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“I have a question for you. Just like the rule says, you have to answer it honestly, don’t you? Ready?”
“Yes…” I let my arms drop, a gesture of, if not surrender, then perhaps momentary acquiescence. He reacted in kind, the firmness of his hold upon me easing. But he made no move to let go entirely.
“What were you thinking yesterday when you were standing in front of me with your tits out?”
At first, I didn’t understand what he’d said, the question so wildly unexpected it didn’t register correctly in my brain. Then I realized he was actually serious. “What… what the fuck is that supposed to mean? What do you think I was doing? I was trying to figure out what the hell’s gotten into you. I mean, I haven’t seen you in more than eight months, and that’s practically the first thing you tell me. Part of me was wondering if you’d lost your mind.”
He studied my face for a long moment after I said it, and I couldn’t quite tell if he was angry, or intrigued, or simply amused. Maybe it was all three. He drew even closer, his nose almost touching mine, his mint-tinged breath brushing against my lips. “Bullshit. I want you to tell me what you really thought. I want you to deny that you were turned on. And before you answer, remember, you have to tell the truth.”
I chuckled bitterly then, almost shaking my head at the surreal nature of this encounter, and how quickly it had gone south. All of my plans, everything I’d intended to say, it was all going to shit. Because once again, he had surprised me right down to my bones. “You’ll have to forgive me, Nick, if I think this is a little bizarre, considering the fact you’re asking me to tell the truth while you’ve got your hand wrapped around my throat. Should I tell you the truth, or should I tell you what you want to hear? I mean, you might decide to hurt me if I say the wrong thing, right?”
He grinned, flashing me his gorgeous smile, but unlike the usual butterflies it engendered within me, this time it made me uneasy. And it sparked something else quite different deep in my belly, something I didn’t want to face at that moment. Or maybe ever.
I pressed on though, reckless though it may have been. “Is that what you want to do today? Do you want to hurt me, Nick? Remember, you have to be honest too. Don’t you?” I shouldn’t have said it, it was stupid to poke the bear, but I was intent on making him see that I wasn’t afraid of him. Even if I was, at least a little bit.
I knew in my heart though that Nick wasnotcapable of truly hurting me, not really. Angry he clearly was, along with something else dark and dangerous swirling just beneath the surface of his gaze, but a true danger to me?Never.
And that was when he surprised me yet again.
“The only thing I want to hear from you today is the truth. No matter what it is. And to answer your question, Iamgoing to hurt you today. But it’s something you need—and it’s something you deserve.”
My stomach sank into my feet at the cool, utterly calm way he’d said it. I reacted instinctively, struggling against his grip suddenly, this time truly trying to free myself from him. I twisted out of his grasp then, and as I turned away, his hand submerged in the depths of my hair, his fingers twisting in the locks. Bright, searing pain flared in my scalp as he pulled me up tight, forcing my face upward as he gripped the mass of my hair close at the base of my skull.
“We aren’t even close to done here, Eva. And if you try that again, you’re gonna regret it.” He spoke the words close at my ear, the softness of his lips just brushing the hair at my temple. “Now, I want you to answer my fucking question. And this time, you aregoingto tell me the truth.”
I lashed out at him with my right arm even though I couldn’t really see where he was precisely. I only succeeded in hitting his shoulder. He caught my wrist in his hand and twisted my arm higher up my back until my shoulder ached. I yelped then at the pain, but bit it off, determined not to give him the satisfaction of showing him that he’d hurt me.
“You’re going to pay for that—and today. But I want my answer first.” He shook me by the head sharply, and I gasped at both the sting at the roots of my hair, and at the way my head swam for a moment. “Answer me, goddammit!”
“Okay! Okay! Just fucking let me go!”
“I’m not letting you go until I’m done with you today, Eva. So you better start cooperating.”
Just say the words, and be done with this, Eva! This is nuts. He’s a fucking asshole. Why are you even giving him the time of day? Say the words, and it will be over.
But I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I just say them? Of course, even then at that moment I knew the answer, and it scared me even more than Nick’s rough handling of me. Because the answer to that question led to many more questions, all of them uncomfortable, unsettling, and shining a bright light on the fact that there was a lot more going on here than two people on the brink of separating forever.
What Ithoughtwas going on here was possibly the final reveal, even if it was too late, of what had really been going on between us for so many years. What if we were finally seeing what was there all along, something that might have changed the equation…if we’d only had the courage to acknowledge it?
Could it have been the key to avoiding everything that happened afterward? To not walking the path that led us to this sad moment in time?
“I…I wanted to see what you’d do next. Okay? I wanted to fucking see what you had planned todoto me next. But the time…the time ran out, and I could pretend that I wasn’t wondering that as I stood there in front of you.”
Shockingly, he let go of me entirely. I sighed as I flexed my arm, trying my best to fix the mess that was my hair as I flashed a baleful gaze back at him. “It doesn’t matter though, Nick. What I wondered in that moment, what I thought, doesn’t change everything that’s happened. It’s not going to fix what’s broken about us.”
His head tilted slightly as he watched me, his lips quirking in a way that always meant he was pondering something, weighing options, deciding if he wanted to plow forward with whatever it was he was going to do next.
I hated that I anticipated it. I hated that his flash of anger, feeling his strength exerted upon my body—and realizing that I was utterly helpless against him physically—had made my pussywet. My nipples were aching, hard bullets under my bra, my mouth dry, my heart pounding in my chest. I was more turned on at that moment than I’d been in a very long time with Nick. And he’d just, for lack of a better term,manhandledme. What did that say about me? And what did that say abouthim?Perhaps that was the most important question of all.
I knew though, deep down, that I wasn’t going to get an answer to that one. Instinctively, I knew too, that he wasn’t even close to being done with me. With whatever he had planned next.
Rather than say anything further, he turned and strolled, his movement maddeningly casual, over to the couch. He sat down, crossed his legs, his fingertips drumming upon the cushion next to him. The gleam of his black dress shoes caught the overhead light as his foot circled slowly. I couldn’t believe how relaxed he was. How nonchalant he seemed despite the incredible tension, and yes, fear, that had been so thick on the air you could cut it with a knife.
Now it was as if it had never happened. But I was smart enough to know that if I tried to leave, there was no way he was going to let me go. Not until our hour was up.
Not unless you say the words, stupid!
That wasn’t going to do it, though. I would see this through, and truth be told, though I didn’t want to admit it even to myself, that same question that was ringing in my head as I’d stood there in front of him yesterday, my bare tits displayed for him like a slave girl on auction, blared in my mind right now. I still wondered.
