“I told you to stop. It shouldn’t have gone further than that. I wouldn’t havetakenanything from you if you had respected that.”
“But I thought you enjoyed it,” she whispers through her fingers.
Gaahhh!Fire licks up my body, starting at my feet. “It doesn’tmatterthat I enjoyed it! An orgasm is not consent, and neither was my claiming you when you gave me literally no other choice.” The word slips out—claiming—before I can consider it. “Onlyconsentis consent,” I spit, remembering my conversation with Elodie. “It should be enthusiastic and can be revoked at any time.”
Giving a choked sob, she backs up at my explosion, more tears washing her unfocused eyes. “You’re right. I didn’t realize.” She slides down the wall. “Gods, I’mhorrible.”
Giving a low, guttural roar, I spin away, hands buried in my hair. That hideous, beastly anger is choking me again, clawing through me, cleaving me into unrecognizable fragments.
An image of the letter opener lodged in Elodie’s shoulder flashes through my mind, blood seeping into her shirt. It’s enough to jar me back from letting the monstrous outrage sweep me up entirely.
“Tiss”—my name comes softly, followed by shuddering gasps as Sadrie tries to force the next words past her sobs—“it k-kills me that I hurt you like that. I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again.”
Nausea unspools through me. I drag in a bellyful of air.Breathe, Tiss. Fucking breathe.
But this room is suffocatingly small.
“I’m so ashamed that I’ve been ignoring you. I was frightened by what happened and got overwhelmed. Now I wish I’d talked to you about it—that’s what I came to say,” she snivels while I cross to the window. “But I’m glad you said the rest of it, as hard as it was to hear. I… didn’t realize how bad I was that night.”
I reach past my desk to unlatch the windowpane, throwing it open.
“Afterward, I was so wrapped up in my shock and fear, I wasn’t thinking about how everything affected you. Thinking back on it, Ihatethat I… I forced myself on you. I could just be sick.”
“Get in line,” I mutter between gulps of bracing air. “For someone so adamant about protecting me fromElodie, of all people, you wasted no time hurting me worse than she ever did.”
I’m barely clinging to my self-control, but the smothering anger is loosening its hold over me. It no longer feels like my temper is raking me over blistering coals.
“You’re right,” she says pathetically. “There was never any excuse for continuing. I was only thinking of what I wanted, and you deserved so much better.”
At her words, my righteous anger splinters into chunks that begin to crumble away. Part of me is suddenly scrambling to hang onto them, and I snap, “Good of you to acknowledge it. Took you long enough.”
“Oh, Tiss. You don’t have to forgive me, but please just know I understand how wrong it was now. If I could change what I did,I would. I just— I can’t figure out whathappened. It was as if I was under some sort of spell that night. I lost control, and it was awful of me.” Her sobs get bigger.
Light-headed from the heavy breathing with my raging temper somewhat subdued, I can’t help thinking she sounds like I did when I was apologizing my ass off to Elodie.
Gods be damned.My teeth gritting, fingertips digging into the chair back, I take another centering breath before I turn to her. “You shouldn’t have pushed me, Sadrie, but it’s complicated. There’s a reason you couldn’t control yourself.”
Huddled against my wall with her arms wrapped around her up-drawn knees, she lifts her head. “What reason?” Her voice is so small, so terribly fragile, that I’m moving toward her before I can stop myself.
How can part of me want tocomforther, of all things, when I’m still so angry and hurt and disappointed?
“When I’m strongly aroused,” I start, then drive myself to spit out the rest: “I give off chemical signals. Pheromones.”
“Pheromones?” she repeats. “Like how animals do?”
I sigh and sink to the floor in front of her. “Some women give them off too. Apparently, I’m one of them, and they seem to make me irresistible at times.” I tuck my feet under me, my emotions hovering between shame and indignation. “Arousalisn’tconsent, but—”
“I know,” she nods, her eyes bloodshot and puffy. “I’m so sorry.”
“—but I should have told you about my pheromones beforehand so that you”—gods, I’m going to cry, too, I think, as the tears well up again—“so that you would have known what you were coming up against. You might have been able to restrain yourself better if you were aware.” A sob cracks my chest, and my hands go to my face.
“Damnit,” I whisper, the depth and breadth of how deeply I might also have blundered things hitting me full force. “I should have given you the information you needed. It might have informed your decisions.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that I should have stopped,” she sniffles, her voice ragged from crying. “But that does explain things a bit.”
“I didn’t know the effect they’d have on you. Not likethat…I’m only recently realizing how dangerous I am. Elodie told me I’m powerful.”
“I should say so,” snorts Sadrie wetly, blotting the tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
