Page 84 of Bad Enough

He rolled her over onto her back so that he was leaning over her. His hand drifted down to between her legs, feeling the mix of their fluids on her, knowing that he, too, was covered in them. He’d marked her. She was his. It would take so little for him to just claim her right there and then. To say it out loud. But somehow, he just couldn’t do it.

“I really should clean us up. But I?—”

She reached down for his cock, cradling it in her hand. “I don’t want you to. I like knowing we’re covered in each other. It should feel gross, but it doesn’t.”

With her hand gently stroking him and his hand dragging back and forth on the inside of her thigh, he kissed her forehead. “I was just thinking,” he finally answered her question, “I can’t remember the last time I stayed in bed with a woman throughout the night. Not sure if I ever have other than last night.”

Her hand stopped moving. “Why did you stay?”

He looked down and noticed her eyes focused on his face. He hesitated before answering her. “You were so scared. I was enraged that the bastard had the balls to reach out to you like that, take away your feeling of security in your own home. I wanted to protect you.” He corrected himself. “I needed to protect you more than anything else at that moment.

“Part of it, too, I guess, is I’m not easily captivated. Being a part of the kink community, I’ve seen and heard so many things over and over. But watching you learn it and experience it for the first time was like it was all new again. If I were to really introduce you to that world, I think you’d be at the club every night if I let you. And then I’d have to collar you so that no one else got to you.”

Hello? Collar her? Where did that thought come from?

Doesn’t sound like the worst idea.

Shut up. It’s a terrible idea. You can't. She deserves better. She’ll suffer and be miserable. You can’t possibly keep her.

You lie like a rug. Worse than that, you’re a coward. Take what you fucking want for once.

She hummed in thoughtfulness. “I guess I’ll take that as being tempting.”

Pushing his inner voices to the deep corners of his head, he kissed her temple again. “That you are, my little Flame. That you are.”

Her words were timid as she asked her question. “Will you stay again tonight?”

He felt her holding her breath, waiting for the letdown. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

An hour later, TB sat in the darkness, propped up in the window bed against the headboard. Sylvan lay in the crook of his arm on the inside of the bed closest to the window. Her arm lay across his bare stomach, her breaths even and deep as she slept. One of his hands made lazy circles on her bare shoulder. The other lay gently on top of her arm that lay across him.

He stared at the blank wall across from him, not seeing the wall but simply staring into space, his brain processing what had happened tonight. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, let alone how she felt about it.

Well, that’s a lie. You know exactly how you feel about it.

On the outside, he was as cool as ever. On the inside, he was in panic mode. Sylvan was stirring up more than just his protective instincts. Emotions better left unfelt. He didn’t want them. And yet he did. He wanted them so badly. He wanted her. But taking that final step and taking a sledgehammer to the carefully constructed walls he’d been building and solidifying since he was seven years old felt like a task too great.

What if she leaves you when she discovers you’re not enough?

What if I lose her because I don’t make a decision at all?

Well, if you never make the decision, then it eventually gets made for you.

And then I’ll always be left wondering, “What if…?”

If he gave in to her, made his claim, he knew that his career at Tribe could be at risk. Obviously, God wasn’t going to carry through with his threat about executing anyone who tried to leave the corporation over a relationship. Waters and Kubrick were proof that it had been an emotional but empty threat. And in all honesty, even if he had put the order through, no one on the team would have carried out the hit. But still. He’d always worry about her when he was on a project. And the projects were often dangerous. He’d be distracted, and not only would that risk him, but also his team.

He shifted his head and looked down at her sleeping form in his arms. The problem was, she felt right where she was. Like she was supposed to be where she was and nowhere else.

30

JUNE 17TH

TB

He was downstairs in the kitchen when his watch pinged. Glancing at the text, he saw Waters was asking him to check in as soon as possible. A glance at the time said it was just after three o’clock in the afternoon.

Seriously? I told them no contact. For fuck’s sake, can’t even follow the simplest instructions.

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