“I know,” he agreed. “I owe you a trip to the cabin.”
Just hearing the words was enough to make my blood heat and my skin prickle with anticipation. I tipped my head back against the edge of the chair and stared up at the sky, more blue and orange now than the purple and gray of the pre-sunrise. It felt like it had been a lifetime since we’d been in the cabin.
Things had been so different then.
I hadn’t known Sage, beyond knowing that I wanted him to no longer exist, but I’d been so wrong. That first weekend we spent together, he’d given me exactly what I needed when I didn’t even understand it myself. I’d thought I wanted to get hurt. That I wanted to bleed. And Sage had hurt me, he had made me bleed, but he’d also flayed me open. He’d made me vulnerable, but only in his eyes.
After he touched me, I’d become stronger for it, even as I knelt before him. Even as I let him torture and manipulate me for his pleasure. Sage had changed everything, and in turn—for him—I’d done the same. Even if it had been unintentional. Because of me, Sage stepped into the responsibility he’d been born for, the rules and the life he hadn’t thought he wanted until he tasted it. He’d taken control of his family, his destiny…he’d taken control of me.
“Can we go today?” I asked, a tingling itch festering beneath my skin.
“Is someone hungry to get fucked?”
“You fuck me here,” I said.
“I fuck you wherever I want,” he corrected. “I debase you there. I abuse you there.”
A shiver tore its way through my body, and I set my coffee on the arm of the chair so I didn’t break the mug.
“You like that,” he observed. “You want me to take you to the mountains and make you my own personal fuck toy?”
“You’re killing me,” I groaned, palming my quickly growing erection through my sweats.
“I could.”
I inhaled a sharp breath.
Sage was looking at me. I could feel the weight of his stare, and I knew he was serious. He could kill me if he wanted, and so often I allowed him the space to render me completely bound and useless. I let him deprive me of my senses, my control, my voice…my power.
“I know,” I whispered. “But you wouldn’t.”
I turned to face him, to look at the man I loved, and my breath caught in my throat. Sage was handsome, almost unfairly so, with thick brown hair and those dark eyes that had always seen straight through me, but the way he looked at me…
“I wouldn’t,” he agreed, even though his eyes reminded me he could.
If he wanted.
“Jesus, Golden.” Sage laughed under his breath. “You look like you’re going to come in your pants.”
I arched a brow and blew out a shaking breath, tearing my stare away from him.
“We can go today,” he said.
Relief washed through me, like if we could somehow make it to the cabin, no phones, no guns, and get the doors locked, everything would change. We wouldn’t be who we were, or we wouldonlybe who we were. Sage Rosetti and Foster Golden. None of the strings or the attachments. None of the threats.
All of the promise.
All of the destruction.
“I want to,” I told him, pushing my weight out of the chair and closing the few feet between us. He spread his legs and I kneeled between them. I kneeledforhim. “I want to breathe again.”
He carded his fingers through my hair, testing the truth of my words by yanking my head around in whatever direction pleased him. I closed my eyes and went limp beneath his grip.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his touch going soft. He worked his fingers through my curls and I could have purred for how good it made me feel. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I looked up at him, and his fingers trailed down my face, cradling my cheek. I turned my head to the side and kissed his palm, resting against him.
“I’m positive,” I answered. “This…whatever it is, it feels right.”
