“Possessiveness.”
I stay silent.
“The possessiveness is very appealing. And the kidnapping thing, well, I like the idea.”
My body clenches up and, at her next words, loosens again.
“Will you do the kidnapping?”
“Guess you’ll just have to see,” I say, working hard to keep the happiness from my voice. The possessiveness that seemed messed up and wrong a second ago settles in a new way that feels right.
“Okay.” She sounds happy and I feel…fuck, I feel amazing. “And you?”
“I what?”
“You’d be okay with, you know, what I asked for? A second person?” She swallows audibly. “I mean, I made a big stink about the…video. Seems a little hypocritical for me to fantasize another person in a scene.”
“Not the same thing at all,” I say, my gut churning with the mix of excitement and jealousy her words stir up. “I…I shouldn’t have done that. It was cheating. This is a scene. It’s consensual, planned out. Agreed to by all parties. The other guy and I will have limits, too, you know? We can safe word.”
She seems to consider. “Okay. But you’re truly okay with it?”
“It’s complicated, okay? The way I feel about you is…” I blow out a long breath, my feelings all over the place. “As long as I’m in charge and it’s clear that you’re mine and… I get off on it, too, you know? Like the jealousy thing, the fact that they can touch you, if I let them, but you’re mine.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, sounding almost amazed. “Yours.”
“The brat thing, too. It feels right with you, you know? Just pushes it up a notch. Makes it more dangerous. Makes you and me and our scenes feel edgier,” I say. “Where’d that come from? You born a brat?”
I hear the smile in her voice. “I don’t know. It’s just…the way I am.” A pause. “With you.”
With you.Her words run through me like alcohol. Oxygen. “I like it.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean,” I huff out a laugh. “It drives me wild. Makes me want to break shit. But also.” My hips press forward, showing her how hard I’ve gotten, just thinking about her natural kinkiness and brattiness. “Also, I’ve never been hotter. And I’ve played with a lot of brats. Usually, they just annoy me.”
“Okay.”
“You’re right, though. About the chemistry. We’ve got that.”
“We do.”
I blow out a breath. “I’ll admit that it, um, freaks me out a little.”
“And yet you married me.”
“Yeah. That was…”
She waits. I consider, then finally shrug as I let the truth out. “I wanted you to be mine. Even if it wasn’t real.”
Her body stiffens. “Wow.” After a second, she inhales and goes on. “Why? I still don’t get it.”
Oh, here it is. The precipice. The danger zone. Alarm bells and flashing red lights and the calm, radio voice countdown, such a contrast to the alien invasion or approaching bomb or whatever’s about to wreak its destruction in this scene.
What’s worse? If I tell her the truth or brush her off?
The way I feel right now, open and raw and pared down to something more basic than I’ve been in decades, there is no choice.
“What you said about my acting, that I’m all surface?”
