Page 46 of Owned

Her brow furrowed. “Do what?”

“Pretend. I know you’re not okay.”

“So why did you ask?”

“Because I wanted to see if I was going to get the truth or more bullshit. And it looks like I’m getting bullshit.”

She gave a snort. “I don’t have to tell you about every thought or feeling, Atlas.”

At the sharp note in her voice, the tension that still had me in its grip released at slightly. If she could still be mad at me after I’d wrecked her, that was a good sign. I didn’t want what we’d done to have her hurt her irreversibly.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “From now on, when I ask, you give me the truth.” I stroked a gently fingertip down her cheek. “Because I’ll know if you lie.”

She shivered at my touch, her lashes sweeping down to veil her gaze. “What do you mean from now on?”

I looked at those lashes, lying thick and soft on the pink skin of her cheek, the monster in me knowing exactly what I meant. I wasn’t going to be getting rid of her. I wasn’t going to be sending her away. I’d told her I’d keep her and so I would, my father be damned. The end.

I stroked my fingers down the side of her neck then went lower, closing them around her throat, gripping her gently. “I told you what would happen if you gave me an inch, beauty. I’m going to take that fucking mile, whether you want me to or not.”

She swallowed, her throat moving against my palm. “Let me go.”

I held her gaze. “Why? I’m not choking you. I’m not hurting you or threatening you, and you know I won’t. So what’s the problem?”

She glanced away. “I…don’t like it.”

Little liar.

“What did I say about the truth?” I tightened my grip enough to let her know I meant business. “You do like it, that’s the problem. You like it and you don’t want to admit it.”

“I’m not a possession.”

“Yes, you are,” I said softly, feeling the truth of it settle inside me. “You’re mine now, just like I told you. That was the consequence you accepted when you went down on your knees, when you took my cock in your mouth and when I fucked you over the couch just now. I told you I’d own you and now I do.”

Finally, she looked at me, the embers of her temper glittering in her eyes. “I don’t want to be owned. I don’t want?—”

“What are you afraid of?

Her gaze dropped yet again, settling on the cotton weave of my shirt instead. “I… don’t like the thought of being dependent on anyone. Especially not a man. I don’t want to end up being like…” She paused, then added, “It feels disloyal to say it.”

She didn’t need to say it though, I knew who she was talking about and I understood. She was talking about Cait.

Gently, I stroked the side of her neck with my thumb, trying to ease her tension and was gratified when she relaxed. “You’re not anything like your mother, Rowan. You must know that.”

The heat in her eyes faded and she shook her head. “Maybe not now, but who knows in the future? Mom only wanted someone to take care of her, yet every time she thought she’d found someone, she ended up disappointed. And in the end all she had was me, and I…. Well, I couldn’t give her what she wanted and I couldn’t make her better. I couldn’t seem to make her happy and?—”

Taking my hand from her throat, I laid a finger across her pretty mouth, silencing her. “That’s not your fault,” I said, because Rowan already had an over inflated sense of responsibility, and she really didn’t need to take on responsibility for Cait’s mental health as well. “You’re Cait’s daughter, not her doctor or her nurse. Her mental health was not your problem to fix.”

Rowan shook my finger away. “I know that,” she said, impatient. “But she ran through her money so fast and of course we had no insurance. All she had was me. Even when I was a kid, I was the one making sure she ate, making sure she slept, making sure she took her meds. I was the one making sure she stayed alive. And if I hadn’t…” She broke off.

“You blamed me,” I said and it wasn’t a question. “That’s why you screamed at me when I left.”

“I…thought you out of all of them would stay and you didn’t.”

I liked that finally she was being honest with me and so I gave her my own honesty in return. “I thought Cait would be okay. I genuinely did. We didn’t love each other, but we respected each other and she told me when I left that she’d be fine.”

“Well, she wasn’t fine,” Rowan said. “And neither was I.”

It was a big thing for her to admit that, I could see, and a sign of trust that she would say it aloud to me. But of course the beast inside me wanted more. It wanted everything.

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