of the tub.
He wraps a towel around his hips and stands over me. The sudden loss of his body isn’t as disturbing as the look of resolve in his eyes. He looks like he’s ready for battle.
“You look like you’re ready to go ten rounds.”
He doesn’t crack a smile and my stomach feels like an anvil is dragging it down
“I don’t want to sneak around, Beth. I don’t want to hide that we’re together. And I don’t want you to go to this event and pretend you’re his woman.”
Wordlessly, he steps out and then walks out of the bathroom. With my heart in my throat, I get out of the bath, wrap a towel around myself, and follow him into the bedroom. He doesn’t say anything while we dry off and get dressed. Neither do I.
The space between us feels like a minefield, one wrong step and everything will be destroyed. But, I didn’t come this far to let fear continue to lead me.
“Baby?”
He walks over to me, places a hand on each of my shoulders and looks me square in the eyes. “I’m not going to share you. Or settle for pieces of you. These people aren’t your family any more than they are mine. This is not what family does. But, I can’t force you to see that or believe that. And I know you’ve got a lifetime of indoctrination to dismantle.”
I frown at him, dismayed. “You make it sound like I grew up in a cult.”
His eyebrows draw together. “Didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I protest and then cringe when I hear how lame I sound.
I expect him to cringe, too, and push back. Instead a slow, sensual, smile tugs the corners of his lips upward and when his dimples make an appearance, my toes curl and a luscious heat flows from the place inside of me that I used to think was broken before he came back.
“And why does a girl born with stars in her eyes, fire in her soul, a universe in her mind want to settle for a life that’s not so bad?” he asks.
I don’t have an answer. I can only look into his eyes and soak up what I see there. They’re a portal to a different dimension. One where I belong to myself and I have a choice about who share to that with. He smiles, but otherwise doesn’t react except for to cup my face in his big warm hands and press a kiss to my lips.
It’s a gentle kiss, but just like everything between us - every conversation, every touch - it’s as deep as a hundred oceans. My soul sighs in relief as clarity comes, floating like a feather as it knocks me on my ass. The gun to my head isn’t in charge. I’ve already made my choice.
35
Beth
Committed to Nothing.
“You sound good singing in the shower.” Duke’s voice, unexpected and unwelcome, startles a scream from my throat that his big hand muffles before it can find wings that carry it out the open door of my bedroom.
With one of his massive arms wrapped around my torso, he pulls me back into his solid wall of a body and presses the sharp edges of his teeth together around my ear lobe hard enough to hurt. Just for a second before he lets go and laves it with his tongue. He presses the side of his face into my hair and takes a deep breath.
I wriggle against him, fighting my panic at how tightly clamped his hand is over my mouth. I have to remind myself that I breathe through my nose. He’s not trying to hurt me.
But when he doesn’t say anything and his arm tightens around my waist, I try to turn my head, frantic to make eye contact with him.
“You feel so good, smell so good,” he groans into my hair and I feel his arousal pressed into the rise of my ass and I start to struggle in earnest. I use my fists to pummel his forearms, I get the impression the strikes hurt my hand more than they hurt him.
He laughs, his breath washing over me makes me shudder.
“Oh Clover, why do you have to be like that? I’m always so nice to you.”
I shriek against his hand and try to bite the fleshy palm that’s pressed against my lips. My teeth barely graze him, but it’s enough for me to taste the salty skin of the hands I swore I’d never let