“This has to stop,” I told her. “You need to learn to control yourself.”
I pulled her inside and removed her jacket to hang it up.
“Shoes,” I demanded. “I don’t allow dirt to be tracked inside my home.”
I watched as she kicked her shoes off and tried to walk away.
I pulled her back by her wrist.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
“To my room away from you,” she said, trying and failing to pull her wrist free.
I laughed.
“You think you can disappear for hours and come back with no repercussions, no explanation?” I asked.
“You have a whole-ass fiancé!” she screamed.
I was taken aback by the outburst.
“Was I meant to play nice with him?” she asked derisively.
“Yes,” I said and pulled her closer to me, against me. “Do you have any idea the chaos you have brought into my life?” I asked her. “The least you could do is play nice.”
“Chaos? Me? You took me, remember? I didn’t have a choice,” she argued.
She was right.
I did take her.
At the time, I thought it was merely to humiliate a lesser, but now I wasn’t so sure that some part of me didn’t recognise her as mine in the truest of ways.
“Neither did I,” I told her. I didn’t have a choice in any of this. Duty was my burden. “We don’t all get to choose the roles we play.”
She smelled so sweet, floral, like spring, and I had dipped my forehead to hers without any conscious thought, breathing her in.
“I didn’t,” she said.
“You didn’t what?” I asked quietly, distracted by her scent filling my lungs.
“I didn’t get to choose any of this,” she whispered, like she was scared to break the quiet.
Her breath fanned over my lips.
I groaned.
“You have a choice now,” I told her softly.
“What’s that?” she asked, and her lips brushed mine.
I growled, wrapping my free arm around her delicate waist and pulling her tight.
“You can go upstairs and lock yourself in your room, and maybe a locked door will be enough to keep me away from you, or…” I trailed off.
Her scent drove me wild. It took all my self-control to hold back.
She kissed me.
