“Yes.” I pulled his hair until he winced and stood, then I hauled him on top of me, taking us both onto the bed. He hovered over me, expression tired and angry all at the same time. I flipped him onto his back and straddled him, pinning his wrists beside his ears.
He didn’t fight me, and my cock thickened.
“I want to own you,” I told him again, “but I think I already do.”
“No,” he said again.
I pressed him harder against the sheets. “Tell me that you’re mine, Golden.”
“I hate you,” he rasped, lashes fluttering until his eyes closed.
I leaned down and buried my face in the curve of his neck, nibbling and biting and sucking until he winced, until he fought against me.
“I hate you,” he whispered again.
I let go of his hands and crawled off the bed, making sure he caught a good look at the way my hard cock tented my borrowed pants. I adjusted myself with a grunt, and Golden sat up, mussed hair falling in his face, his cheeks flushed crimson.
“I’m going home, I’m going to get my fucking car from the bar or impound or wherever it is. I’m going to find that little Molinaro twat who’s been taking meetings with my dad behind my back. I’m gonna talk tohisdad…”
My thoughts turned silent as I contemplated the things I was going to do and the people I was going to kill. I didn’t want to take over the vineyard or whatever dealings my dad had, but I didn’t want Molinaro getting his hands on it, and if I was right… if my dad was the one who’d put the hit out on me…well, he clearly couldn’t live another day.
The implications of the pending chain of events had my head spinning, and I shoved my wallet and keys into my pockets before dropping the mag back into my gun and pocketing that as well. Golden watched me in silence from the bed.
“And then what?” he asked, voice soft.
“You tell me, Golden.”
The man knew who I was, he knew what I wanted. He’d offered to put my father in the ground so I found it hard to believe he didn’t want the same things.
“I don’t want a partner,” he said, a repeat from before.
“And I told you I don’t want to be one. We’re in agreement.”
I surely wasn’t going to argue with Golden about the way a relationship between the two of us would work. We’d spent a weekend together over New Year’s, and now almost a week. Even though I’d been on good behavior most of the time this round, he knew who I was and what I was about. I didn’t do halves and I didn’t do compromise. It wasn’t in my nature and it wasn’t how I was raised. I knew what I wanted, what I deserved, and I would settle for nothing less.
Golden didn’t say anything, so I let myself out of the guest bedroom for the last time. He didn’t wait long to follow behind me, catching up to me in the living room. I sat down on the couch, jerking my head toward the door.
“Get my boots,” I told him and, fucking shit, he did.
He dropped them at my feet and folded his arms across his chest. The need to speak was written plain as day across his face, but the tension in his jaw demonstrated incredible restraint at keeping the words in his throat.
“You can put them on for me,” I said.
Golden gritted his teeth and lowered himself to his knees. With skilled fingers, he loosened the laces on my boots and helped me finish dressing. He helped me get ready to leave him.
“To your liking?” he spat the question at me.
I slapped him across the face, not hard as I wanted, but hard enough to impart my message.
“I didn’t force you to your knees.” I grabbed him and pulled him up to his feet. “I didn’t force any of this on you. We both know your safeword. So if you’re not going to use it, don’t act like you don’t like this.”
“You told me you liked the fight.” Golden threw my words at me, some of the first I’d said to him during our weekend in the cabin.
I licked the corner of my mouth, holding him against me by the throat. His face turned red, his nostrils flared, but he didn’t fight.
“Then why aren’t you?” I grunted.
“You’re alive,” he whispered. “I’m fighting every instinct in my body, every rule, everything I know about my life and my job. You’re alive because I’m so busy fighting.”
