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"I'm not playing, pet," he firmly states, just like he did the other night.
Butterflies go crazy in my stomach. Still, I don't give in to them. I remind him, "It's your rule."
Frustration fills his expression. He claims, "Then I should be allowed to break it."
I take a sip of coffee, still tapping my fingers on the mug, wanting to agree but unable to. There are too many questions I still have and just as many explanations I need. And I don't know if I'll ever get answers that will make things right for me—make things right between us. So I question, "Why do you have the rule?"
He takes a deep breath and slides his hand over my cheek, tracing his thumb over my lips and assessing me with his darkening expression. He answers, "It's to make sure that subs are okay. If you use your safe word, I've gone too far. So it's a cooling-off period for my sub and me."
"So other people need it, but I don't?" I question.
He opens his mouth and snaps it shut. He shakes his head. "I don't mean it like that."
"But you mean I don't need it, and other people do," I repeat.
He releases his hand from my cheek and says, "You aren't like anybody else, pet. Don't you know that?"
I don't answer, wanting to believe that's a good thing but fighting with my self-confidence. It always pops up whenever I think about Riggs with any of his previous subs.
He adds, "I don't think I'm like anybody else either. It's probably why we fit so well together. So maybe these rules I created for others aren't for you. Maybe we need to make new rules."
"Why would we do that?" I ask, afraid of what that means. I like the rules. They're not guidelines. They're boundaries for Riggs and me. And something tells me that we need them.
He answers, "I don't feel like you need the seventy-two-hour rule, nor do I. Not in this situation."
"Well, that's convenient," I say, upset that he wants to get rid of the rules.
He crosses his arms, questioning, "Why did you snap at me?"
I scrub my hand over my forehead, keeping it on the top of my head, and confess, "All I've ever wanted to be is good enough for you—no, better than everybody else. If we don't have rules, what does that make me? Does it mean you think I can't handle them?"
He furrows his eyebrows. "No, not at all. I'm saying you aren't like the others, and I don't want the others. Don't you know that by now? I married you, not any of them."
I blink hard, revealing, "I don't know, Riggs. I still don't know if you married me because of me—because you really did love me—or if it was to get back at my father."
Disappointment fills his features. He scowls. "You don't think I love you?"
"I want to believe you do. But every day, I think about what you did, and I wonder how everything we had could have been real."
Regret bursts into his eyes. He swallows hard and lowers his voice. "I'm sorry I did what I did. It was a mistake."
I point out, "But you didn't have any issues putting the recording on last night. Are you going to send that to my father too?"
His eyes widen. "Is that what you think?"
I hurl, "What am I supposed to think?"
"I thought it would make you say the safe word so we could go home. I didn't want to be in that room. All I wanted was to bring you home, where we could be alone," he reveals.
I stay quiet, pondering his statement, trying to make sense of this entire nightmare.
He grinds his molars, staring at me, making me more confused than ever. Then he pulls out his phone.
"What are you doing?" I question.
He holds up a finger. "Just give me a minute." He swipes on the screen and glances around us even though we're in a secluded area. He scoots his chair even closer, slides his arm around me, and says, "Watch."
Nerves fill me. My pulse beats hard between my ears. Last night appears on his phone. I'm facing the camera on the bench, and he's behind me.
