The words hit like a physical slap.
Like he reached across the space and struck me.
"What?"
"Your things will be moved here within the hour. To my room. You'll sleep here from now on. In my bed. Where I can see you. Where I can make sure you don't get any more ideas about running."
"No. Vaughn, no, you can't?—"
"I can and I fucking will. You proved tonight that you can't be trusted with freedom. Can't be trusted with choices. Can't be trusted with anything except what I give you. So now you get none of it. No more guest room. No more privacy. No more illusion of independence."
Tears burn behind my eyes. Hot, angry, and desperate. "Please. Please don't do this."
"Strip. Or I do it for you. Your choice. Though we both know you don't really have choices anymore, do you?"
I reach for my jeans with shaking hands that can barely work the button.
It unfastens after three tries, and I peel the wet denim down my legs in an awkward, ungraceful motion that makes me feel even more vulnerable.
The jeans are difficult to remove—the fabric clings to my skin, heavy with water, resisting every tug.
I finally get them off and kick them aside.
I stand here in just my underwear, plain white cotton.
Nothing sexy or alluring.
Just practical undergarments that feel completely inadequate now.
My arms are wrapped around myself, and I’m shivering violently.
From cold. From fear.
From the knowledge that everything just changed and there's no going back to the careful dance we were doing before, the pretense that I had any power in this dynamic.
Vaughn's eyes travel over me slowly.
Deliberately.
Not with lust exactly—though that's there too, unmistakable in the way his gaze lingers on my breasts, my hips, my thighs.
But more than that.
With possession.
With the look of a man examining property he owns.
Cataloging what belongs to him.
Making an inventory of his acquisition.
"Bra too."
"Vaughn—"
"Now, Eden. Don't make me repeat myself. I won't ask again. The next time I have to tell you to do something, there will be consequences you won't like."
I reach behind me with numb fingers and unhook my bra with hands that barely work, fumbling with the clasp.
