“Because…I see how beautiful you are and I want the world to see it too. I want you to shine like the brightest star in the sky and for the world to know that this perfect creature belongs to me.”
“But I’m not perfect,” she insisted. “And I know for a fact that you don’t really think I am either. Or you wouldn’t keep trying to change me all the time.”
“I don’t want to change a single thing about you,” I objected, though maybe that was a lie. “At least…I only want to maintain control of you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it when you fight back against me – most of the time.”
“That’s…not the impression you give me,” she replied, her eyes narrowing like she was searching for a lie.
“And what impression do I give you?” I asked, running my hand down her spine slowly and enjoying the way her back arched at the contact.
“That I’m…a project or something to work on. A doll with a malfunctioning personality which you’re aiming to stamp out. Sometimes I think you won’t stop until I’m nothing but an empty vessel awaiting your permission to so much as blink.”
My lips pursed at that assessment and I splayed my hand over the base of her spine, revelling in the warmth of her skin beneath the silk.
“I don’t want that,” I growled. “I just want…” I didn’t even think I had an answer to that so I only sighed.
She shifted closer to me, her grip on my fingers tightening as she looked up at me. “If I could understand why it matters so much to you then maybe it wouldn’t hurt me so much,” she murmured. “Or is that what you want - to hurt me?”
I shook my head at that assessment. Pain might have been a tool I wielded in my mission to gain control, but I only wielded it as a means to an end with her. It wasn’t my goal to wound her. “You want to know why I need to control the things that matter to me?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at her. “That’s…a complicated issue.”
Tatum rolled her eyes at me and I was struck with the urge to spank her for it. But I hadn’t done that in weeks. Not since she’d admitted she liked it. Because that changed it immeasurably and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the way I felt about that.
“Will you tell me?” she pushed and I found myself wanting to. At least in part.
“I had an…unsettling upbringing,” I said slowly. I wasn’t really going to go into it now, but I could give her enough of the truth to satisfy that need for knowledge I could see burning in her eyes. “Chaos was a constant. I moved between my family’s properties a lot with…not a lot of notice.” Or no notice, like being woken in the middle of the night and getting bundled onto a private plane without being given a destination. “It was very disconcerting to say the least. I wasn’t allowed much that was constant. My father believes in being prepared for anything so he wanted me to be used to thinking on my feet, adapting to unexpected changes. I could never be sure I’d eat my breakfast and dinner in the same house let alone choose what I’d eat…”
“I moved around a lot too growing up,” she said in a low voice. “I get how unsettling it can be. But for you, your routines, control, they just seem so vital-”
“I imagine you had some warning about the moves you made,” I replied with a shrug. “And were allowed to bring things with you. I remember when I was five I had this action man who I called Clive and I fucking loved that thing. He had a gun and a car and… well, it’s foolish to place sentiment on inanimate objects.” I shrugged off the memory of Father making me push that stupid doll in the garbage disposal because it was making me soft. I hadn’t really played with toys after that.
“What happened to Clive?” Tatum asked me gently and it was so fucking ridiculous that she gave a shit about some damn lump of plastic that I barked a laugh.
“He got left behind, I suppose,” I replied vaguely. “My grandmother was the one who’d bought him for me. She was the only one in my family who seemed to think that having something constant in my life was important. And after he – it – was gone, she came up with something better. Something permanent that she could give me which could never be left behind. Music.”
“The records?” Tatum chewed on her lip guiltily and my gaze fixed on the way her teeth sank into the plump flesh.
“They were from her. But she gave it to me in a more permanent way than that. She was the one who bought me my first grand piano and all the lessons to go with it.”
“I didn’t know you played,” Tatum gasped, her eyes lighting hungrily as she drank in that knowledge like she was starving for it.
“I imagine there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Tatum,” I replied in a low voice.
“Are you any good?” she asked.
“I’m proficient,” I replied.
“For fuck’s sake, you might as well just say you’re a pro. It’s obvious anyway. No way you’d have a hobby like that and not be the best at it,” she groaned and a real laugh escaped me.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. You’re a damn perfectionist. I bet you could perform for money if you needed any.”
“Music is all about control,” I said.
“And passion. You have to feel it in your heart.”
My lips parted on an objection to that, but I couldn’t make it pass my lips. Because
