SWNOVELS Chapter 70
“Really? Then how come I just did?” I whispered against his pectoral and he slapped my a*s hard and for a split second I thought I was in big trouble but then caught the smile on his face and the twinkle in his eyes. I had a face-splitting grin on my face that I couldn’t hide. I looked up at him and he rubbed my bottom where he’d just spanked me. He was looking at me so tenderly I thought my heart might burst.
After what felt like forever, locked in one another’s gaze, he rolled onto his back a few inches away from me but was still looking at me, though now his expression was unreadable. I flushed under his scrutiny.
He looked up at the ceiling, finally, and I studied the black tribal tattoo patterns on his arm up to his shoulder. Points, curls, swirls. I looked back at his face. His eyes were still fixed on the ceiling.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“They tried to take you from me and I had to make them pay. They paid. Anyone who tries to take you from me will pay,” he was silent for a moment. I snuggled into him, chewing my cheek, and started to trace the patterns on his shoulder with my finger.
Then he continued, “You need to know that life with me won’t be all ice cream with a cherry on top and walks on the beach at sunset. It can’t be. You need to know that sometimes you’re gonna hate my guts because of my need to control everything and because I might take my frustrations out on you in here.”
I let out a long slow breath.
He went on, “I’m depraved, Claire and I have a bad temper. I want to own you and control you and I wanted that the minute I was told it was mine but now that you are, you surprised me; I surprised me. I want to make you feel good, too, make you feel safe with me, safe enough to give yourself to me, to wanna be mine. I’ve never wanted that. I want it so much.”
“I feel safe right now and you just made me feel very good” I whispered, my admission sending chills across my whole body. He gave me a squeeze.
“I know you didn’t choose this but I can’t give you up. I won’t. Don’t ever, ever ask me to. After things settle down I’ll give you everything, give you a life you’ll want, but with me. But baby, you have to take all of me and there are parts of me you won’t want. Know that other than that, I’ll give you everything you want, everything. Everything except freedom from me.”
Wow. It was beautiful and awful and f****d up all at the same time. Kind of like him. I was speechless.
He leaned over me, looking at my face, seeing that I was absorbing what he was saying to me. He looked like he wanted me to say something, or like he wanted to say more, I wasn’t sure. Finally he said, “I have to go. I have to deal with the fall out of Mexico and everything else. Please be a good girl; don’t give me any extra stress today. I need to deal with this and then tomorrow I’ll take the day for us and we’ll go do something together, okay? I have a special place I wanna take you.” He tucked hair behind my ear.
I poked the tip of his nose, “You don’t have to worry about me getting into aaaany trouble. I don’t think I can even walk after that, super-fast…” I thrust my fist into the air the way that he’d done before we had s*x, “thing that took at least an hour there.”
He laughed a hearty big-smiled laugh that made him so beautiful to behold I felt it in my stomach like a little pang of something between butterflies and pain. I gently tapped his cheek with my palm and closed my eyes and yawned.
“Hmm, now I know what I’ve gotta do daily to keep my girl in line. Good to know. I’ll bring you some coffee and food since I’ve rendered you crippled and then I‘ve gotta go. Take a long bath and soak those muscles, sweet baby girl. I’ll be back for more later and I can guarantee I won’t be as quick as this time.” He winked again, squeezed my rear end lightly, and got out of bed.
I smiled as he left and then my heart sank. It sank painfully, like a weighed down cloud that wanted to float but couldn’t. I felt pretty darn conflicted right now. He took
a shower and left the room dressed in a charcoal gray suit with black shirt and black tie and was clean shaven. Damn, he was beautiful. Beautiful and complicated and scary-intense.
He returned a few minutes later with a mug of coffee and a toasted bagel with cream cheese plus an orange cut into wedges, “Have a good day,” he said into my hair after he kissed me.
“You, too,” I said and smiled shyly at him as he left. I think I stared off into space for what might’ve been hours. Thinking about my family, about Mexico, about the terrifying car ride with him before I was kidnapped, about the many layers of Azriel Clarke, about my participation in the little s*x games this morning. My coffee and bagel were both tepid by the time I snapped back to the here and now.