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“Do what?” I whisper, afraid to break the spell. His heat soaks into me, wrapping me up in a cocoon I never want to leave.
“I wasn’t going to touch you,” he says gruffly, letting his chin rest on my head. “Not tonight. Not until we talked.” He lets out a sigh that ruffles my hair. “But that tells me more about what I’m dealing with here. You’re going to take an order and follow it explicitly, even if you don’t have gloves and it’s twenty degrees outside.”
My anxiety bubbles back up. I don’t want to lose this chance to get closer to him, not so soon. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. That’d be like me expecting Sheba to be sorry that she loves to chase her ball. That’s who she is. I’m sorry I sent you out there in the dead of winter without ensuring you were prepared.”
He holds me until I’m drowsy and relaxed. If I were a cat, I’d be purring.
He touches his mouth to my ear. “What are you afraid of?”
I squeeze my eyes shut but I can’t refuse him anything, even the ugly truth. “Of scaring you off.”
He lets out a startled sound, a mix between a laugh and a groan. “What could possibly scare me off, when every time I see you it’s all I can do not to put a collar on your pretty throat and bring you home?”
My ears buzz and I have to take several short, shallow breaths to get my brain working again.He knows.
He cut straight to the heart of what I want the most.
“You look at me like you want to be owned, yet in the same moment, you challenge me by refusing to say my name or look me in the eyes, as if you’re trying to get me to exert my will and declare my interest. Then I barely speak to you, and you retreat so fast I have no idea what happened. The things I see in your eyes, Ranay…” He breathes into my ear. “Today at the clinic, what were you thinking about before that woman came out with her cat?”
I hesitate, the tips of my ears crisping.
“Tell me,” he commands in that low rumbling voice that shakes me to my core.
“I wanted to blow you. Right there. I didn’t even care if Dr. Wentworth came out and fired me.”
He squeezes me harder and chuckles. “I can see how she might disapprove of such graphic and public displays of affection.”
I can’t help but laugh with him, though I don’t lift my face from his chest. I don’t want him to see how embarrassed and turned on I am. Not embarrassed by the thought of getting caught...but that I'd do it simply because he told me, even knowing there would be consequences. Turned on, definitely, because I’m finally touching him. Finally letting him see what I try so hard to hide.
“I would have to admit to some inappropriate images of you sprawled on that counter or on your knees in the break room, and that’s only what I thought about today. We won’t get into the other twenty or so times I’ve made a frivolous appointment for Sheba so I could see you.”
Giddy that he’d been trying to get to know me too, I turn my palm so I can twine my fingers with his.
“I think we can agree that we find each other mutually attractive. You’ve been hiding, denying what you are. Denying what you need. So I have to ask, who hurt you, Ranay?”
My fingers convulse tightly around his but he doesn’t complain. He lifts my hand, lightly kisses my knuckles, and then places my palm on his chest over his heart. I fist my hand in his shirt, but I don’t try to jerk away from him. I know what he’s going to do. I want it, even though I fear it.
His fingers settle beneath my chin, and he tips my face up to his.
I don’t close my eyes, although his searching intensity makes my chest seize up so hard I’m afraid my heart will burst with effort. It feels like my blood has turned to concrete in my veins, cold and hard and heavy. No matter how badly this ends for me, I have to have more of this. I have to do everything in my power to have a chance with him. Even if I end up broken again.
“Talk to me,” he whispers, his voice achingly gentle despite the command. “Tell me what happened. I need to know so I don’t make the same mistakes.”
I blink rapidly, trying to adjust to the mental and emotional shift of how effortlessly he took control. My body has temporarily forgotten how to function on its own.
“When you give yourself, you give all the way. You don’t hold anything back.”
I manage to nod a little, still not able to find my voice. He pulls away enough to get my glass and lifts it to my lips so I can take a drink. At last I’m able to speak. “Some men can’t handle that. It’s too much responsibility. Too… creepy.”
His eyes narrow at my word choice, the first time he’s ever let me see displeasure. It isn’t a look I care to earn again. “It’s not creepy. It’s not too much responsibility, either, if the man is dominant enough.” He lowers his voice and leans in close enough his nose almost touches mine. “And I promise you, Ranay, I’m dominant enough to handle you.”
I will never doubt my instincts again about how dominant he is. My focus narrows to the two dark eyes blazing at me, his will enveloping me like a steel fist. The words jerk out of me, as if I’m not speaking under my own power.
“Nobody hurt me. I hurt myself. I’ve always been too much. Too emotional. Too obsessive. Too attached. I get crushed too easily. I couldn’t date in high school without ending up a basket case because he looked at someone else or blew me off at lunch. I just can’t handle casual dating and flirting. It got worse in college. I experimented and found that I like an edge of danger. I ended up falling for a guy who’d been kicked off the football team. My family hated him. They were afraid he’d beat me up or even kill me, but he wouldn’t hurt me even a little.”
“Not like you wanted.”
