The thought of sex outside, with the guy fully dressed and me totally naked, hot as fuck.
But those strange triggers weren’t weird to Eoghan.
If anything, he made them acceptable. He accepted me.
And he didn’t make me feel dirty for it. He embraced those peculiarities, and took them into both of us, creating that explosive heat we’d both felt back in the car.
I’d never look at that Aston Martin the same way again, and there was no way Lisandra was ever getting in it either.
I just knew she’d figure out I’d done the ‘deed’ in there, and she’d drag the details out of me. Except I wasn’t willing to share.
I was finding, quite surprisingly, that I was as possessive of him as he was of me.
Only, with him, he had no worries on that score. I knew not to be so stupid. He, on the other hand, had no limitations on his behavior, and if that didn’t gut me, I wasn’t sure what would.
As I stared at the mirror, looked into deep green eyes that were dazed from the morning I’d had, I whispered, “You’re a fool, Inessa.”
I was.
Because I was falling for him.
Falling, like someone with Stockholm syndrome, for the man who held my reins.
Who promised to retrieve my mother’s jewelry from my slutty stepmom, who threatened my father and who had grievously hurt him as a punishment for hurting me. The man who, even though I didn’t mean to destroy good food, patiently tried everything I made, even if it was vile. He didn’t even bitch at me or call me names. Just sighed when it was gross and pulled out some of the frozen meals Winnie the Witch had stored in the freezer for him.
There was the way, at night, we started at opposite sides of the bed, yet somehow, by morning, I was always in the middle, and my feet were on his calves, and though I knew he liked his space, he didn’t jerk away when he woke up in the morning like I’d scalded him.
No, he reached over, rubbed his hand down my side, tangled his fingers in my hair, and leaned down for a kiss before tugging me into the gym with him after we’d changed—in front of each other.
No him going into the bathroom anymore. Nor me either.
In three days, everything had changed. Sex hadn’t brought intimacy. My dad almost strangling me to death had. Him knee-capping my father had. And him hurting me, reminding me that he’d fucked a battalion of whores in his time and that sex meant nothing, had somehow unlocked a door that had led to this morning.
That had led to this cocktail of feelings that were threatening to overtake me.
To consume me.
A tap sounded at the door, making me jump.
“Inessa?”
Aoife.
She was, like Eoghan had said, sweet. Her eyes were kind too, and when she smiled at me, it was without artifice. It was genuine, even though I was Bratva and she had to hate me like the whole family had to.
But thus far, they hadn’t shown signs of loathing me, if anything, they’d just stared at my throat and the hickey Eoghan had placed there.
“Yeah?” I replied huskily, reaching up and touching the love bite he’d given me.
“Are you okay? You’ve been in there a while?”
I’d never understood the logic behind that. People spent a while in the bathroom. Wasn’t it rude to ask if you were, essentially, taking a crap?
Because the idea that they might think I was having a dump creeped me out, I pulled the door open, looked at her, then stated, “I have a hickey.”
Her lips twitched, and her gaze dropped to the offending mark. “You do. And it’s very big.”
I blew out a breath that had the few strands of loose hair around my face floating upward. I had it in a neat chignon, but it had looked too formal, so I’d released a few strands, but now I wondered if I should use my hair to try and cover up the hickey.