Page 34 of Start With A Slap

—You screaming yes yes, head lashing on the pillow... Or the table. Or the back seat of my car, I haven’t decided

On the other hand… could she keep herself in check? Would she giveherselfhell?

“Hey,” Jason said quietly, startling her out of her internal battle.

“Hey.”

He walked into her office, pulling the door half-ajar behind him as he often did when he wanted to talk about something personal. A closed door was frowned upon; the fact that they were married was already a conflict at the office.

“So, I’ve been thinking about Paris,” he said, putting his hands in his suit pockets, in the same way that Sever did. “I feel like... I don’t want you to go.”

He must have seen the split second of distress this caused her, because he said, “I’m not telling you not to, it’s a hundredper cent up to you, I just... I got a bad feeling about it. Is that crazy?”

Nope, not crazy. She hoped, though, that it was a vague fear of something going wrong, like a plane crash—anything but the far more destructive scenario on her mind. “What kind of bad feeling?”

“I dunno.” He played with a lock of her hair. “When I think about you being there, it makes me kinda... panicky.”

It hit her then that this wasn’t about her at all. Tenderly, she touched his hand and whispered, “Honey, that’s because something happened to you there.”

Jason’s demeanor changed, and she regretted her words immediately. Looking beyond her with eyes suddenly cold and distant, he said, “You know what? Forget it.”

“Jase—”

“No no, you’re right. It’s all in my head.”

“That’s not what I meant...”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and looked at his watch. “I gotta get back to it.”

As he walked off, she sighed.Great job, Ivy. Way to retraumatize your loved ones.

She knew better than this; she had eighteen psych credits under her belt! And yet, in this situation, she couldn’t control herself. She wanted so much to feel closer to him, and he consistently shut her out. He called her his safe haven, but how could that be true if at the slightest mention of his past, he treated her like a stranger who had no right to intrude? And then the way his eyes changed and he turned ice-cold... she knew it had to be from the trauma, but it fuckinghurt.

To her, the best part of a new relationship was learning everything there was to know about each other...

Or, it was, until she had secrets of her own to protect.

She chastised herself for the double standard. She’d fallen off her high horse the moment she rode it to Sever Mark’s gate.

All the while, she’d been fighting a strong impulse to come clean with Jason—it would end the secrecy, end the hold Sever had over her, shut off the doomsday clock he’d set in motion—but the pain, anger and distrust it would cause was not worth the fleeting sense of virtue or ebb of guilt. It certainly wouldn’t bring their relationship back to the way it was pre-Sever.

Besides, what could she even say?I’ve been lying to you. I went to your father’s house after you begged me not to. I thought I was doing a good thing, but I was wrong. Now, he’s inexplicably obsessed with me—maybe it’s because he has it out for you, maybe he enjoys chasing unattainable women, or maybe it’s just that we have an insane amount of chemistry... I’m really surprised you haven’t picked up on it. I can barely concentrate on anything else when we’re in the same room. He’s groped me on two separate occasions, made me think about him when I come, and tricked you into thinking he cared about you for the sick pleasure of seeing me squirm. Basically, he’s a complete shit and I’m super into it. But it’s you I love! Forgive me?

Yeah, she couldn’t tell him.

And she really, really couldn’t go to Paris.

Of course, if she didn’t go and Sever made good on his threat to tell him all of the above? It wouldn’t even be about their marriage at that point. Jason would bebroken.

She never should have opened the viper door. She never should have fallen in and let the Devil kiss her neck and get her so aroused that thinking about it caused a slippery reenactment between her legs.

This wasn’t fair. Up to that moment, her relationship with Jason had been so easy. So grounded. So...

Safe?

Ivy’s gaze landed on the near-dead orchid on her desk. Bringing it close, she began to pull the crispy brown petals from its stem. What was wrong with safe? She knew that Sever meant “boring”, not the opposite of “dangerous”. But what was wrong with boring? Routine? Cookie cutter? She liked cookies.Everyone likes cookies.

Of course, Sever had only said that to push her buttons. His end game was to coax her into taking a risk—a risk that would end with her naked. In... less than a week, according to him.

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