“Because I have never felt more alive than I did last night. I always knew I needed something more, something different. And last night…last night you showed me what I needed.” Shifting from one leg to the other, she looked out over the garden and empty spaces, then stared down at her feet. “Last night, being tied up yet feeling free at the same time, I realized this is what I’ve been missing all along.” She glanced at me. “Question is, I don’t know if it was just that, or if it’s because…it was with you.”
I wasn’t prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for her words to affect me the way they did because for a moment, a split fucking second, I wanted it to be me. It was there in the way my heart swelled inside my chest, constricting my lungs and making me desperate for air. It was a moment of insanity, and I couldn’t allow it to pull me in, make me forget about the trail of shit I had following me wherever I went.
This had gone too far, and I had to stop this train-wreck from happening. And the only way to do that was to tell the truth, and hopefully she’d realize that she would be better off running in the other direction.
“I was married.” The words just rolled out of my mouth. “I had a wife.”
Sienna crossed her arms, her green eyes flashing disappointment. “Had?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck and turned away, unable to look at her. “She left me. I’ve been divorced for almost six years now.”
“Divorced. Okay.”
And there it was, the slight sound of hope in her voice—the fire I needed to extinguish.
“You want to know why she left me?” I shot her a sideways glance, and she slowly closed the distance between us.
“Why?”
I breathed in deep, closing my eyes, willing the memory to come forward so I could relive it again. Maybe if the image was inside my head, I could convince Sienna that I wasn’t the type of man she wanted anything to do with—that last night was nothing but a slippery slope.
“I hurt her.” The words coated my tongue with bitter venom. “I lost control, and I hurt her.” Saying it out loud was like swallowing a thousand shards of glass, the sharp edges cutting my throat and tearing at my insides.
“What happened?” She slipped in next to me, her elbow brushing gently against my arm. The simple touch sent a bolt of electricity across my skin, and I stepped to the side, trying my fucking best to ignore the pull. The connection. That goddamn nexus that refused to break, no matter how hard I tried.
I turned to face her, allowing the bitterness I felt toward the memory to resonate in my words. “Short version. She told me to stop, and I didn’t. She told me I was hurting her, used the safe word over and over again, but I still didn’t fucking stop.”
Sienna’s eyes grew wide, her face pale, and I pressed forward, towering over her, no longer needing the distance because I could see in her eyes how the fear crept in, how the uncertainty started to cross her every feature.
“I hurt my own goddamn wife because I was too fucking possessed with the twisted, fucked up tendencies to dominate and control.” I pushed forward, Sienna inching back. “I wanted to see a woman tied up or chained to the goddamn ceiling. Watch her submit to me, hand me control over her body so I could hurt her, make her scream.” I clenched my jaw. “Because that’s what I want. That’s the shit I get off on. Do you get that, Sienna?” I tapped my finger against the side of my head, my anger a sweltering heat burning from the inside out. “Do you understand that? I don’t hurt women because I like to play. I don’t hurt women because it’s kinky and fun.” Her back hit the fence, and I towered over her, bringing my face mere inches from hers. “I hurt women because it makes me come.”
Her tongue darted from her mouth, leaving the most tempting glisten on her lips, and I had to clench my fists to stop myself from kissing her. Even now, while the darkness of a tiny sliver of my past loomed over us, the electricity was still there. The attraction, the pull, it still fucking burned.
She lifted her chin, her emerald eyes studying me as if she had just fit one piece to the puzzle that painted the picture of just how fucked-up I was. “That’s why you kept on saying you’ll hurt me.” It wasn’t a question. “You’re afraid that what happened between you and your ex-wife would happen between us. That you’ll hurt me the way you hurt her.”
I took a step back. “I’m trying to make you see that I’m not a good man and that you’ll be better off walking away. Pretend like nothing ever happened between us.”
“You don’t think I’ve tried?” She stepped to the side, pulling her hair over her right shoulder. “Everything was so much simpler before you. Before that damn kiss.” She paced. “Oakley and I probably would have sorted our shit out, and my life would have been boring as hell, but at least I would have known what to expect. But now,” she rubbed her forehead, “with you, I don’t know what to expect from one minute to the next. And even though it drives me insane, I just can’t stay away. I mean, I wish I could. But I can’t.” She stilled, holding her arms out wide, her eyes focused as if she was trying to convince herself. “And then I ended up having this mind-blowing night with you where I finally felt what it was like to give up control yet be free at the same damn time.” Her gaze met mine. “It was amazing,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “I didn’t want it to end.” She looked down. “I wish it didn’t because now everything is fucked up, and I have no idea how things are going to play out. I just want to go back to that place where it was just you and me, just us. No one else. A place where I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not. But now…now nothing will ever be the same.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
She pulled her fingers through her hair, shaking her head lightly. “It’s nothing. I just…I meant us.”
Turning her back on me, she went to stand at the stairs, crossing her arms as she stared into the night. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to wrap my arms around her, to just stop fighting this pull between us and give in.
The selfish bastard in me admired her body with burning desire, her one shoulder exposed, the shirt hanging loosely around her waist, the denim shorts hugging her ass so goddamn tight. How was I supposed not to drown when I was already in over my head?
“Sienna—”
“I’m sorry,” she exclaimed as she turned to face me. “I um…now that I know about your wife and what happened between you two, I guess I can understand why you were so hellbent on not letting anything happen between us.” She nervously played with her fingers, looking down. “But being with you…the things we did, I think you helped me find a piece of myself I never would have if it weren’t for you.”
I clenched my jaw, trying to ignore the way my blood sang when she slipped in next to me on her way inside.
“I only have one question. Your ex-wife…was she into it?”
I remained silent.
“Did she do it simply because she knew you wanted it? Or did she like playing in the dark with you?”