“How is it you see things about me so clearly when I don’t even see them myself?” I asked, my thumb shifting over the back of her hand.
“Maybe you’re not as complicated as you want to believe,” she teased.
“I doubt that.”
“So…music gave you an ounce of control. Something you could own which couldn’t be taken from you. And then you just started laying claim to other things you could control?” she asked, clearly still trying to figure me out and for some reason I was still indulging her curiosity.
“I suppose so. Over the years I made routines I could stick to no matter where I was. Things that couldn’t be controlled by circumstance, like the times I do certain things. I may have had to bend to changes in time zones on occasion but barring that, I could always eat at the same times, workout at the same times, sleep…”
“So when did you realise you liked having control over other people?”
“It’s more about them not having control over me,” I replied. “The people I care for most in this world certainly don’t bow to my every whim. Kyan in particular goes out of his way to defy me. And don’t get me started on you.”
She tilted her head like something I’d just said had captured her attention but I wasn’t sure what part of it.
“And how do you feel when they do give you control?” she asked slowly. “When Kyan beats the shit out of someone because you demanded it for example.”
“Free,” I replied instantly. “I feel elevated beyond the chaos which is constantly surrounding me, trying to rip me apart.”
“And with…girls?” she asked, a blush colouring the skin beneath her freckles.
“What girls?”
“The err, girls you have. Do you get them to submit to you in the bedroom, or…”
“Are you asking me if I like to dominate women during sex?” I asked, my lips twitching with amusement.
She bit that bottom lip again and I released her hand to tug it free, keeping hold of her chin so she was forced to maintain eye contact with me.
“Yes,” she breathed.
I thought about that for a moment and shrugged because clearly I did. Though probably not in the way she was imagining. Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind before, but there hadn’t been a girl who held my attention for long enough for me to consider experimenting with it until now.
“Obviously I get off on being in charge. But in the past that’s just meant I bend girls over to fuck them so they can’t touch me when I don’t want them to.”
“Charming.”
“You asked,” I pointed out and she smirked.
“Fair point. But let’s say you had someone willing to let you be in charge of the whole thing, would you still just want to bend them over? Or would you want them to submit in other ways?” Her gaze lit with curiosity as she asked me that and a shiver ran through my flesh.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “If I was supposed to have control, I’d need to be sure it was absolute-”
“Total submission?”
“Yes,” I growled.
“That doesn’t sound so bad…in that situation.”
My heart pounded fiercely at those words on her full lips and I could feel myself getting hard at the mere suggestion of it.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a submissive,” I breathed.
“Maybe I’d like to surrender control occasionally,” she replied, her voice husky. “I think I thrive in chaos. I need it sometimes. And letting someone else take ownership of my flesh sounds kinda…hot.”
She licked her lips and I grunted before stepping back suddenly and moving away from her.
“Get into bed,” I said, needing some distance from her to think.
Her gaze dropped to my crotch where the outline of my rock hard dick was showing clearly through my white boxers. It didn’t matter that she could tell how much I desired her though. It only mattered if I acted on it and broke the rules. Which I wouldn’t. Rules were what stopped my world from caving in.
Tatum only hesitated a moment before doing as I’d said and getting into the bed. But instead of moving around to her side, she knelt in mine.
The lace top of the pyjamas she was wearing was just transparent enough for me to see the pink flesh of her hardened nipples through it and a lump lodged in my throat as I drank in the sight of her.
“I wouldn’t have burned your records if I’d known what your grandmother meant to you,” she breathed and I frowned at the guilt in her expression.
“I’d imagine after the letters that would only make you more inclined to do it.”
“No. That just means I know exactly how much it hurts to lose something that special. And I wouldn’t want to do that to you or anyone else,” she replied resolutely.
My brow furrowed and I glanced away from her over the balcony to the church below, wondering how long I should let this farce go on.
“Saint?” she asked, drawing my gaze back to her. “I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. I…want you to tell me what to do.”
My pulse pounded in my ears at the thought of that and it only hammered harder at the wild look in her eyes which said she really did want it.
“I’m not going to break your rules, Tatum,” I growled, forcing myself to remain where I was despite the desire coursing through my blood.
“I don’t want you to…but why
