Page 39 of Forbidden Desires

Thirty minutes in, two fat, hot omelettes were ready and bursting with vegetables and melted cheese, along with a side of some salsa and ketchup, depending on what Jasmine would want to smother her eggs in when she woke.

Having things plated, I trekked back to her room. She’d rolled over, was still snuggled to the pillows, but seemed, at least, to be a little closer to consciousness as she stirred. I smiled and walked over to her bed, sitting at the edge and touched her shoulder.

“Morning,” I murmured.

Her response? A grumpy grumble. I chuckled.

“Come on,” I coaxed gently. “I made you breakfast. Full omelette, toast, coffee too.”

“Mm…food?” That thought seemed to perk her up and she glanced over her shoulder at me. Her sleepy eyes peeked up at me through a curtain of charming bed head.

Somehow, I managed to hold in the urge to laugh. “Yes. Food. Come eat.”

The notion seemed to appeal to her, and she nodded, rolling over as I grabbed a long t-shirt from her closet and returned just as she stood up, completely naked, an unstable wobble in her legs from last night’s exertions.

“Fuck, I hate having muscles,” she grumbled, and I laughed.

“I’m sorry about that,” I replied, not sounding contrite at all for her weakened condition as I pulled the shirt over her head and she punched her arms through the sleeves. “I’ll draw you a nice, hot bath after you eat, so that should help.”

She gave me a guarded, almost skeptical look, which I probably deserved after how I’d treated her the past month. “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

I touched her soft cheek and smiled. “I want to take care of you,” I replied, meaning it.

Something in her eyes softened, and I was struck with the realization of just how little she’d probably had of anyone tending toherneeds since her parents’ deaths. How she’d been forced to become strong and self-sufficient at such an early age.

I set her up comfortably at the table, coffee poured and made the way she liked, food in front of her. The first few minutes were filled with the easy silence of eating—silverware tapped against dishes, the clink of ceramic mugs against the table when picked up and put down for a drink. Jasmine’s pleased hums at the tasteof the food in front of her, and my own satisfied responses at getting fed, too.

About halfway through her omelette, Jasmine cleared her throat and looked over to me. “So, about last night…”

I didn’t dodge the topic, as she clearly expected me to do. “Yes…first off, I owe you an apology,” I stated, setting my fork down on my plate. “For not speaking to you. For leaving you hanging for a month and then not clarifying anything before asking you to last night’s venue. I should have explained my actions, and I didn’t. It won’t happen again,” I vowed.

Surprise flickered in her eyes, that I didn’t hedge or try to make excuses. “Oh. Uhm. Thank you.”

I nodded, and continued, because I was far from done. “What I did was wrong. All I can tell you is that after visiting my parents, after showing you a side of me I don’t just let people see…I needed to gain some of that control back. I felt out of sorts. I couldn’t decide if confiding in you was right, or if I had pushed a boundary that I shouldn’t have with you.”

She sat back in her chair, listening and not speaking, which made it easy for me to forge ahead. “It was so easy to let you in, Jasmine, and let you stay there once you were. There’s a difference in the way I have clinically handled my parents’ ailments and the way that you…comforted me. The way that you understood and allowed them to be human that I don’t usually get with this type of arrangement.”

The space between us grew quiet, still no words from her, not that I expected any when the blame for what I’d put her through laid squarely on my shoulders. “This thing between the two of us is something I’ve not done before,” I continued, digging deeper for the right words to explain things I’ve never had to acknowledge before. “I don’t have relationships; I invest in working women. I keep boundaries, because boundaries can be controlled, and I prefer my control.”

I reached out and set my hand over the one she’d rested on the table, needing that connection with her. “But you…you make boundaries malleable. You make them less tangible. Workable. And I did not know how to react to that, other than to brick it all up, cement it down, and hope there wasn’t a crack in the foundation.”

She stared at me, wide-eyed and mute as she digested my raw and honest confession.

“So, when I invited you out to last night’s event, I had made an assumption about how the evening would go. And it clearly did not go the way I imagined.” A faint smile flickered across my lips. “I felt confused, at the way you showed up. I didn’t know how to respond to the way you behaved. But then a part of me knew that I’d earned that treatment, and I didn’t know how to fix things without giving up more of that control.”

I shook my head and exhaled a deep breath. “Last night, following you up to your apartment and what happened in the bedroom…that was me trying to maintain that control with you, but in a way that wasn’t building another wall between us. Rather, creating something where we were on the same page, if that makes sense?”

So many words, so much talking. Like the weekend visiting my parents, this was a lot. But I had not effectively communicated my feelings to Jasmine when I should have. When it was more than imperative that I let her know that I wasn’t angry, I was confused. I was trying to process the fluctuation of our dynamic. Admittedly, I was much better at action as I’d proved last night, though perhaps I still had some learning to do.

She smirked. “I like that dominate part of you, in the bedroom. But outside of it, I don’t like that tension between us.” Her gaze turned serious. “I don’t think either of us are great with words, but I should have just been upfront with you that Iwas upset that you’d stopped speaking to me instead of being so defiant last night in a public outing. I’m sorry about that.”

She looked genuinely contrite, and that was more than enough for me. “Do you think we can start over?” I asked.

Smiling, she turned her hand over beneath mine, and laced our fingers together. “I’d like that,” she said. “Very much.”

CHAPTER 17

Eric

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