Lovegame(45)

If I thought it was what she wanted—what she needed—I would do just that. But if I’ve learned anything the last few days, it’s that coddling Veronica, giving in to her, is the last thing that will get me anywhere. She needs a firm hand, someone who won’t back down just because she’s a star. She needs someone who can set boundaries and keep them, even as she batters against them.

Fuck, just thinking like that makes me uneasy. Makes me wonder what the f*ck is happening here and if I need to back the f*ck up. Because, before I met Veronica, I never thought about a woman in terms like these.

I never paid any attention to power exchange and what it means in the bedroom.

I sure as hell never imagined that I’d be locked in the middle of a game of sexual dominance with one of the sexiest women in the world.

Yet here I am, determined—desperate, even—to give her what I know she needs.

Because I am, I silently wait for her answer. Silently wait for the words that will free us both.

It takes a while before they come, before she finally clears her throat and whispers, “I don’t like flowers.”

It’s a relatively unimportant fact compared to everything I want to know, and relatively impersonal, too—something that anyone could hear and not think twice about. I almost dismiss it, almost pull her tank top over her head as I demand more from her. But there’s something in the way she’s tensed up, in the way she’s braced herself like she’s waiting for a blow, that makes me think there’s more to the story than Veronica is letting on.

So instead of brushing her answer off, I pitch my voice low and soft as I ask, “Why is that?”

But she’s already talking again, deep in her own head as she continues, “I don’t know why people think giving someone flowers is romantic—once you cut them they’re just one more dead thing that smells terrible. One more thing that will decay and wither and eventually dry up and turn to dust.”

There’s so much in that answer that I almost get lost in it all. Especially when I think back to her house yesterday, to the copious flower arrangements that popped up in nearly every public room and the extensive, manicured garden she spent hours being photographed in. Why have either if she dislikes them so intensely?

That’s the question I want the answer to, but something tells me asking it straight out will shut her down completely. And so I dance around it, addressing the simplest part of her answer first. “You really don’t like the smell of flowers?”

“Not most of them, no. The scent of roses actually makes me sick.”

Why? The question is right there on the tip of my tongue like so many others. And like the other questions, it’s one more that I don’t ask. Instead I clarify, “Don’t people send you roses all the time?”

She smiles a little then, but it’s all irony, no happiness at all. “They do, yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You’ve never sent me flowers.”

“And now I never will.”

“I think it’s safe to say you weren’t planning on it anyway,” she says with the husky laugh she’s known for the world over.

She’s wrong, but I don’t bother to tell her that. I’m too busy trying to fit this newest piece of her into the puzzle.

Is it physical? I wonder. Her reaction to roses? Psychological? How far back does it go? Does she even know what its roots are or is it something that’s always been there?

She shivers a little, and I press myself against her, wrap her in my arms. She relaxes into me, lets me warm her for several long moments. Then, when she’s finally stopped trembling, she whispers, “Aren’t you going to turn off another light?”

Right, the game. This is all about a game. About information.

The reminder is what it takes to get me to pull away from her. To cross the room and turn off first one light, and then a second, because I sense that she was more honest with this question than she had any intention of being and she deserves the reward. And because with each moment that passes, my need to touch her—to be inside of her—grows.

There are only two lamps left to turn off in the room now, only two questions left for me to ask her. But as I return to her, there’s only one question that matters.

Grabbing her wrist, I tug hard, whirling her around to face me. And then I’m pressing her back against the glass, resting my hand on her collarbone as my fingers circle and stroke the delicate skin of her throat. Her eyes grow wide at the possessive hold, but she doesn’t try to shake me off. Doesn’t try to escape. Instead, she licks her lips. Swallows audibly. Stares at me with eyes gone the same night-violet as the sky outside my window.

It’s the first time our eyes have met since this whole thing began.

“Do you want this?” I demand, low and urgent.

She nods slowly, her gaze holding mine like we’re missile locked together. Still, “I need to hear you say it.”

“I—” Her voice breaks, her breath stuttering out in a rush.

I wait, but she doesn’t try to speak again. Her silence disturbs me even as it drags me closer to the ragged edges of my self-control and I slide my hand up her throat to cup her jaw, rub my thumb roughly back and forth across her lips.

“Do. You. Want. This?” I ask again, the words dark and strident in the tense silence of the room.