He shakes his head and I purse my lips as disappointment gathers around me. I know he’s feeling vulnerable and emotionally exposed, but I don’t want him to hide that from me. However, I’m not sure how to articulate that without making him defensive.
Still joined, Tristano carries us to the bed and then lays me on my back. He gazes down at me and runs his hands along my hips, trailing his fingers over my belly, my breasts, and then my face. I watch him the entire time, noting the tenderness in his eyes.
Tristano loves me.
That’s the power I have over him.
It’s easy to recognize because the same is true for me when it comes to him. Even if he never says the actual words I don’t care. His actions mean more to me and they show me more than words ever could.
He joins me in bed and immediately pulls me to him so I’m lying on top of him with my hair creating a natural curtain around us. I toss the long tresses over one shoulder and then idly trace invisible circles on his skin, unsure of what to say. There are questions I want to ask, but I don’t want to ruin the tranquility of the moment.
“What are you thinking about,ribelle?”
I don’t look up when I shrug and just continue to run my fingertips along the contours of the muscles in his arms and chest. At the feel of him taking hold of my chin, I flick my gaze to his.
“Tell me,” he says.
“You first.”
I yelp at the smack to my ass.
Tristano thrums his fingers on my stinging ass cheek and gives me a pointed look. “Wrong answer.”
“This power I have over you…” I bite my bottom lip, unsure of how to voice the thoughts in my head. “You’re obviously not happy about the situation and that has me wondering if you’ll end up resenting me for it.”
“Do you carry resentment for loving me?”
“Not now, but I did hate the fact that I loved you because of the way you’d been treating me.”
He releases my chin to caress my jaw. “And if I were to treat you well? Would you still have a reason to hate it?”
“What are you trying to say? I’m not a freaking cat,” I say, my voice filling with irritation, “so you can’t just feed and water me, and maybe pet me on occasion, expecting me to be okay with that.”
Tristano gives me a lazy smile. My sex clenches and I inwardly groan. Not again. Will I ever be unaffected by him, released from the trance he’s put me in? If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.
“That is not what I meant, but thinking of my pussy wearing my collar is quite pleasant,” he says. He gently clasps my throat and then runs his thumb along the side of it, sending tendrils of pleasure through me. “What I’m asking is, if I was good to you and didn’t cause you pain, would you still feel that way about loving me?”
It takes me a moment to recover from the dirty talk he just flung my way without blinking an eye. I may not understand why that turns me on, but it totally does. I file the collar comment away for later since I don’t want to get derailed from the topic at hand.
“I don’t regret loving you,” I say.
The very millisecond the words leave my mouth he yanks me by the neck and seizes my lips. The kiss is hot and by the time he pulls away I’m disoriented all over again.
He nods. “Good, then there won’t be any problems going forward.”
“Wait.” I shake my head, trying to clear it of the lust-induced fog that’s come over me. “What?”
“Ribelle, let me put this in simple terms. You will love me until the day you die, and no matter what happens, I expect you to always come to me for anything you need. And I mean every-fucking-thing. You will not go to another man, whether it’s an hour or thirty years from now. But on the off chance you do, I’ll kill him. It’s not complicated.”
I don’t know whether to be terrified, laugh, or both.
“Silence is agreeance,” he says, the side of his mouth tilting up in a half-smile.
“Not always. Sometimes it’s pure shock.”
He laughs. “Let me know when you’ve recovered your faculties, that way you can give me your verbal agreement.”
“What is this? A wedding vow?” I make a face at him. “If so, I’d like to point out that there hasn’t been a proposal for me to consider, no asking that has occurred. And there definitely isn’t a ring or whatever else comes with marriage.”
