Page 20 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
“I don’t, though,” Hope said, almost wonderingly. “I don’t do that. I’ve never…” I could see the tears pooling behind her eyelids, could see her battling with her anger, and I could have kicked myself.
“Never mind,” I said. “What was that you said? It starts with you listening to me, and me listening to you. Come sit down, and we’ll do it.”
Hope
How could I resist Hemi? When had I ever been able to?
Married,I told myself,until she wanted the baby.And all the same, I was walking over to the couch in the corner and sitting down with him, and he was holding my hand as if he needed to do it.
When I had pain, I wanted him beside me. Even if he was the one causing the pain. How bad was that? And I thought he might feel the same way.
“There’s something wrong with us,” I said. “Something twisted.”
“No,” he said. “There isn’t.”
I knew it was more important to talk about his wife, except maybe it wasn’t. “You can’t just say that and make it true. The way we make love…” I kept my voice down. What a conversation to have in a crowded café, and yet here I was having it. “You like it because you can be in charge, and you hate not being in charge. In anything, and that’s where you can do it the most. You like the way I…the way I am, because I give that up to you. That’s even why you like that I’m small. I know it. And I like it because…because maybe I need to feel that, too. That I can give all the power to somebody else, that I don’t have to be in charge for a while, and I can surrender to all of my…my darker impulses and still be safe. I want somebody to take control of me, and I want to know that somebody wants me so desperately that he has to…to…”
“Has to tie you down,” Hemi finished for me, apparently having no difficulty at all saying this in a café. “So you can’t move, and you can’t get away, and he can do whatever he wants to you. WhateverIwant to do to you, because it’s not ‘somebody.’ It’s me. You need to know that I need to hold you, and that I need to keep you, and that I’m going to do it. You need me to convince you that you belong to me, and to tell you hard enough that you can believe it, too.”
I swallowed, and he said, “Maybe that’s why, yeh. Because you need to feel needed and I need to be in control, out of some deep, dark reason in our pasts. And maybe we’re just wired that way. What does it matter why, if it feels good to both of us?”
“But what if that’s all it is?” I asked. “What if all the rest of this is just some kind of sick…” I cast about for a word. “Co-dependency?”
“I don’t even know what that is,” he said, “except that I know we don’t have it. You think you’ve given me all the control, all the power? Think again. What just happened? What happened yesterday? What happens every bloody time? You push back, that’s what. You tell me I’m a one-way street, and you’re not having it, and I compromise, because Idohave to keep you, and I’m willing to do almost anything to do that. Even compromise, much as I hate it.”
I pursued it anyway. No choice. “What if we couldn’t have sex, though? What then?”
“Then I’d be bloody disappointed,” he said, and I couldn’t help a surprised laugh. “But I’d still want you in every other way, and, no, I’m not letting you go. And there are heaps of ways of having sex. If you’re asking, what if it had to be gentle every time? What if we couldn’t do everything we do now? I’d still have to touch you, and to hold you. You’re right about that. I’d still need your body, and I’d still need you with me. There’s no way we make love that doesn’t work for me, and that’s not what this is about anyway, so stop trying to make it that.”
I frowned at him, feeling so much better even though everything else was still sitting out there, unattended to. “You were doing great until that last part.”
“You say you want honesty. I’m being honest. What do I want right now? I don’t want to talk about this. I’m frustrated as hell, and all I want is to walk across the street and into some hotel, swipe my card in some anonymous door, yank your jeans off, push you up against the wall, and fuck you so hard you’ll feel it tomorrow. And then I want to do it again as many times as I have to until you know for sure that Iammarrying you, and you’re not saying no. I want you to tell me you’re marrying me when I’m inside you, when you’re about to come, because I won’t let you do it until you say it. I want to make you tell me ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘I’ll do anything.’ Just before I make you scream. And after that, I want to take you to buy your wedding shoes, so you can put them on and know you’re walking down that aisle to me on Saturday, and that after that, you’ll be mine.”
He’d kept his voice low, but I’d jumped anyway, then looked around to make sure nobody else could hear as my mouth opened and my eyes opened more.
I knew he’d never actually hurt me, or force me, either. He’d said it for effect. Too bad it had worked.
“And that?” he asked. “What you just did? That I shocked you, because it was too rough? That makes me want it even more. If that’s twisted, if that’s wrong, I’m twisted and wrong, and I don’t care. So tell me what you need to, let me tell you, and let’s be done, so I can take you home and get started. Except that we’ll be at Koro’s. Bugger. This wedding can’t come soon enough for me. So you know—I’m taking your clothes away on our wedding night, tying you to the bed, and keeping you there. You’re going to be aching. You’re going to be sore. But you’re going to know I mean it.”
I was aching right now. I tried without much success to keep my brain focused on the task at hand. Unfortunately, every bit of blood I possessed seemed to have made its way into one insistent spot, leaving me with precious little to fuel my higher powers. “Donot,”I said, trying to keep my breathing even and knowing I wasn’t succeeding, “make this about sex! You’re proving my point.”
“No.” He picked up my hand, held it in both of his, and then he did the thing that wrecked me. He lifted it to his mouth and kissed my knuckles, ran a gentle thumb over them, looked into my eyes, and said, “I’m telling you that I love you, and I want you. Or maybe I’m trying to distract you. That could be, too. But it’s not working, so…” He kept hold of my hand, but set it on his hard thigh. “Tell me. Ask me. Let’s go.”
We were way,wayoff track. Have you noticed how Hemi had a tendency to do that? So had I.
“Anika,” I said. “Obviously. Who was she, how did it happen, and what about a…” I had to take a deep breath in order to continue, and I had to take my hand back, too. “Baby?”
Hemi looked nothing but puzzled. “What baby?”
“Violet said, ‘When she wanted the baby.’”
“Geez. Is there anything Violetdidn’tshare with you?”
“Well, if she slept with you, she didn’t share that, although I wondered. But come on, Hemi. Wife. Baby. You owe me an explanation. You owe me honesty. Andnotthat kind you just handed out. You owe me…openness. I can’t marry somebody I don’t trust.” The words cut me deep, but they were necessary. This had to be right, or it wasn’t happening.
He was looking serious now, and nobody did “serious” like Hemi. “No, I’ve never slept with Vi. She’s not wired the same way I am, like we said.”
“How can you tell?”
