It punched me through the chest and squeezed my heart in a vise. Yet, still I said, “It’s just a spanking, Aspen.” I somehow clung to my decision and hardened my words.
“Just a spanking?” she repeated slowly. As if taking the time to taste them before they left her lips would cause them to make more sense.
“Yeah.” I looked away, my mind struggling to form a response when she stared at me like that. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“How can you say that?” she asked, sadness clouding her features.
When I didn’t respond, she abruptly stood and walked out.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 17
LUCIAN
Ifollowed her and rounded the door to the hall when she whirled around, stepping into my space, pushing me back until I bumped against the wall—caging me.
“It means everything when you touch me,” she declared. “It’s not nothing. It’s trust. It’s comfort. It’s everything. It’s…us.”
She cracked, releasing a high-pitched, tinkling laugh that rode the edge of sanity. It mimicked the building sound that lingered in my head since I first decided to put space between us. Quieter than the alarms that alerted me to danger, but growing louder with each passing moment.
But I didn’t understand because I was safe. This was the right choice.
Still, her words plagued me.
Trust. Comfort.
Us.
I swallowed the lump clogging my throat and pushed on—pushed past the annoying, persistent hum. I couldn’t acknowledge every alarm, so I stuck with the ones that got me this far in life.
“It’s. Just. Spanking,” I confirmed, standing firm with my hands fisted in my pockets. “I told you this from the beginning.I warned you that this kind of relationship could lead to a false connection that feels like more than it is. I warned you not to believe it because I would never be able to give that to you.”
“I know what you said.” She paced away before turning back. “But these last few months?—”
“Haven’t changed anything. I meant what I said.”
“Yeah, well, you also said you wanted a real marriage—that you would never cheat.”
“And I’m not,” I objected. I rolled my eyes—anything to avoid the pain shining in hers.Safe. Safe. Safe.I scoffed. “It’s not like I’m offering to fuck someone. It’s just spa?—”
“Stop saying that,” she screeched, snapping. She raised her hands in frustration as if fighting the need to cover her ears and block out my words. “It’s not just spanking. It may have started that way between us because you wanted to help calm me down, and we both enjoyed it, but it’s so much more than that now. It’s been so much more for a while. I know you can feel it. I know you can feel…” She swallowed and looked away, raking her fingers through her hair before returning a determined gaze to mine. “Lucian, I love you.”
Her words hit me like a direct punch to the face. As if I stood at the railing of a boat, and they’d knocked me over the edge into the water. I flipped ass over end, my organs rising and falling too fast to make sense as the undertow pulled me down too deep to get back for air.
Something in me ached to reach for her—to grab onto her words and let them pull me to the surface where I could breathe. I wanted…
Wanting to skip work to stay in her arms.
Losing a contract because my focus was on her.
Falling behind.
Being threatened with having my business ruined, and my first thought being that I would give up everything for her.
Vulnerable.
Weak.
