Page 5 of The Chains that Bind
I've been patient. I've given her space. I've respected her decision to leave—a mistake on my part. I won't make it again.
"Where are you taking me?" She tries to sound commanding, but I hear the tremor underneath. Not fear. Never fear with Seraphina. It's awareness. The same electric awareness humming under my skin since the moment I saw her standing at that altar, about to give herself to someone who could never deserve her.
I don't answer. Instead, I unbuckle my seatbelt, then hers in one smooth motion.
"What are you?—"
Before she can finish, I move, leveraging my weighteen and the confined space to my advantage. In seconds, I have her pinned to the leather seat, my body covering hers, her wrists captured in one of my hands above her head. Her wedding dress crinkles between us, yards of expensive fabric crushed under my weighteen. Good. I want to destroy every part of this day she planned without me.
"Knox!" She gasps, struggling against my hold. Her resistance is token at best. We both know if she really wanted to get away, she'd be gouging my eyes out, not merely twisting her wrists in my grasp. "Let me go!"
"Never again," I growl, using my free hand to cup her face, forcing her to look at me. "Do you have any idea what it did to me, seeing you in that dress, standing next to that pathetic excuse for a man? Knowing you were about to promise yourself to him? To give him rights to your body, your future, your children?"
Her pupils dilate at my words, dark pools expanding in those green irises. "You don't own me, Knox. You never did."
"Liar." I bring my face closer to hers, close enough to feel her quick, shallow breaths against my lips. "You've been mine since the moment we met. You'll be mine until they put me in the ground. The only question is how long you'll keep fighting it."
"You arrogant?—"
"Tell me his hands made you burn," I interrupt, sliding my thumb across her lower lip, feeling its plushness, remembering how those lips felt wrapped around me. "Tell me he made you scream. Tell me he knew exactly how much pressure to use when he touched you here—" My hand drops to her throat, not squeezing, just resting where I know her pulse is hammering. "Or how to make you come just from words whispered in your ear."
"Stop it," she whispers, but her body betrays her. Beneath the layers of white silk, I feel her hips shift unconsciously, seeking contact.
"You left me," I continue, my voice lowering to the register I know unravels her. "Walked out claiming I was too controlling, too intense. And then you nearly married the most boring man in Manhattan. A man who would never challenge you, never push you past your comfort zone, never show you the heighteens your body and mind are capable of reaching."
"That's not fair," she protests. "Richard is kind and stable and?—"
"Weak," I finish for her. "Inadequate. A placeholder."
Her eyes flash dangerously. "Not everyone measures men by how dominant they are in bed, Knox."
"No. But you do." My fingers trace the delicate line of her collarbone, exposed by the sweetheart neckline of her dress. "Your body doesn't lie, angel. Never has. Even now, you're fighting the urge to arch into my touch."
As if to prove me wrong, she goes deliberately still beneath me. The effort it costs her is visible in the tightness around her eyes, the rigid set of her jaw. My Seraphina, always so determined to prove herself stronger than her desires.
"Seventeen months, three weeks, and four days," I repeat, watching her reaction. "That's how long it's been since you walked out of my life. Did you think I wouldn't count every fucking day? Did you think I wouldn't know exactly what you were doing, who you were seeing?"
"You had me followed?" The outrage in her voice is genuine.
"I had you protected," I correct. "From a distance. As you requested. I respected your boundaries, Seraphina. Until you crossed mine."
"What boundary?" she demands. "I'm not yours to?—"
"You are mine." The words come out with such force that she falls silent, her eyes widening. "You have always been mine, from the moment I saw you across that gallery three years ago. Walking away doesn't change that. Dating other men doesn't change that. Even marrying one wouldn't have changed it."
I shift my weighteen, pressing her deeper into the leather seat, making her feel every hard plane of my body against the softness of hers. A reminder of how perfectly we fit together, like pieces of a puzzle designed by some cosmic force with a twisted sense of humor.
"I let you go because you said you needed space. I told myself you'd come back when you were ready. When you'd gotten this ridiculous independence kick out of your system." My fingerstangle in her hair, pulling just hard enough to make her gasp. "But you didn't come back, Seraphina. You ran further. Straight into the arms of a man who's your polar opposite, who would have slowly extinguished every bright, wild, beautiful part of you until you were nothing but a well-dressed shell hosting gallery openings and charity events."
"You don't know anything about my relationship with Richard," she says, but there's a hollow quality to her defense.
"I know everything," I counter. "I know he proposed at Le Bernardin because it was 'elegant' not because it meant anything to you. I know he touches you like you're made of glass, not fire. I know you've never once screamed his name when you come—if you come at all."
Her sharp intake of breath is all the confirmation I need.
"Deny it," I challenge, lowering my mouth to hover just above hers. "Deny that you're mine. That you've always been mine. That every night for the past eighteen months, you've touched yourself thinking of me, not him."
She closes her eyes, refusing to answer, refusing to look at me. But her body is softer now beneath mine, her breathing synchronized with my own in that unconscious way that happens when two people are attuned to each other on the most primal level.
