I’m not surprised to discover that Wolf is a breast man. “You saw Dr. Patel?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I have no desire to tell him about the quick physical exam the doctor gave me in the privacy of the bedroom, about the blood sample he took, the rapid-result tests that say I’m clean enough to fuck bareback. Dr. Patel numbed my arm for the birth control thing. My fingers keep finding the little matchstick he left under my skin, the only proof I won’t have a baby for the next three years.
Dr. Patel didn’t say a word about theFuck Youon my chest. He just told me to use condoms for a week. He said to call if I feel sick, if I’m worried about anything at all.
The things I’m worried about can’t be helped by a feckin’ doctor.
“Your grandmother is settling in?” Wolf adds scoops of potatoes and carrots to his plate.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t need to know that Granny and I spent the afternoon laughing about our last trip to County Donegal. That she taught Ms. Sutton how to swear in Irish. That she cast on a new scarf before she nodded off about an hour ago, clearly worn out from all the excitement of the last few days.
“Help yourself,” Wolf says, gesturing to the food now that his plate is full.
“I’m not hungry,” I repeat tightly. I don’t even try to make my lie sound like the truth. This isn’t about making Wolf believe me. It’s about showing I’m in control.
“I’m not asking,” he says, the way he says everything—with absolute certainty that he’s correct. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t react, not one tiny bit.
Game on.
I’ll be happy if I win. But I’ll bethrilledif he gets the better of me. I press my legs together to still the sudden pulse at the V of my thighs.
What are you going to do?I start to say.Force-feed me?But then Iremember hanging from that iron cross, staring at the bamboo cane on its shelf and fighting the drumbeat of my thudding heart—right before he ordered me not to top from below.
Lesson feckin’ learned.
“Jaysus,” I say, spreading my hands on either side of my plate. “No one’s keeping you fromyoursupper.”
“One,” he says.
“Back to counting, are you? Well, here’s a thought: I’m an adult. I decide when I’ll eat and when I won’t eat.”
“Two.”
A hummingbird takes flight inside my belly. It has nothing to do with my brain. Nothing to do with what I know about right and wrong. It’s part of the animal-me, the bare-bones me, the me that melted in Wolf’s bed in Boston, that found myself chained in his dungeon last night and liked it.
No.
Lovedit.
I push my chair back from the table.
“You will not leave this room,” he says. His voice is as even as a board.
