Page 84 of Blind Devotion
I kissed him just as lovingly and sweetly as his rocking movements. That fluttering in my stomach spread to my chest and neck.
“Marry me.”
Everything in me froze. I tried not to tense. I really tried not to let my feelings on this ruin the moment, but he felt it. He stopped moving. I kept undulating my hips, trying to ignore the storm brewing in the room.Let it go, I begged him quietly. He shoved my hips down and held me in place. My shoulders slumped, that beautiful mood thoroughly destroyed.
“Tessa. Marry me,” he repeated, this time a command.
“Don’t take that tone with me.”
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“Then don’t.” I swatted his hands off me and rose, immediately aware of how his cum trickled down my thigh.
“Just say yes. Why is this so hard for you?”
Every day, he asked me to marry him. Every day, I let him down gently. His frustration was building with each rejection. I could feel it, but I wasn’t going to say yes just because he wanted it. Until he decided to discuss our past and stopped forbidding contact with my family, I refused to say yes.
“You know why.”
He huffed a growl. I sifted my hands through his hair and tightened my fists in it to turn his head up to face me.
My right eye was still a blank sheet. I got nothing from it. At least I no longer wore the eye shields. With my left, though,shapes were clearer and colors more defined. Everything remained blurred and unclear, speckled with spots of gray. However, I learned over the last few weeks to identify what the blurred shapes meant to me. For Adrien’s face, my brain filled in what I currently saw with what I remembered of him from years past. Blue eyes that were harder now, high cheekbones, sharp jaw, a jagged scar down the side of his face, a narrow nose. Without words and actions, it was impossible for me to read his emotions, but I didn’t need any of that to understand him. His umbrage was equal to my own.
“Stop keeping secrets from me. Stop keeping me from my family. Stop trying to place us in a bubble.”
Despite his anger, he gently wrapped his thick fingers around my wrists and pulled them away from him. He got up and wrestled with his clothing. A quick zip of his pants, and he was sidling around me.
“I have work to do.”
Like every other time I brought this up, he didn’t even try to discuss the issue. He closed himself off, and I was sick of it. This had gone on for far too long.
I followed him to his desk, grappling along the furniture to avoid missteps.
“Why won’t you talk to me? Why are you keeping me out?”
“Don’t.” He spun on me, only to catch me as I lost my balance from the sudden change in movement. “You good?”
I nodded, and his hold fell away.
“Don’t act like I keep you in the dark. I’ve told you more than anyone else.”
“About yourself, yes. About what I already remember. About your recent businesses and life, sure. But what about why it took this”—I swept a hand over my body—“for us to get to this point? What happened tous? Why are you holding that information hostage?”
I remembered so much of our past now, but the last few years remained fuzzy. We’d been so good together, such great friends, so few fights between us. I’d been madly in love with him, looking forward to the day I turned eighteen so that our engagement could be announced, with the wedding planned for the month after. So how was it that I had just celebrated my twentieth birthday three days ago and we weren’t married already?
When we were younger, I lived for the idea of him and me together. Never would I have given that up for anything. My babbo could have forbidden it, and I still would have found a way.
Every single time I tried to bring it up, Adrien changed the topic or brain-addled me with so much sex and orgasms that I was too tired to push the subject further. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why weren’t we together? Why didn’t you even recognize me from the start? Why does your mother hate me?” Of course he ignored me, striding to his desk chair with sure steps while I felt myself crumbling. Something terrible must have happened. “Stop avoiding this and talk to me.”
I stalked forward, my hand testing the space in front of me in case I missed something.
“Is this why you don’t want me contacting my family? You think they’ll tell me whatever you’re so desperate to hide? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I need them? That maybe they need me?”
“Tessa, I have a business meeting to prepare for. I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Like hell you do.” I reached his desk and leaned over it. “If you had time enough to stick your dick in me, you have time enough to talk to me.”
