Black spots danced in my vision, and that’s when I realized I’d stopped breathing.
“Breathe, baby.”
Just like that, my lungs expanded on command, and I managed to rasp, “I’m okay with that plan.”
His chuckle had my toes curling into the carpet. “Tempting, Kitten, but I have somewhere I want to take you. So hustle your lush ass up those stairs and put on some clothes because I’m dying to see you.”
We were going out?
That was a direct contradiction to what I was allowing this relationship to be—sex only. Had I not been devastated only moments ago at the idea of him walking out that door forever, I might’ve ensured we didn’t leave the house by making a move on him and testing the limits of his restraint. But the memory of that perceived rejection was still too fresh in my mind, and that’s what had me climbing the stairs and preparing to go wherever he planned to take me.
“Wait. I thought you said you had the day off.” I couldn’t hold back my confusion as our destination—Speed Arena—came into view.
“I do,” Sasha replied, his hand gliding over the steering wheel as he turned into a back entrance that brought us to a security checkpoint with a manned gatehouse.
“Then what are we doing here?” I asked, but he held up a finger, cutting me off as he rolled down his window.
An older gentleman bent down to peek into the low sports car. “Goose! Almost thought you weren’t coming today.” When he caught sight of me in the passenger seat, he chuckled. “Oh, I see. I’d be running behind if I had a pretty young woman to distract me, too.”
Sasha flashed me a dazzling grin before turning back to the man. “Jerry, this is Gemma.”
“Gemma.” Jerry offered me a nod. “Nice to meet you. You’ve got one of the good ones with Goose here.” Before I could respond, he directed his following words at Sasha. “You’re the last one here. Everyone else is already inside.”
The last ones here? What was he dragging me into?
Jerry must have pressed a button to raise the barrier, and Sasha drove into a parking structure seemingly attached to the arena.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, my anxiety shooting through the roof.
He gripped my trembling hand, interlacing our fingers and gently squeezing. “It’s a surprise.”
The confines of the sports car grew smaller with each passing minute, my chest tightening as I struggled to breathe.
“I don’t do well with surprises. Sasha, please.” I cursed how weak my voice sounded.
The desperate plea had his eyes shifting toward me as he drove. When he caught sight of me, his smile slipped. Hitting the brakes, he put the car in park before shifting to capture my face in his massive hands.
“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s just a Christmas party. I wanted to show you off. That’s all.” He managed to get his torso far enough over the center console that he could press his forehead to mine, breathing out, “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
The haze of panic cleared, and embarrassment crept in to take its place.
Would I ever walk into a situation and not fear that it was an ambush, that someone had betrayed me?
Oh, how I wished I could snap my fingers and undo the conditioning drilled into my head from a young age—to distrust everyone and everything, that nothing was ever as it seemed.
When was my past ever going to let me go?
I hated that I already knew the answer: never.
I couldn’t change my family any more than a zebra could change its stripes. So long as Bellini blood ran through my veins, I would be a target on someone’s list.
The bottom line was that I could never be “normal.”
It was bad enough that I had been doomed since the moment I was born; I refused to pull Sasha into my messy life.
“I can’t do this.” I didn’t just mean the party.
“No. What you can’t do is shut me out. Let me carry your burdens.” His thumbs stroked my cheeks, his breath fanning over my lips.
