“Whatever happened that day made you different. I swore I saw your eyes change. Then you tossed that whole tower across the room.” I shake my head. “Over the years I told myself it wasn’t real. That your dad was just pissed and sent you off to some boarding school, but then you never tried to reach me.” I held out this small hope that when he turned eighteen, he’d magically appear because his parents wouldn’t have control anymore, but it didn’t happen.
“What you saw was real and only the start.”
“You could have told me something!” Why hide all this from me?
“I was scared.” His words hang between us, and I can’t remember him ever saying that before. Keaton was always so calm and sure of things.
“Scared of what you became?”
“For the first few days, they had to keep sedating me. I kept trying to escape like a wild animal fighting to break free. I barely remember it, but they said I was trying to get to you, and I was out of control.”
“You thought you’d hurt me?” He swallows and nods his head. Keaton might believe that, but I never will.
“When my emotions start to come into play, I tend to lose control. That happens most when I think of you.” His thumb drifts back and forth over the inside of my wrist.
“You locked yourself away somewhere so you wouldn’t come near me?” I gasp in a hushed whisper.
“I’ve been training to get better control of myself.” I can see it in his eyes that he hates this. My Keaton, the one I knew years ago, was always in control.
“And how is that going?”
“I threw a chair at my TV last night when I found out a man was at your apartment.” My mouth falls open and not only because he threw a chair at his TV. “I know, I should have been keeping tabs on you, but it helped to remind me of why I was trying to get myself under control.”
I know it shouldn’t, but it actually makes me feel better that he has been keeping tabs on me. That I wasn’t just locked away and lost to him. He was always thinking of me, and god knows I was always thinking of him.
“You came today even after the TV incident?”
“It was the date I set for myself to pull it together. There was no stopping me from coming today. I don’t think I could have stopped myself if I tried. It’s like whatever this is inside of me had agreed with that date, and if it didn’t happen it was going to break free.”
“Key.” I lay my head on his chest. “You seem in control.”
“You calm me. All this time I didn’t know what would happen if I got to you, but for the first time, I’m calm.” He sounds amazed for a moment. “But—”
“No.” I cut him off knowing he’s about to say something about the marks on my thighs. “They don’t hurt. In fact, I loved every second of that little present.” I drop my head back to stare up at him.
“Little?” He presses his hard cock against my stomach. So not little. “I could hurt you. The things I want to do to you.” His nose flares as his eyes light up.
“We’ll take it slow if that makes you feel better, but Key? If you disappear on me again, I’ll never forgive you. We’re either in this together or not at all.”
His hold on me tightens. “Always together. You’re my queen, remember.”
I know I am, but Keaton taught me you always protect the queen, and I’m scared that he’ll think I’ll need protection from him. I have to remind him that without the queen, the king will fall.