Page 3 of Seizing Control: Part Two

Jealous.

I want this for myself.

Sexual dominance from someone I implicitly trust.

Physical connection without the worry that my damage will win.

Maybe if the choice was taken away again, the part of me Alex broke would be fixed?

“You’re starin’, sweet thing.” From behind me, Zeke is careful not to come too close. He knows that crowding me without warning is a recipe for a panic attack. As always, guilt makes my stomach churn when I recognise the hunger he’s fighting to conceal. It doesn’t matter that I can stand his touch in a way that I cannot abide anyone else’s. It’s not enough. It’s not fair on him—or me. More than a year after Alex’s attack and I still can’t have sex with the man I love without freaking out. “If you like what you see... I’m more than happy to give it to you.” My old man trails off as he circles his arm around my waist and pulls my back to his chest. Nose nudging my hair, Zeke murmurs, “If you’re not ready for that, at least allow me to ease your ache... ’cause I know your wet as fuck right now.”

Sliding his hand along my stomach, his movements are slow deliberate, designed to give me time to object before he cups my pussy over my denim jeans. Although my breathing hitches at his touch, I melt into him. His thumb finds my clit, and I whimper, “Zeke, I’m?—”

“Nope, metukà shelì... the time for hidin’ from your needs is over.” When Slash steps away from the cut sluts he has restrained to his bed, I’m swept off my feet and turned away from the threesome I just spied on. From the corner of my eye, I catch the smallest glimpse of the big man scowling at our intrusion before I’m carried across the hallway into the room I share with Zeke whenever we stay over at the compound. Our door slams shut, the lock engages, then my man manhandles me so I’m straddling his waist while he easily supports my weight with his arms. “Look me in the eye, Lil... tell me you’re not turned the fuck on right now? Tell me you don’t want me to take the edge off for you?”

Averting my eyes, I mumble, “What if I freak out?”

“What if you don’t?”

“I’ll hurt you.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head to consolidate his point. When he skims my face with a searching gaze, the bruising around his partially swollen eye makes it hard to read his expression properly. “I’ll be fine.”

“Jesus, Zeke.” Fear and desire war within me. My distress wins. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to still the wobble in my chin. Zeke balances my backside on his forearm, then deftly releases the flesh with a soft tug before I can make myself bleed. Those same fingers cup my nape a moment later and he draws my forehead to his. In my man’s uniquely coloured gaze, I see the same kind of self-recrimination that haunts me. “I’m sorry... I wish I was stronger, but I’m not. All I hear when you touch me are his—” A shudder runs the length of my spine as I acknowledge Alex out loud. “—horrible words. His painful grip. His...”

I can’t say the words, even though they echo through my brain.

Squeezing my thighs tighter, I push away the memory of my monster’s violation.

It doesn’t work.

Alex has infected me, and I don’t know how to get him out.

“I know, sweet thing, but cuttin’ ain’t the answer.”

My tone is stringent when I demand, “Then what is?”

“Me.” The man holding me moves toward the bed we share at the club. He lowers me to the mattress, then backs away. There’s clarity in Zeke’s expression that I haven’t seen before, a naked need in his gaze that he hasn’t allowed me to witness since my first episode. I peer up at him, suddenly filled with vulnerability, despite being fully clothed still. “Watchin’ you watch Slash gave me an idea.”

“Okay...” I am sceptical that there’s a solution to my issues, but I’m willing to try anything at this point so nodding, I say, “I’m all ears.”

“You know how you can touch me, but I can’t touch you?”

“Yes.”

“What if I...” My boyfriend scans my face again. My uncertainty must show because he backtracks a moment later. “You know what, sweet thing, this can wait... I ain’t gonna push you.”

Inhaling raggedly, I freeze in the wake of his despondency.

As he takes in my reaction, Zeke exhales. Dragging his fingers through his hair, he laces them at the back of his head before glaring up at the ceiling. The damage wrought by Slash’s fists is stark, yet it has nothing on the agony I cause him with my ongoing rejection of his love. Still, it’s not like him to dance around a topic, and that’s a worry. His reticence to get to the point is maddening, a feeling that grows harder to bear when I hear Slash and the cut sluts in the hallway. The two women are cheerful as they their goodbyes to the big man, and it makes me yearn for simpler times.

Before Alex and his violence.

Before I lost the ability to function as a human.

Before Zeke felt it necessary to tiptoe around me and my issues.

“You know I love you, right?”

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