Time (Laws of Physics #3)(15)

Why would you let him do that to you?

Wait. Do what? Touch me?

He held you down. You couldn’t move, and you liked it.

I blinked at the internal accusation, remembering the last several minutes as though watching them happen to someone else.

I’d liked that? I’d like him over me? Holding me down? I’d liked not being able to move? Being touched, possessed, controlled like that? He didn’t ask. However, I didn’t say no. I didn’t ask him to stop. Asking him to stop had never even entered my mind.

A flood of disbelief was followed by a rising tide of reason, during which I attempted to explain and describe my own desires to myself as something healthy and normal.

But is it? Is it healthy and normal?

Yes.

No.

Maybe?

No. You were afraid.

Was I?

Yes. And you wanted to be overpowered, you liked it. He could’ve done anything to you, and you would’ve been helpless to stop him. Even now—thinking about the possibility of handing over control again—You. Want. It.

I did. Just the thought of Abram over me again, his weight covering me—but this time naked, entering me, taking his pleasure from my body—I was completely and wholly arrested by the mere notion. It made me breathless, achy with a new dazzling, blinding thirst.

Yes. I want it.

And yet, I shouldn’t want to feel helpless, right? I shouldn’t want to feel overpowered physically. I’d felt that way once, against my will, and it revolted me, it kept me up at night, it gave me nightmares.

On the other hand.

With Abram it felt different—the loss of control, the lack of explicit consent, the being conquered sexually, emotionally—and what did that say about me? Was I turning a difficult moment in my life into a fantasy? Just the thought made me sick.

My internal arguments were becoming circular. Disbelief and reason were pushed aside by a creeping sense of shame and guilt.

Is there something wrong with me? I shouldn’t want this, should I? I shouldn’t—

“Mona.”

My name in Abram’s voice pulled me out of my shadowy reflections, and I looked at him, comprehending my own position at the same time. I’d rolled to my side, my knees bent and pulled to my chest, my arms locked around my legs. He was kneeling at the side of the bed, his hand hovering over my temple.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his gaze searching. “Did I—I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

The trepidation in his voice was a sobering bucket of ice water and I immediately shook my head, pushing myself up. “No. No, not at all.”

He didn’t look convinced. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head more resolutely. “You did everything right, you are great.”

I’m the one who is wrong. I didn’t tell you to stop.

Abram seemed to be watching me closely, but he still wasn’t touching me. “I had to leave the bed, I was too—uh—worked up, and I only have this one pair of pants.” His mouth curved in a self-deprecating smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes and quickly waned. “Do you want me to hold you?”

Swallowing against a lump in my throat, not trusting myself to speak, I nodded. His hand covered mine in the bed, and—damn it!—I flinched, not meaning to and immediately rebuking myself for the involuntary response.

Abram’s eyes widened and he moved as though he was going to withdraw, so I caught him, grabbing his arm and using it to pull him forward. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I slid to the floor, to my knees, and held on.

He hesitated only a fraction of a second, and then closed me in an embrace. But it felt careful, hesitant, as though to communicate I was free to come or go, and that frustrated me.

There’s something wrong with me, I shouldn’t want—I shook my head. I would have to think about this later. We had no time, and I’d just come apart under his skillful hands. Which meant our relationship was operating under a climax disparity. My confused turmoil would have to wait until the scorecard was even, and he was on a plane back to the West Coast.

“Hold me tighter,” I demanded. “I need you to hold me tighter.”

“Are you sure?” His strong arms flexed, but he didn’t draw me any closer.

“Yes.” I crushed him to me. “Please.”

It must’ve been the please that did it, thank goodness, and I liquefied in his powerful embrace, loving the constricting feel of the hug, snuggling closer, smelling him, and admitting unthinkingly, “I already miss you.”

I felt him smile against my shoulder, placing a kiss there. “I already miss you too.”

“How much time do we have?”

Abram sighed. “Not enough.”

Moving my hands down his shoulders, I worked my arms inside his embrace, placing a kiss on the underside of his scruffy jaw, and slid my fingers to the front of his pants.

“Whoa—” He released my body to capture my hand before I could reach for his fly. “Wait—Mona—what are you doing?”

I stroked him over his pants with my free hand and a wild thrill raced down my spine at the feel of him, so hard, so ready. I’d never been a big fan of male sex organs, but—in this moment—I wanted to take out an ad in all the newspapers announcing my everlasting devotion to his.