Page 7 of Once Upon a Dream
Conviction burns in his voice, and his eyes are hot and honest on my face.
“Do you understand? Do you understand now? What you imagined—what you are still imagining—was never what I wanted. I never asked you to give up a single thing then, and I never would now.”
“But when we were alone…”
“I still only wanted what you did,” Lorne says, his hands tightening on my elbows. I shiver a little, remembering them rough on my ass, possessive between my legs. “I only wanted what you still want.”
“I’m not a submissive,” I say thinly. “I know I can’t be. I would have known before now, I would have felt differently before now—”
“I’m not asking for you to choose between words, Morgan, and that was never what our marriage was about anyway. I couldn’t have cared less what you called yourself, as long as you called yourself mine—as long as you stopped hating yourself for what you wanted from me when we were alone.”
My pride flares. “I never hated myself.”
Lorne’s eyebrow arches above the line of his mask. “Oh, is that so?”
“Well, I never hated myself for that,” I amend.
I have ten thousand other reasons for self-loathing, and I’ve commi
tted sins that will bar me from the gates of heaven, which he now knows. He didn’t during our marriage, but when my sins caught up with me two years ago, they caught up with everyone around me—splashed on every magazine cover and dissected on every cable news show for months. Lorne and I were well and thoroughly divorced by then, but he still learned my greatest pride and my greatest shame along with the rest of the world.
His eyes soften, and so do his hands. He pulls me closer into him, and I can smell the clean bite of mint and soap that always lingers on his skin. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” he murmurs. “I wanted to be there for you so badly. I would have, if only you would’ve let me.”
I close my eyes and nod. I know he’s right; I believe him.
When the news broke, he called and called and called. He texted, he offered to sue every magazine and news corporation on my behalf. He showed up at my door and I hid in the kitchen until he finally went away.
“Why didn’t you let me help?” he whispers, his lips in my hair. “Why do you never let me help?”
“You know why,” I say, resting my forehead against his shoulder.
“Because my help frightens you.”
“Yes.”
“Because accepting it feels like a concession of need.”
I shudder. “Yes.”
“And a concession of need is too close to...”
“Don’t make me say it, Lorne,” I beg. “I don’t want to say it.”
Frustration ripples through him. “You’ve broken both our hearts because you’re afraid of a word. A word that doesn’t even have to be yours.”
I pull back enough that I can look up at him. He doesn’t understand—how could he ever understand? He’s brilliant and handsome and driven, he’s got a face made for idealism and sin, he’s got stubble that people would pay money to feel scratching against their thighs. Of course he’s a Dominant, of course he can waltz into a club, into a bedroom, into a cold, political girl’s heart and make himself the king there. But when an otherwise powerful woman is a submissive, it’s a tacit confirmation of something. It’s acceding to the sinister notion that all women secretly crave submission somewhere, and I refuse to be a party to that.
“It can’t be me. I won’t be the woman who says she kneels for no one, and then abruptly decides to because the right man came along. And even if I could, that’s not how submission works. I can’t be submissive for just one person, that’s nonsense, that’s wishful thinking, that’s—”
Lorne yanks me into him, his mouth hovering a mere inch above mine. “You’re right,” he breathes. “You’re not submissive. You’re fucking stubborn.”
And then his mouth crashes down on mine.
3
His kiss is exactly how I remember, and at the same time, it’s so much more.
It’s more potent, more possessive, rougher and silkier all at once. His lips over mine are firm, warm, and the first flick of his tongue against my mouth is not a request. I part for him, and then I’m rewarded with plunder. Hot strokes that give no quarter, urgent kisses that have me sinking back into his arms—and his embrace brings renewed pain sizzling up my skin. His stubble hurts a little too—it’s just enough to scrape, just enough to scratch—as he moves his kisses to my neck and then ducks his head to nip at the exposed inner curves of my breasts.
