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“Lex, Kordin tried to give me your body for practically nothing in return.”
“It’s been said before that my husband’s a generous man.” Her voice is straight deadpan, no emotion at all, but ithasto bother her knowing Kordin did that. It bothers me. A lot.
“Cyrus handed your body out to anybody willing to pay.”
All she does is take a deep inhale because we both know there’s not a generous bone in Cyrus’s body.
“Your tits were exposed to an entire nightclub and you didn’t flinch.”
She rolls her eyes, so quick I almost miss it.
“You were about to be raped and you didn’t so much as put up a fight.”
“All I had on me was a tiny blade. I had to be smart. I had to be patient. I had to wait until the right moment, when he was at his most vulnerable, or else it would’ve been for nothing. And as for my breasts, we already went over that. I don’t—”
“Care? Yeah, that’s my fucking point. You don’t care what happens to your body.”
“More like I’ve been through enough to understand public humiliation is only temporary. Physical pain is temporary. Having a man inside me that I don’t want inside me is temporary. Real torture is watching someone I care about suffer and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
“Exactly.”
The air around us turns frigid.
“Don’t do that.”
Oh, it’s too fucking late now, Snow.
“I care,” I admit.
“Do not fucking do that.”
“I care…” How deep should I go here? How deep can I go without scaring her off? I settle on saying, “About your body. As long as we’re together, nobody gets to mistreat it, not even you.”
Suddenly she’s standing, both palms planted on her desk as she leans over it, invading my personal space in a way that only makes my cock harder.
“We are not together.”
Head tilted to the side, I peer up at her and lick my bottom lip before telling her, “We’re together.”
Her scoff echoes off the glass walls. “You said you wouldn’t, but here you are, trying to make me your whore…just like they did.”
“I’m nothing like them, Lex. I don’t want you as my whore. I just want you as mine.” There. I said it. Last night should’ve clued her in, but since it didn’t, I’ll do it my-goddamn-self.
Her voice is as icy as her nickname as she grits, “I’m no man’s.”
She’s right—kind of. She hasn’t been a man’s up until now because Kordin and Cyrus aren’t real men. If they were, they wouldn’t have allowed any harm to come to her.
I get to my feet, refusing to back down on this. Looking between those Bells of Ireland eyes, I tell her, “No, you were no man’s. Now, you are. You’re mine.” Then I leave her office before she can argue.
Lex
The white Anemone Reece gave me this morning stares up at me accusingly from the bottom drawer of my desk. It’s the newest addition to my hidden floral shrine. With snowy-white petals and a black center, it’s simple yet sophisticated. Too sophisticated to be kept in a drawer, but I can’t take it home. Not anymore. Not with Kordin around. That hasn’t stopped Reece from bringing me his daily offerings the last few days. I wish he would stop as much as I wish he wouldn’t. The books I can still get use out of. As long as I wrap them in butcher paper, Kordin can’t tell the difference. He’s never paid any attention to my books, only that they’re covered discreetly and aesthetically once they enter our home.
The flowers though, I have nowhere to put them that won’t raise questions, and the thought of throwing them completely away makes my stomach cramp, so the bottom drawer it is. With no way to keep them watered, most of them are wilting already, but I prefer half-dead things. They’re far more relatable.
As usual, I researched today’s flower after Reece left my office, and the white Anemone has several meanings—both positive and negative. While I don’t know which manner Reece gave it to me in, I know which one I should want. Ishouldwant the negative, the one that stands for fading hope. It’d mean Reece is finally coming to terms with the fact that we aren’t together, that we can’t be together.
Unfortunately, as I gaze down at the delicate bloom, I find myself wanting the positive—the one that represents anticipation. Every morning Reece enters my office, I feel an impatience to be alone with him again, but not in this room where anyone walking by can see us. I want to spend hours alone with him, somewhere no one could ever find us.
