“You’re sore. You’re tired. It sounds like you’re begging to be punished, and it’s my decision when you’ve had enough,” he steps toward me again, close enough that I can see the faint shadows under his eyes. “Would you like me to punish you? Is that it?”
I clench my jaw. “I don’t need anything from you. Your constant silence is betrayal enough.”
On some level, it’s clear he cares for me. I feel it in the way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking, in the way he remembers how I take my coffee, or how he knew I’d be sore this morning. There’s affection there, buried beneath layers of obsession and control. But Hayden doesn’t know how to care in any way that feels normal.
I don’t think he’s ever lived in a world where a woman needs attention. He doesn’t understand softness unless it’s given to him in silence or submission. He doesn’t understand nurturing. He only knows how to possess. How to tend to his little pet.
Even now, standing in this kitchen where he looks impossibly human, shirtless, barefoot, coffee mug in hand, he’s a fortress. Beautiful, cold, impenetrable. He gives pieces of himself in measured doses, like affection is a luxury good he can’t afford to offer too freely.
He looks down at me, still so calm it’s infuriating. That perfectly blank expression he always wears when he wants to make you feel like the irrational one. But something is flickering beneath it—a crack.
Frustration, maybe. Or restraint.
Like he’s holding something back, words, reactions, truths I’m not ready to hear. Or worse, truths he isn’t prepared to say.
“Your uncle wasn’t available,” he says finally.
“And why wasn’t he available, Hayden?”
His jaw tightens. Barely. But I catch it.
“It’s the only answer I’m giving you right now,” he says, calm and clipped.
I take a step back, not because I’m afraid, but because I need air. I need space from the weight of him, the stillness, the lack of concern. From the things I feel for him that are clouding my judgment.
He doesn’t follow.
And somehow, that feels worse than if he had grabbed my wrist and dragged me back to him. Because this version of him, the one who doesn’t need to chase, who knows I’ll come back anyway, that’s the one who scares me most.
I stop at the threshold of the room, coffee forgotten in my hand. I could walk away. I should walk away.
But I don’t.
I whip back around, spinning on my heel, my voice sharper now, throat tight with something I don’t want to name. “Was he unavailable because of somethingyoudid?”
His gaze lifts to mine, slow and deliberate.
Silence stretches between us like a fuse waiting to catch.
“Be careful,” he says softly, but it’s not a warning; it’s a reminder. Of who he is, of what I already know.
I step closer instead. “No.Yoube careful.” My tone conveys more emotion than I’d like: “I gave you everything last night. I let you inside me, and I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t fight you on the drug, or the control, or the fact that you treat affection like a power play. I let you win.”
My voice is shaking, but my spine is straight.
“So now I want the truth. You owe me that much. I have let you keep so much from me.”
He watches me. Completely still. No reaction, no emotion.
I almost scream.
And then, he says it.
“Yes.”
Just that. One syllable. Flat. Unapologetic.
The silence after it is deafening.
