Sed chuckled. “I only argue with you, babe. With everyone else, I boss and they obey.”
“Just try to boss me and see if I obey,” she said in a clipped tone.
“I know bossing doesn’t work with you,” he said. “I thought maybe taking you up in a hot air balloon and asking you nicely would do the trick.”
“Do I not make you happy the way I am?”
“Of course you do. Never doubt that.”
“Then where is this coming from?” she asked.
He stared out the basket at the passing treetops for a long moment. “It’s hard for me sometimes. To step back. To let you do your own thing without interfering. It makes me feel less of a man.”
She gaped at him. Had she really made him feel that way? “Sed, that doesn’t make you less of a man.”
“Yeah, well…” He shrugged. “I’m learning to compromise. But I do crave a bit more control. I can’t lie about it. It’s a struggle to keep that side of me under wraps. But you’re worth the trouble.”
He was getting better at compromising. They didn’t fight nearly as often as they once had, but she hadn’t realized it was because he was the one compromising the most, letting her get her way. She needed to meet him halfway. And if that entailed allowing him to choose what she had on her plate when he surprised her with a romantic dinner, she could handle that. Maybe with a little practice, she could let him have a bit more control of her life. But just a little. Their marriage would have to be a partnership. She would never tolerate living under a dictatorship. Of course, there was one place she never minded him being the boss.
“You know there are times when I like you to boss me around,” she said.
He met her eyes and lifted a skeptical brow at her. “When?”
“In the bedroom,” she said. “You know how hot that makes me, don’t you?”
“I thought you obeyed in the bedroom because you know I never disappoint.”
She laughed, choosing to take her husband’s ego with a grain of salt. Besides, she couldn’t argue with his boasting when it happened to be true.
“I guess that’s part of it,” she said. “But when you fuck me and make me say things—things I would never say anywhere else—it’s exhilarating. Freeing.”
“What kinds of things?” he asked.
“This pussy is mine,” she said gruffly. “Say it. Say it, Jess.”
He shifted in his seat. “Well, it is mine.”
“Actually,” she said, “it’s mine.”
He tilted his head slightly as he assessed her. “I never realized how much it must cost you to give me that much power over you.”
“You know if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t let you.” She nibbled her lower lip as she put her thoughts to words. “So dominate me in the bedroom, but let me decide on my own dinner.”
“Is that why you aren’t eating?”
She nodded. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean to dominate your dinner, Jess. I just wanted to show you that I care about you.”
“I know, baby. I’ll try not to blow these things out of proportion.”
“If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to. I thought you liked tortellini.”
He still wasn’t quite understanding the reason it bothered her, but she needed him to get her. She knew how things got between them when they weren’t perfectly clear. She reached across the table and plopped a spoonful of squash onto his plate. Sed didn’t like squash. He’d ordered it because she liked it.
His brow crinkled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Would you like another roll?” she asked.
“Um, I guess.”
She placed another roll on his plate.
“So which method did you prefer? Me taking it upon myself to dump squash on your plate without consulting you or me asking if you’d like a roll before putting it on your plate?”
“Are you treating me like a kindergartner, Jess?” Sed chuckled and rubbed his forehead. “Okay, I get it. It isn’t that you don’t want me to show you that I care about you, you just want to be involved in the decision-making process.”
“Yes!” she said, emphasizing the word with her hands. “That’s exactly it.”
“I’ll work on that.”
“And what should I work on to make you happy in this relationship? Because nothing is more important to me than making this work, Sed. I love you.”
“I am happy in this relationship. You’re perfect just the way you are,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, please.”
“You are. I don’t want you to change—not a single thing about you. But I’ll try to change if it will make you happy.”
Oh no, she’d hurt his feelings again. She kept forgetting how sensitive he was about certain things because he was so good at hiding that sensitivity. She climbed from her cushion and squeezed in beside him on his.
“I don’t want you to change, Sed. I just want you to be more careful about pushing my buttons.”
“But I like pushing your buttons,” he said close to her ear. “It makes your passion burn bright. But I wasn’t trying to push your buttons tonight. I was trying to make the night special for you. A gift just from me and just for you on our wedding day.”
And she’d made him feel like it wasn’t special. Fuck. She was really screwing things up here. This was what she needed to work on, whether he realized it or would even admit to it. She had to be more careful with his feelings. Better at recognizing things that would hurt him before the fact rather than after, when the damage had already been done.