“Trust me. We are over before we started. This is finished.”
He dashes toward me, stepping between the closet and me, and grasps my upper arms gently but firmly.
“Stay.” There’s a dominant command to his voice but also something else. A plea.
He’s so close that the front of his naked body is grazing mine, his still-hard cock brushing against my stomach. The feel of it against my skin sparks another rush of warm tingling deep in my groin and between my legs.
I shake my head, my decision already made. “I’m not your submissive. You don’t get to tell me to stay because it’s what you want from me.”
I try to push away but he tightens his grip. “At least hear me out. Let me explain why I had Cat place the IUD.”
“I already know why you did it. You don’t want a baby. And trust me, I don’t have a problem with that because I don’t want one either. Especially with you. But what I don’t understand is how you could possibly think that placing anything inside my body while I was unconscious would be okay under any circumstances.”
“It’s temporary, Emma Lia. I didn’t steal your fertility away forever. The thing can easily be removed with one yank, and you can have as many babies as you want.”
“Not the point. Your execution is what’s so fucked up. It’s beyond anything reasonable by anyone’s standards.”
“You think that I don’t know that?”
“Then why did you do it?”
His fingers grip tighter, but they loosen a little when I wince. “I’m a fucking control addict, okay? I have to be in charge of everything that affects me. And putting my dick inside you affects me greatly if a pregnancy happens.”
I look at his eyes boring down to find some sense of right or wrong. A piece of humanity that understands what I’m trying to convey. “You think it doesn’t affect me too? I’m the one who would be pregnant.”
His hands leave my skin as though he’s been burned.
“I can’t hand over that kind of control. And I’d be a fool to. Human error. Irresponsibility. Conscious decision made on my sub’s part if she decides that she wants to try to trap me into marriage or some shit like that. I can’t risk it.”
“And you shouldn’t. I’m not suggesting that you hand over total control. I’m only saying that it wasn’t your decision to make for me and my body. And by the way, no birth control has a one hundred percent guarantee.”
“True, but a pregnancy with an IUD is a fluke. They’re very reliable, and there are just too many ways to have a slipup with the pill.”
Which is exactly why I always use a condom as a backup. “You’ve never heard of doubling up?”
“I want to fuck you and come inside you when I do. I want you to take every drop that I have to give and then I want to watch it drip out of your pussy. I wouldn’t be able to do that with a condom or if I hadn’t ensured that you were on reliable birth control.”
Moving closer, he places his hands on my face and cradles my jaw. “I know that you don’t understand or appreciate what I’ve done, but I did it for both of us. It’s a worry that doesn’t have to be on our minds now. We can enjoy this. Us.”
This stubborn-ass man isn’t listening to what I’m saying. “There isn’t an us. I’m not going to do this with you.”
He wraps his hands around my hips and uses his hold to push me backward until my back is pressed against the wall. Every inch of my skin erupts in goose bumps. I tell myself that it’s because the wall is cold against my skin, but I’m lying to myself. Tristan’s touch affects me. Greatly.
His palms flatten against the wall, one on each side of my head, forming a cage of muscular arms around me. A prison without an escape.
“You can go if that’s what you want. I won’t try to stop you.” His words say one thing, but the enclosure of arms around me says something entirely different.
His eyes drift over my mouth before he leans in and presses a kiss there. Soft and sweet lips on lips. No tongue. Feels like the kind of kiss shared between people in love. Maybe. I have no way of being certain since I’ve never been in love.
He sucks my bottom lip into his mouth and then releases it, making a popping-suction sound. Hmm… he has a playful side.
“I sure as hell don’t want you to go.” He inhales and exhales deeply while curling a lock of my hair around his finger, lightly brushing one of nipples. “I swear that I’ll make it worth your while if you stay.”
He eyes my lips like he might kiss me again. And I don’t know why, but a part of me wants him to.
“You said that you don’t kiss, but here you are kissing me again.” And not roughly. His kisses are sweet.
He smiles. “You make me want to kiss you.”
