But it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to feel his soft and giving hands on me while I made myself cum. I wanted him to dominate me. To fill my brain with so much sex and lust that there would be room for nothing else.
“I don’t think I want this anymore, Scout,” he whispered, palming my hips to stop their movement. “The sex, I mean.Thissex. And I don’t think you do, either.”
I eyed him, wild and desperate. My gut agreed. Ididn’twant this sex. I was always horny for him, but right now, I wasn’t chasing sex, nor was I trying to connect with him. I was trying to do the very opposite—trying to put sex between us.
After a beat he murmured:
“Cosmos.”
Our safe word hit me like a sonic blast. I went rigid. Still. Ashamed. Conflicted.
With a press of a button, The Circler died against my pussy. He withdrew from my body, and that—that sudden emptiness, paired with his unflinching gaze looming over me—knocked free everything I’d been trying to hide from these last few minutes.
My brain’s limbic system went into overdrive, irritating my lachrymal glands.
In short, tears welled up along my bottom lids. I was on the verge of crying when Hudson moved off me and situated himself on the far edge of the back seat. I tucked my legs up, mirroring his position at the other end to give him space.
“You told me to be honest about what I want and what I don’t. Here it is. I don’t want to have sex when it’s like this.”
“Like what?” I asked, still playing dumb.
“I don’t want to be used, Scout. And I don’t want to use you.”
I swallowed hard. Blinked back the tears. Took a shaky breath. He rushed to speak again.
“Sorry if that’s the wrong thing to say. I understand if—”
“No,” I said, cutting off his self-conscious overexplanation. “It was exactly the right thing to say. It’s the truth. You should always feel safe telling me the truth. Always feel safe to be who you really are.”
And here’s the crazy thing. I meant that. I meant every word. I wanted to be the person he trusted with himself. In a world of people who he craved to please, I wanted to be the one he never worried about disappointing.
“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not,” I said, trying to reassure him.
“I’m staying as long as you’ll have me, Scout.”
My chuckle broke the air between us. “Don’t worry. I won’t call you on that. You’ll be free of me as soon as your contract’s up. You’ll never have to see my shitty parents again.”
“Whydoyou let them treat you like that?”
“Not all of us can charm everyone, Mr. Bailey.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t exactly charming tonight. They broke me with the way they talked about you. How can you stand it?”
On any other night, in any other circumstance, with anyone else, I would have given some bullshit answer about them being my parents. Honor thy mother and father and all that.
But Hudson, the people pleaser, had stood up for himself and ended bad sex between us despite how badly I claimed to want it. That meant a lot to me. That he believed in me enough to communicate his needs—which he didn’t do with really anyone else.
It told me that he cared about me. And cared about this relationship, whatever it was.
And care had a way of frightening me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m just used to it.”
“I hope you never feel that way with me, Scout. I want to be better for you. To show you that people can be better to you. Do you want that, too?”
It sounded like a proposal that went deeper than sex.
That frightened me even more than the care.
