AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I said?—”
“Oh, I heard you. I just can’t believe you think you need to say so. I’m not an idiot, Evan.”
“Well, y–you don’t follow orders very well.” He’s… flustered.
“Right. When they’re dumped on me like I can’t think for myself. When they are given without context and I’m left like an idiot to improvise. Trust is a two-way street, and I have given you mine so far. The least you could do is give me the same.”
“I told you I did.” His words before the show ring in my ears. He was trusting me, in a way. But it was still a test, still a challenge.
“Bullshit. You left out key details that would have helped me navigate the night better. You’re still jerking me along with your little shock and awe games instead of letting me all the way in.” I turn in my seat to face him, hammering him with my glare.
“No one knows that it's me behind that mask. Anyone who does, I chose to tell.” Unlike me is left unsaid. “Some of the dancers don't even know who I am. My clients, my employees, none of them are allowed to know anything about my private life. As far as you're concerned, you know nothing about my private life either, and you never will.” The piercing stare he lays on me has me shrinking in my seat and at the same time has my hackles shooting up like a feral cat’s.
Just like that, he throws the walls up again as he storms out of the car toward the back door of the office.
Not that I care.
He’s entitled to his secrets.
That’s not what makes me furious. It’s the fact that he has all these rules, statements that he uses to tie me up, trip me up, and keep me contained. It feels like lashes around my wrists, my ankles, my mouth. At that, the thought of him tying me up in a different way wedges itself into the mix against my will, sending a flood of desire up along my back and into my hairline, tingling my scalp.
“Evan!” I shout, hot on his heels. He spins on me, his jaw clenched. “I would never betray your trust.”
That’s what hits me hardest. My trust is sacred.
“Oh, I know,” he grits out. “Because no one crosses me.”
“Yeah, or else what? You sound just like that piece of shit drug dealer, lording my debt over me. Tell me, Evan. Tell me what you do to people who break your rules!”
“It’s the way this all works, don’t you get it? When you get in bed with the Sinful, it becomes your life. The good and the bad. Protection, desires, all at a price.”
“And what price do you pay?”
“That is not yours to know.” It’s obvious, though, as I see the fire slowly die in his eyes. This is the price. His control. His unwavering dedication to our work. Keeping everyone around him in little boxes that he can file. Never letting anyone in.
All for what? What did he need so badly that he gave up his life?
We’re right up in each other’s faces at this point, and I can’t help but stare into his eyes. Guarded. Cloudy with rage and remorse. My hand sweeps up to cup his cheek, a moment of boldness and caring.
And he allows it.
For just a split second, his eyes flutter closed and he sighs.
And then he’s gone. Turning and rushing into the office, slamming the door in my face.
My drive home to Gavin’s is quiet.
Plenty of time to replay the evening in my head from every angle. Plenty of time to get mad all over again, to imagine how I might have handled him differently.
To imagine what I really wanted to do to him when I saw him standing there naked in the dressing room. What I wish he would have done to me…
Those chains he shackles himself with on my wrists, holding me up, completely exposed to him. Completely at his mercy, under his control.
It’s a double-edged blade.
I hate the way he lives under it. And when he uses it against me to shut me in one of his cages.
It keeps leading me back to the idea of giving him control and seeing what the animal inside him would do.
