I swing my gaze from the ceiling to him, unable to keep my expression blank. “You’re not?”
He shakes his head, and I lie there stunned. The change I sensed is not an illusion. And I don’t know how to handle it or how to act. So I revert back to what I’m familiar with.
“Do you want me to stay outside the covers?” I ask.
He shrugs, and it contrasts with the tight set of his shoulders. “It’s your choice.”
Without a word, I slip under the sheets and then go back to staring into nothingness, hoping my mind makes sense of all this. I don’t know what I’m waiting for exactly. Maybe I think he’ll change his mind, or maybe this is just another one of his games. It’s hard to say, since I can’t understand the motives for his behavior. Like caring for me after sex? I wouldn’t have thought that a possibility in a million years let alone tonight. So what prompted him? Guilt is the only answer I can come up with, and even that doesn’t resonate fully.
He turns off the lights in the room with the remote on his nightstand and then faces me. “If you leave this bed without asking me for permission, I’ll assume it’s with the intention to take my gun and shoot me. Are we clear?”
I glance at him. “Yes.”
Darkness eats up most of the room, and my ears quickly become attuned to the subtle noises drifting about. The one that has my attention is Maximus’s breathing. It’s slow and even, and I listen to it for a long while, waiting for sleep to overtake me. That’s why I readily pick up the sound of him shifting on the mattress. What I don’t expect is for him to grab me.
My strangled cry hits the air when Maximus snakes an arm across my middle and pulls me to him. He tucks me to the length of his body, looming over me with his head propped on his hand, his hair askew and draped over his cheeks.
“Relax,” he whispers, the low vibrations transferring to me where we touch.
I stare up at him with wide eyes, somewhat able to make out his features in the dark. My heart races, and I lie pressed up against him, stiff as a board. He glides his thumb back and forth over the smooth expanse of my stomach, just below my ribs. No more words are given and none received, yet an unspoken message travels between us as he lies back down and adjusts me so that my back is flush to his chest. I bite my lip at the feel of his semihard cock, waiting for him to take me again.
Instead Maximus wraps his arm around me, anchoring me in place, and then buries his face in my hair. He inhales deep, and the tip of his nose follows the back of my neck until his mouth is at the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. His lips graze the skin there, and I swallow the sigh in my throat. Was that a kiss? A show of affection?
“Keeping you like this will dissuade you from making a choice that could get you killed,” he says. “That’s why I have you in this hold.”
I’d believe that if he didn’t tighten his grip on me and nuzzle the side of my neck before drifting to sleep, his hand resting on the area directly above my heart.
Emilia
Abreath of air stirs my lashes, and my eyes flutter open.
The disorientation of sleep surrounds me like a fog, and the warmth seeping into me threatens to pull me under the lull of repose once more. I glance down to find the source of the heat: Maximus’s arm draped across my chest, his palm covering one of my breasts. He releases another breath, and the tiny current grazes my face.
With great care and slowness, I turn to look at him, and my heart leaps at the sight. The hard lines usually present around his eyes and mouth are gone, giving him a more relaxed expression. Without the ever-present tension and anger, he’s less a fallen angel and more a man—a human who is far from perfect but still clings to redemption.
Waking up in his bed this way cannot be any more opposite to the last time.
Yesterday I was a literal prisoner, tied to the bed after being used for his pleasure, which inadvertently brought about my own.
Today…I’m being held prisoner in a display of possession but without negative connotation. And last night I was given pleasure, not used for it.
Yesterday I was a mistress, and today I feel like a wife.
The dynamic has shifted, but will that change? Will it revert to how it was?
I inhale deep and release the breath slowly, attempting to organize my thoughts. What happened shouldn’t matter because it won’t erase who I am to Maximus or his apparent hatred for my father. However, I can’t say I’ll leave this bed unaffected. If anything, I can almost guarantee that leaving unscathed is as unlikely as Maximus falling in love with me.
Would I even want that?
I want love, but Maximus doesn’t know how to give it. And the truth is I may not know how to receive it even if he did.
Shoving that notion aside, I go back to my original musings. What will happen now? My heart flutters in my chest at the idea of him treating me the way he did last night. And my heart threatens to crack at the notion of him going back to wanting to hurt me.
That shouldn’t matter.
He shouldn’t matter.
But…he does.
