“So that day in my kitchen, when you came up behind me, not quite touching me...”
“I was on fire. I was mad, crazed. I’d abstained from physical contact of any kind with anyone for three months prior, in anticipation of that day.” You turn to face me, stare at me, seeing me as I was then, perhaps. “You...hummedwith sexual energy. Vibrated with it. And when I got close to you, you fairly radiated with need. It took every ounce of self-control I had to go slowly. To ease into it. All I wanted was to just...takeyou. Bend you over that counter and fuck you so hard it would shake the foundations of the earth.”
“That’s how it felt to me, that day. It felt as if you just took me, as if you fucked me exactly that hard. You took possession of me that day.”
Your gaze becomes anchored in the now, fierce, hot, and wild. “Yes. I did. I’d waited seven years for that day. I took care of you, saw to your every need. Gave you everything I knew how to give you. And yes, when it became clear you welcomed my touch, I took possession of what wasmine.”
You advance on me. Stalk toward me, predatory, hungry. I back away, gripping the edges of my robe and tugging them more tightly closed. I back up until the wall of the elevator bank is at my back, and I can back away no farther. You stop, inches from me. Hands at your sides. Chest heaving. Eyes burning into mine. You spoke of me radiating sexual energy.
In that moment, you radiate thus. You burn, you hum, you are a living conflagration of sexual need.
Tears prick my eyes. My stomach twists. My heart is spiked through.
Because my body . . . it reacts.
Comes alive.
I thought I was past this, but I am not.
I never will be, I do not think.
“You cannot deny it, Isabel,” you whisper. Your lips brush against mine, a feather-light, not-quite touch, not-yet kiss. “You cannot deny thatI...own...your...body. I own your past. I own yoursoul. And youknowit.”
You take my hips in your hands. I feel you erect between us.
Again.
Here I am,again. Facing you. Facing myself. Battling the demon that is my body’s instinctive reaction to you. And I must face that it is not just my body, but some powerful portion of who I am that is reacting thus to you.
But I cannot do this again. I cannot. I cannot.
Will not.
“But you do not own my heart, and you do not own my future.” I find it hard to breathe as I say this. Indeed, the words are gasped. Squeezed through the slivers of space between my tight-clenched teeth.
A breath leaves you. A single sigh.
I force myself to look at you. To meet your gaze. To know viscerally and down to the pit of my soul the gnashing pain in your eyes as you absorb my words.
Your shoulders lift. Brows lower. Your jaw flexes. Dark eyes go molten with... sorrow? Rage? Some potent conflation of both?
Your hand rises up from my waist.
Fingers curl. Fingers tighten around my throat. Your eyes on mine.
My airway is constricted. I cannot breathe. Stars burst behind my eyes.
“You . . . are . . . MINE.”This, from you, is a snarling hiss.
I am lifted up, off the ground. My vision narrows.
I do not fight you. This is the price I must pay. You gave me truth, finally. I believe every word you said, and more that you didn’t say, the word writ large and bold and bloody between the lines.
Your chest heaves. A sound emerges from you, a feral growl emitting from deep in your gut.
I feel oxygen rush through my teeth, into my lungs. Your fingers unclench. Slowly, ever so slowly. As if some invisible force is prizing each of your fingertips from my throat.
My feet once more touch the floor, and I collapse to my hands and knees, gasping, clutching my throat.
