Page 5 of Seizing Control: Part Two

My dad’s betrayals won’t go unanswered forever... I hope.

“It’s a safe word,” I explain in a light tone. Designed to distract Zeke from the memories of past neglect flaring in his gaze, I scrunch up my nose as I add. “Carnage will be my safe word... that’s the proper terminology.”

“How do you know?” The taunt in his voice alerts me to the lightening of his mood. Zeke’s eyes widen, filling with mirth as he teases, “Read that in one of your dirty books?”

“Yep,” I retort with a laugh. My reading habits have become a source of humour from my boyfriend and my brothers since they got their hands on an advance copy of our good friend, Ziva Navarro’s debut novel a few months ago. Before that only Slash and my best friend, Nadia, understood the full extent of my romance catalogue. “The book I’m in the middle of goes into minute details about the dom/sub dynamic... I could probably teach you some things.”

“Hmmmm,” Zeke muses. He lets go of my necklace to trace the cupid’s bow of my top lip with his fingertip. “Guess we’re gonna find out who’s the master and who’s the student, sweet thing.”

The lust in his voice sets off inconsistent responses in my body. Heart pounding. Skin crawling. Warmth floods low in my belly at the same time as my head rebels at the idea of trusting my broken body’s responses. Alex’s voice echoes around my skull, reminding me that I’m his Jezebel, that he’s inside me, that I’m unworthy. Curling my fingers so I can dig my nails into my palms, I screw my eyes shut and battle the filth circulating my veins and my desire to keep Zeke from being infected.

As usual, the perceptive man notices my reaction, but this time, he doesn’t immediately move off me. Instead, he cups my nape and tangles his fingers in the hair at the base of my neck. “Eyes on me.” I shake my head, but he doesn’t back down. “Lift those eyelids... give me that blue, sweet thing.” Something in his fierce demand overrides my panic, and I reopen my eyes without conscious decision. The multitude of colours in Zeke’s gaze swirl when his pupils dilate. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “Remember... you call carnage and this stops. I’ll be across the room before you can blink.”

Unable to speak, I loop my arms around his neck in silent consent.

“Not gonna take things too far. This’s a test... a taste.”

When Zeke presses his lips to mine, I breathe in his cologne. Tom Ford Black Orchid. The spiced amber mixes with leather, motor oil, and cigarettes to create my most favourite scent in the world. Ezekiel Miles is my home. My safe harbour. His love is my reason for surviving when it would’ve been easier to die. If I didn’t have Zeke, there would be nothing left to inspire me to keep on fighting my trauma.

He says he’d die for me.

It’s a truth I accepted when I was just a small girl.

Because I’m just as hyperbolic when it comes to him.

Except I’d die without him.

The reality is that I’m not as strong as he is.

I’m the weak link in this relationship.

The girl constantly on the cusp of giving up...

The girl who needs to take some days millisecond by millisecond in order to keep living.

I know I should be grateful that I was saved from Alex. That the legal system did its job in the end. That my old man, friends, and family are understanding of my idiosyncrasies and triggers. That cutting is the worst of my coping strategies.

But I’m no grateful for any of that...

I guess, I’m more like Slash than Zeke—I’m equal parts furious and fatalistic.

The mission is the keep the fatalistic side from winning.

And that means I need to stoke the desire that’s building inside of me into an inferno that incinerates Alex’s poison. I can’t keep my old man trapped in purgatory with me. I don’t want to keep him trapped with me. He’s my reward for surviving. His love. His danger. His strength. The ink that telegraphs his savagery and his adoration of me. The muscles that ripple beneath my palms as I grip his shoulders tighter. Every inch of his ripped body, from the top of his bronzed head to his tattooed toes. Each thought that enters his agile brain. Hands that can craft exquisite jewellery and kill with equal skill. Feet that would chase me to the ends of the earth if I decided to run. A heart that beats faster just because I’m in his life.

It’s all mine.

Just like I am his.

God... how I want to be his in all the ways that count.

“This is just a taste,” Zeke reiterates when I give the whirlwind of love that’s whipping through me an outlet by nipping at his chin with sharp teeth. A low growl rumbles in his chest and his fingers dig into my neck so he can keep our gazes locked. “Tell me it’s just a taste.”

“A taste,” I concur to my man’s demand in a breathy tone that becomes more urgent as the seconds pass. Kissing him hard, I explore his mouth, then suck on his tongue. When I scrape my teeth over his battered lips, tugging with more force than necessary until I’ve reopened the cut from Slash’s fist, he groans. The sight of Zeke bleeding makes my heart pound, and I purr suggestively, “And nothing more?”

The scepticism in Zeke’s face in response to my desire is hard to swallow.

Accurately gauging my headspace, he soothes my agitation when he tells me, “Not havin’ our first time at the compound with all these motherfuckers in hearin’ distance.”

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