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“Just for that,” he growls as I fight the urge to tell him his parents will come out looking for us behind this hedge if we don’t get in there fast. “I’m going to make you say it before you get to taste me.”
“Okay, we really need to stop now before all the blood leaves my brain and I lose the ability to speak.”
The glow in his pale eyes feels like liquid honey. “Let’s make a game,” he says. “The more intolerable they are, the more we laugh… not out loud, but inside. To each other.”
“Okay.”
“And the harder I’ll fuck youlater.”
I curse in pleasure as he groans the last word, transforming from the civilized and respectable man in his designer suit to the wolfman that hides inside him.
“I’ll definitely be reminding myself that you said that as we’re eating.” He pulls me towards the gate and I stop him. “Will anyone else be there?”
“My brother and sister may make an appearance towards the end of the night, apparently.”
“How old are they again?”
“Tyrion’s twenty-five, a couple of years older than you. Elise is twenty-seven.”
“So, two years younger than you?”
He nods, staring at my lips as if he wants to devour them.
“Do your parents act the same way with them as they do to you?”
He pauses for a moment, the mauve around his eyes darkening. “No. They don’t.”
“Because you’re the eldest?”
“There are lots of reasons. I'm quite different from my siblings. I… suspect they’d rather I wasn’t.”
“Why do—?” I stop, drawing in a stiff breath as I remind myself not to pressure him.
I know the hell I go through being estranged from my abusive mother. As much as it’s the only path that can ever lead to me healing, respecting myself or even thinking I’m worth something, the path is still littered with self-doubt, guilt and loneliness, and the demon that whispers to you on lonely nights when you can’t sleep, telling you it wasn’t all that bad and she’s still your mother, when deep down you know she was the person who has hurt you more than any other in your life.
“You’re wondering why I still see them, aren’t you?” His face is sober, the skin pallid.
I shake my head quickly, but before I can speak, he does. “They’re… the only vague remnants of a family I have left. I… I don’t know how to walk away. Not yet, anyway.”
I reach for the underside of his hand. “Stop. You don’t have to explain. We’re all doing things on our own timeline.”
“I've never been asked by a woman how I feel about my family before.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head, his brown hair flopping over his golden forehead, hiding the deep scar etched into it. “I want to be asked these questions. I feel… safe with you, Indigo.”
His words render me mute for a moment. I haven’t felt safe with myself for so long. Even sitting still with my own thoughts is hard some days. Memories of things I've experienced bubble up and I find myself distracted and unable to focus, needing to turn on a movie or listen to a podcast to escape from the ghosts haunting me. Yoga is the only respite I get and even then, there are days when the silent focus of it feels like torture.
I need to feel safe with myself. For him. For me.
“I feel safe with you too… when your alphahole isn’t out of control.”
His stunning almond-shaped eyes taper up at the corners. “Ready?”
“No, but let’s do it anyway.”
He takes hold of my hand, interlocking his fingers and walking me in that possessive way of his which feels like I'm being carried along by a powerful ocean current.
