I Belong to You Read Free Page B

is, when I look into your eyes I see honesty and sincerity, qualities I value more than ever. Qualities I owe you in return. That means giving you a clear understanding of who and what I am—because the past few weeks have not been an example of those things.”
    Her gaze lowers and she says softly, “I know I’m a gateway to a place you’re using to cope with . . . things.” Then she looks at me. “Maybe I even am that place. You’ve just lost someone important to you. You fear losing your mother to cancer. So anything you feel with me is about them , not me. Sex is an escape for you.
    “And it is for me, too. It’s how I’ve handled the emotion all of this creates in me. So I don’t need or want your guilt. We’re clear on everything.”
    But we’re not; the muddied water we’re traveling is dangerous. Worse, she makes me want to believe we can continue. But she brings out a part of me I don’t want to exist; if I let it, I will deserve the guilt.
    “If we’re clear up to this point,” I reply, sliding the contract across the table, “then you understand why it’s so important that we’re equally clear on what our relationship is or isn’t going forward.”
    Her eyes hold mine and she swallows hard, before her gaze drops to the contract. She stares at the first line, “Master and Submissive Contract,” for two beats and then calmly hands it back to me. “I told you. I will never be your submissive.”
    “This is how I operate.” A contract is about my responsibility for her well-being, being in charge of everything that she is and does. Yet that’s not really what I want right now. I want lust, desire. Short, intense BDSM sessions that let me exert the control I need in the rest of my life, strengthening me—but right now I’m too far to the other side to make that happen.
    “This is how you operate,” she repeats slowly.
    “Yes. The only way.”
    “It’s not how I operate.” She stands up, in full rejection mode.
    I push to my feet as well. “Have you ever been a submissive?” I ask, intentionally pushing her buttons. “Did you have a bad experience, and that’s why you’re resisting?”
    She makes a frustrated sound. “All you need to know is that I will never be one with you.”
    She walks away and I have to clamp down on a sudden urge to grab her, pull her to me, and demand to know what the fuck she meant. She is not for you, I remind myself. She is not for you.
    She puts the desk between us. “I’d like to get back to my work now.”
    Her voice quivers with hurt—not my intention, and proving how bad this could get if it continued. And what’s bad for us would also be bad for my mother. Slipping the contract back into my briefcase, I go for the close, standing directly across from her and pinning her in an unwavering stare. “Submitting to me would teach you things about yourself that I know, and you don’t.”
    The hurt disappears, replaced by red-hot anger blazing from her eyes. “You know about me? Seriously? You don’t even know about you right now.”
    Goal achieved. Believing that I’m an asshole lets her hold her head high; lets this end on her terms.
    I press my hands on the desk, leaning toward her. “Oh, Ms. Smith,” I purr, “you’d be shocked to know just how well I know myself. You’d be even more shocked to know how well I know you. After fucking under my rules just once, I’d own you.”
    She presses her hands to the desk and leans forward, too, yet I see her bottom lip quiver. “Fucking me,” she bites out, “ pleasing me, doesn’t make you own me.”
    My blood heats with desire. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”
    “One you’d fail,” she assures me.
    “Should I remind you yet again, how easily I made you beg me to lick your—”
    “Don’t,” she warns calmly. “Don’t keep pushing me.” She straightens her spine and crosses her arms. “I’m done. We’re done.” She sits down and pulls her folder in front of her. “I’m