His eyes went scary dark at the last part, even with me being used to his glares and silent violence, I stepped back, just a little.
And then a lot more when he advanced on me.
My back hit the wall and he boxed me in with the arms I’d been admiring a handful of minutes ago.
“I am not embarrassed to call a woman of mine who worked her fuckin’ ass off to provide for her son,” he hissed, anger frightening and invigorating all at the same time.
“Who starved herself so her son could eat.” His hand trailed down the side of my body, brushing my breast so I let out a rough gasp.
“Who deprived herself of the life she was meant to have so her son could have his,” he continued, lips almost brushing mine. “Who constantly smiled and laughed even though she had every fucking reason in the world to break down.” He leaned back so my eyes met his. “No, Elena, I’m not ashamed to call you mine.” He stroked my face, in a stark juxtaposition of the violence etched in the rest of his body.
“I don’t give a fuck about what you do for a job. You’ll always be so much more honest, so much cleaner than me with everything you do. Everything you are. Being mine doesn’t define you. But it defines me. It’s everything to me. You’re my woman.”
I was his woman.
His woman.
That was so much better than girlfriend. It was weightier. More substantial.
“You’re talented as fuck with your furniture shit,” Lance continued, not realizing it was the first time he’d really called me his. “I’m not just sayin’ that. You’ve got talent. Everyone knows you do. Just like everyone knows you’re wasting that talent servin’ people.” His eyes hardened. “So you’re gonna quit. And you’re gonna do your furniture stuff.” His voice was firm. Commanding. Like all of this was a foregone conclusion.
I took a breath. A long, fractured, painful one. Full of Lance’s scent, his words, both bitter and sweet. “Okay, a lot of what you just said was beautiful. Like, put it in a script, a novel, a song kind of beautiful,” I told him, my voice breathy and dreamy to bring home my point. “So beautiful that I don’t feel like I’m in reality right now kind of stuff. Stuff that makes me want to forget everything else you just said to piss me off, rip all your clothes off and do beautiful filthy things to you right here on the living room floor.”
Lance’s eyes darkened at my words and his body moved to press against mine to show me just how much he liked that idea.
My nipples hardened. Knees weakened. My entire body started to betray me. But my mind somehow regained control and I blinked away the near animal desire I had for Lance.
“But the stuff you said pissed me off enough to not do that,” I said, hardening my gaze. “And looking at you, remembering just how good you are at sex, shows that what you said to piss me off is really frickin’ bad. It’s all well and good for you to tell me I’m talented, that I’m better than being a waitress, but how do you propose I feed, clothe, and house my son in the months or years it takes for me to start a business?” I asked him. “How do you expect me to take a risk like that that has no promises of success? Of a steady paycheck. The words are pretty, Lance, no matter how manly your voice is when you say them, but I don’t work in pretty. I work in reality. And reality is me having very limited choices to make sure I keep my son and me out of the gutter.”
Lance’s eyes flickered with his residual desire that the hardness at my stomach told me was not completely gone. But there was also a hardness to his jaw that he didn’t like much of what I was saying and that I wasn’t jiving with the whole ‘my word is law’ thing that I was sure he’d worked off in the past.
“You’re mine,” he clipped out by answer.
I stared at him. Counted to ten like I did when Nathan spilled paint on our hardwood floor. Then I breathed in and out. “I am aware that you’re not fond of speaking in complete sentences, or speaking at all for that matter, but at this juncture of the conversation, you cannot just grunt out two words as an explanation,” I snapped.
“You’re mine,” he repeated, his words tight like he was trying to control his temper. Like he was the one dealing with a rogue alpha male who was making decisions about his life without thinking that they weren’t his decisions to make. “That means I take care of you and Nathan. That means I’m the one to make sure you’re eatin’.” His eyes flickered up and down my body, heat trailing in their wake despite the fact I was pissed at him. “Both of you are eatin’. That you’re living good. Not just living pretty, but beautiful. I got more than enough money to make sure that happens. To give you the time you need to make what you need. I’ll take care of you.”