“You were going to do it?”
“No.” Her voice cracks. “I don’t know. I can’t think when he’s in my head. I can’t?—”
I kiss her again, hard and angry. Not to comfort her this time, but to shut her up. To make her feel something other than the terror he’s planted in her bones.
When I pull back, we’re both heaving breathlessly.
“You don’t go to him alone again,” I tell her. “Not ever. You don’t take his calls without telling me. You don’t make deals behind my back. Whatever he asks you to do, you bring it to me first. Understand?”
“And if I work with you instead of against you?”
“I’ll handle him permanently. In a way that keeps your hands clean and your daughter safe.”
She searches my face for the lie. Looking for the trap.
She won’t find one.
“Okay,” she breathes.
“Okay what?”
“Okay. I’ll work with you. I’ll tell you everything. Just…” She fists the front of my shirt and pulls me closer. “Not tonight. Tonight, I need to not think about him. I need to feel something that isn’t fear.”
She kisses me again, and this time, I let her. Because I’m tired of being noble. Because she tastes like rain and desperation and something I’ve craved since the first night I heard her play Chopin in the dark.
When she pulls back, her eyes are wet but steady.
“Stop means stop,” I remind her. “Say it back to me.”
“Stop means stop.”
“Good girl. Now stay still for me.”
I hold her wrists in one hand while the other finds the ribbon she used to tie back her hair this morning. It’s damp, but it’ll work. I wrap it around her wrists three times. Not tightly enough to hurt; just enough to hold.
A shudder runs through her. I watch her pupils expand at the praise, and satisfaction curls through me.
I keep her hands pinned above her with one fist while my other traces down the side of her neck, over her collarbone, and down the center of her chest. She’s wearing a simple black dress with buttons down the front. I undo them one by one, taking my time, making her wait.
The dress falls open. Underneath, pale blue lace latches onto flushed skin. I trace the edge of her bra with my fingertips, and goosebumps rise in my wake.
“Beautiful,” I mumble. “I can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt this body.”
I lower myself to my knees in front of her.
She sucks in a sharp breath as I push her dress aside and press my mouth to her stomach. My lips blaze a path downward, over the soft curve of her belly and along the line where her underwear meets her hip. She squirms against the door, but the restraints on her wrists hold her in place.
“Stay still, baby girl. I’m going to make you forget.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can.” I hook my fingers into the waistband of her underwear and drag it down her thighs. “You will.”
She’s soaked. The evidence of how much she wants this glistens in the light from the lamp.
“He doesn’t get this anymore,” I murmur. “Only me.”
I lean forward and inhale deeply, letting her scent fill my lungs before I press my mouth against her center.
