Page 34 of Submit

“You weren’t asking for anything more? Christ, Skye, every look you give me, every response to my touch, is asking for more.” The tears started again in her big brown eyes, and once more he felt guilty as hell. “Look, I’m not saying that’s wrong. It’s me. I’m all wrong. Lord, please don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry.” She rubbed at her eyes, smearing what was left of her makeup, making her look even more torn. More beautiful. “I can’t seem to help it. God damn it,” she muttered, looking away for a moment.

When she turned back to him her eyes were blazing. “Okay, you want the truth? Here it is. You feel right to me. Is that some kind of illusion? Maybe I made it all up, because of what… because of the things we’re doing together. Because of the intensity of it.”

It happened all the time—a lot of new submissives became attached to the people who played them well. But it did nothing to explain what was happening with him, why he hadn’t been able to maintain the carefully held control he’d developed over the years he’d been involved in the BDSM scene. He’d been aware from the first moment he’d seen her that he could all too easily lose it with her. The attraction had been too strong, insanely strong. So why hadn’t he just turned away? Why hadn’t he sent her on her way after that first night? Hell, right after they’d met at the coffee shop?

She waited silently for his answer.

The answer was because he’d had to have her, touch her. Make her his, damn it.

He couldn’t possibly tell her these things.

He was in big fucking trouble here.

Even more so when she asked him, “What do you think made you this way? What is it that shuts you off from becoming emotionally involved? And I think, regardless of what you’re saying, you’re not completely shut off. If you were, you would have maintained control, wouldn’t you?” She paused and bit her lip while his hands fisted at his sides. “I don’t mean that to be accusatory. Because no matter how spaced out I might still be, this is something I’ve wanted pretty much from the start—the sex. The… intimacy of it, mixed with the play. Something I want whether I’m in subspace or not. Whether I’m even with you or not. You were the one to set that rule.”

She paused once more, pushed her hair from her face. He was frozen—all he could do was sit there and watch the emotions ranging over her lovely face.

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” she went on. “And I don’t know whether to be flattered or angry that it’s happened with me. Because it’s so… it makes it so much harder for me to keep any emotional distance at all—these tempting glimpses of what you have to offer, if only you’d allow yourself to just let go and let it happen. And if only I’d let myself.” She shook her head. “No. No. Because no matter how hard we’ve both been fighting it, I think I have let myself, a little, at least. And I just realized that whether or not you want to believe it, whether or not you like the idea, you just did, too.”

She was right.

Fuck.

He scrubbed a hand over his beard.

This was exactly the sort of thing he could not deal with. It was several moments and a few long, deep breaths before he could force himself to speak.

“I can’t explain myself to you, Skye. I can’t do it.”

“Meaning you won’t.”

Her mouth set in a stubborn line. He had to respect that in her, that she would argue with him like this. Even now, after what they’d just done together.

Had to love that about her.

She sat up, leaned in toward him, and he could smell her. Her faint smoky perfume, the scent of her arousal, the musk of sex. That leftover fragrance of him fucking her on the table.

But it hadn’t just been fucking for him, had it? That’s what was freaking him out. Not that he’d done it, but his reaction to it. To her. He wasn’t ready to admit to himself what the sex had been for him.

“Tell me, Adam. Tell me why.” She sounded angry. He couldn’t blame her.

He shook his head. He didn’t talk to anyone about his past, about the things that had made him shut down. She was right about that. But he’d never discussed what he’d been through with anyone. Why did he want to tell her about it suddenly? Nothing was making sense anymore.

Skye reached out and laid her soft hand on his arm. She said quietly, “Tell me. Please, Adam. Please.”

He drew in another long breath, blew it out. Was he really going to talk to her about this? Even as the battle waged in his mind he said quietly, “There was an accident.”

She simply nodded. He couldn’t believe he’d said the words aloud. The rest wanted to come pouring out, as though through a crack in a dam.

“It was a long time ago. I was fifteen. My older sister, Beth…” He paused, ran a hand over his jaw. “She’d picked me up from a party. It was late. I was drunk. I’d called her to come and get me and my best friend, Clay.” His heart thundered like a freight train in his chest, but he made himself spit the rest out. “We were hit by a drunk driver. And she… Beth and Clay both died that night. But not me. Not me. I fucking walked away with nothing more than flesh wounds. I’ll never know why I’m still here. Fuck, that sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? So, yeah, I shut a part of myself down after that. A normal reaction, I’m told.”

“It is.” Skye stroked her fingertips over the back of his wrist. “But it’s also a normal part of the process to let it go, eventually. How long do you intend to punish yourself for something that wasn’t your fault?”

Tension thrummed through his body so hard he wanted to shake her off, but he held himself still, rigid as stone. “That’s not what I’m doing. The accident made me realize there were things I could do so that I never had to go through that shit again. Look, we all have issues, our history to deal with. I’m sure you have something, Skye. What was all that stuff about not wanting to use your father’s name?”

He hadn’t meant it to come out as an accusation. Shit.

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