Naïve.
Giving over control.
Exposed.
Losing everything all over again.
Just like Daria.
Thought after thought slammed through my mind, sending me reeling, taking up every inch of space, leaving no room for anything else. No love. No guilt. No nothing.
I focused on my feet planted to the ground beneath me, anything to stop the spinning, and walled off the thrumming ache in my chest. “I told you, Aspen. I don’t do love.”
“I don’t…I don’t believe you.” She shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes, looking at me like she didn’t know who I was. “I think you’re just too damn scared to admit it.”
“Enough,” I barked, slashing my hand through the air. I prowled forward, crowding her in my shadow. I needed to regain ground from where she backed me against the wall—to escape the cage she tried to pin me in. “My friend needs a demonstration, and I’m not breaking any rules of our agreement. So, I’m done with this.”
She stepped back, her head still shaking, sending tears cascading down her cheeks. “No,” she breathed.
“No, what?” I asked, the words sharp but barely eking past the choking tension clutching my throat.
“No.” She blinked quickly, swallowing hard, trying and failing to regain her composure. “You can’t do this.”
Telling me what I can and can’t do.
Using tears to get what she wants.
Me giving over control because I’m a good husband.
Just. Like. Daria.
Not this time.
“This right here is why I don’t do love,” I sneered, gesturing between us. “It makes women think that if they can somehow make me care about them, then they can control me and take advantage.”
She stepped forward, arms reaching. “That’s not wh?—”
I stepped back and hit the wall—cornered all over again, scrambling for a way out, lunging for the first idea promising release.
“Prove it,” I grunted, leaning into her space. The more she stared at me with those wide eyes, wet with tears and full of false hopes of a happily ever after I knew didn’t exist, the more my options faded. The more I wanted to give in, the more I wanted to pull away, the more my panic grew. I needed this to end. Ineededit to. So, like any cornered animal, I went for the throat. I softened my tone to the arrogant seduction that got me any woman I wanted. “By all means, stay and watch. Maybe you’ll like it.”
The color drained from her face, and she held my hard stare with a frantic one of her own. “Red,” she whispered.
I jerked back, her safe word striking a chord deep in the hollow cavern carved out by Daria. It blared, urging me to listen.
But I was too far gone. Too trapped.
“This isn’t a scene, Aspen,” I hissed, my words like ice.
“Lucian. Please,” she begged, more silvery tracks slipping free.
“Your tears may work on Daddy, princess, but not me.”
“Fuck you.” The words were hard, but small.
“I’d love to,” I purred, my lips quirking into a painful smile. “Once I’m done in there.”
“No. No.” She swiped away her tears, revealing eyes as hard as yellow garnet. “If you do this, then our agreement is off. We will be done.”
