If this was where Amber existed now, then it was home.
But then my vision cleared, and I saw Reeve above me, his eyes intense as he watched me, and he was riveted. Consumed as I was. Consumed with me.
And I no longer wanted to be anywhere but with him. Even if there was worry and doubt and fear and grief. Even if it wasn’t at all what he wanted. Even if it couldn’t last, I would fight to be with him.
The epiphany settled over me and I realized I had air now. Realized I was breathing fine. Realized I was the sickest kind of fuck. Because I wanted to live, if for no other reason than to be with the person who possibly wanted me dead. Who probably sent my friend to her death.
The realization brought another orgasm, much quieter, but just as intense. It wracked through me, wrenching a guttural keening sound from my being. A sound that was both foreign and familiar. Both primal and complex. Both gratification and mourning.
Reeve followed with his own release, his body convulsing inside of me as he let out a low groan that strangely, beautifully harmonized with my own cry. He finished, collapsing beside me.
It took everything in me not to turn and slap the shit out of him.
Or punch him. Pound him with my fists until he told me why the fuck he’d done what he’d just done. Pummel him until he understood just how angry and jealous and confused and frightened he made me. Thrash and pelt until he promised never to do it again.
But I managed to hold myself. Because I didn’t really want him to promise that. I’d asked for him to give me who he was. And I’d liked it, despite being scared, or maybe even because of it. For that, I was ashamed.
Emotion hit me then like a bowling ball scoring a strike, and I felt the threat of another crying jag. Not the sobs that had torn through me earlier when I was alone. Not even sadness, really. It was unidentifiable, something new, something that was pieces of a whole bunch of things all trying to get out of me at once. It was overwhelming.
And, a little bit, it was just that I hadn’t ever been at peace with myself, and here, with this awful man, after I thought he was trying to kill me, on the day I’d lost my best friend, I felt the seeds of it burrowing inside of me. Maybe it was the product of a really good orgasm.
But it was probably more about where I was now with Reeve.
He jerked up, as if he’d sensed what I was thinking. He startled me with his sudden movement, then startled me again when, after he turned toward me, he reached out to stroke my face, as he sometimes did, with the back of his hand. My pulse, which had just begun to beat at a normal tempo, spiked again. He wasn’t usually affectionate after sex and rarely touched me intimately like this. It made me wary and paranoid and I had to force myself not to cower.
But his eyes were warm when I met them, and I realized he was checking on me. Making sure I was okay. He kissed my forehead, and it was an apology, soft and genuine.
When he pulled back again, his expression was tinged with regret, and I felt a strange desire to comfort him. To tell him that things were fine and then scold him for showing any remorse about giving me exactly what I needed – fear of harm without actually hurting me.
But I was confused and fucked up, and all I could do was show him in my eyes that I was okay with what he’d done, even if I wasn’t okay over all.
He seemed to understand something. His features relaxed and a smile teased on his lips. “Do you know what part I liked best?”
It took a minute to register what he was talking about. It hadn’t been more than a few minutes since he’d been asking me what were my favorite parts of our earlier encounter yet it felt like a lifetime had passed.
“No, what?” I managed a steady voice, but tears were pricking at my eyes. I concentrated on not letting them fall.
Apparently, I didn’t do a good job, because he wiped one away with the pad of his thumb. He leaned in to lick another as it trailed down my cheek.
A shiver rolled through me, and I honestly couldn’t decide if I was moved or horrified. Probably a little of both.
He pulled back to look at me earnestly. “I liked the part where you still showed up tonight.” He bent to brush a soft kiss on my mouth and then dropped again on the bed.
Like that, I was flying again, almost as high as I had been in my orgasmic bliss. He had that power over me, whether I wanted him to or not.
I squeezed my eyes shut, more emotional now than ever and on the verge of falling for a man I shouldn’t fall for. Reeve was confusing and complicated at best. He could be tender as easily as he could be disparaging. He was definitely frightening. He’d done things that were very frightening. He may have even done things that, to know for sure, would destroy me.
But none of it had sent me running. That it didn’t said an awful lot about me that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. It said things I’d known for years and refused to accept. Since I’d torn myself away from Amber, I’d gone so far as to downplay my proclivity for depravity, said it didn’t define me or own me. I couldn’t get away with that anymore. I was owned by this, this type of relationship where a man, who did or did not have my best interests in mind, decided what I would do and be, what would be done to me. And that meant I was possibly even more confusing and complicated than he was.
It also meant I really did belong to him, in ways that were so much deeper than the way we implied when we said it to each other. I belonged to him the way that a good idea belonged to the person who thought it. Though I’d existed before Reeve in bits and pieces, he had put them together and named me, and now I’d never be what I was before him. In some way, no matter what happened with us in the future, I’d always be his.