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“I thought everything about us was a good thing.”
I all but flinch with the past tense. “And now?”
“I’m not the one who walked away,” she reminds me. “Forget I said that. We need, I need, to stop talking about why you left. I’m done talking about why you left. I need this to be about—”
“You know why I left. I was—”
“That’s why we need to stop talking about this. Because I swear to you that if you say that you were protecting me, you’re going to royally piss me off, Rick Savage.” Her fingers dig into my arm. “Never mind. Too late. I’m pissed. I trusted you like I have never trusted anyone in my life. You know that, right?”
“And then I left,” I say.
“And then you never came back.”
And now, nothing feels real to her. We don’t feel real to her. In other words, she doesn’t trust me anymore. She also doesn’t give me time to reply. She tries to move away. I hold her firm, my legs, my body, encasing hers. “Candy, baby, I—”
“Don’t ‘Candy, baby’ me. You say trust you. You say hate you. You say a lot of things that confuse me, Rick. I can’t be confused right now. I need something real. Do something real. Either let me go or spank me. Choose. Choose now.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Savage
Do something real.
In other words, give her a reason to trust me.
Fuck me, I’ve hurt her. I’ve burned her. And still, she gives me this gift. She offers me her vulnerability and dares me to deserve that trust. This is what she needs. It’s what I fucking need, too.
“I should be honorable and tell you that I want your trust,” I say, “but not like this, not with my hand. But you see, baby, I stayed away for a reason. I knew if I ever touched you again, I’d want all of you. I’d want to own you and I wouldn’t give a shit about the price. So, yes, I’m going to spank you.”
“You think me submitting during sex means you own me?” she challenges.
“One night at a time, baby.”
“One night at a time, until you ruin me?”
“And then some,” I assure her. “There’s no saving you now.” Just to be sure she’s clear on that fact, I scoop her up and start walking.
She doesn’t object. She holds onto me. I want to believe she’ll hold on forever, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. Who am I kidding? I know we’re not fucking there yet, which is why we’re not doing this in the kitchen. This isn’t about sex. It’s about us, it’s about our relationship, our connection, the intimacy we have shared, the past come back to life. That means our bedroom.
The place we started and ended days together. The place we talked for hours. The place where we did naughty, kinky things to each other. Okay, I did naughty, kinky things to her more than she did to me. But it was here where the most intense moments were shared.
Once there, I find a small lamp by her bedside alight, casting the room in a dim yellow hue, shadows dancing on the walls with our movements. Shadows that taunt me with everything I’ve hidden from Candace and can no longer hide if I want to make this work. And I do.
I set her down on the floor in front of the mattress, her back to my front. My hand is on her belly, my erection at her hip. My lips at her ear. “Do you think you’re ready to trust me again?”
Her hand goes to my hand as if she’s trying to control where it goes, to hold it there, and yet, she leans into me. “We’ll find out now, won’t we?”
I stroke her hair, and lean in, my lips at her ears. “You know that if you—”
“Say no you’ll stop,” she supplies for me. “And therefore, I have the control only we both know that I never had control. You did.”
The accusation in those words undo me.
Words that bleed pain.
I turn her in my arms and my hand slides under her hair, to her neck. “You were always in control,” I say. “Why do you think vodka makes me talk about you? Eight years later, vodka still makes me talk about you. You have the control. You’ve always had the control.”
“You didn’t come back because you wanted to come back, Rick. You came back because Tag forced your hand. I can’t, I won’t, go down this path again with you. You want to spank me? Spank me. Sex is something we’ve proven we still do well, but no promises. No talking. No pretending. Just sex.”
Suddenly, I’m not sure she’s giving me trust at all. I catch her wrists and hold them between us, beating down the anger rising inside me. “Just sex? That’s what you want?”
