Chapter 7 #2
“Space?” he offers when I trail off.
My jaw tightens. “Yes.”
He lets go of my wrist and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling.
“You know what’s interesting, Brendon?” he says. “When most people need space, they send a text. Or they answer one. Or they pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, I’m alive, leave me the fuck alone.’”
He turns his head to look at me again, and now I see the anger sitting there under the lazy tone. It’s not explosive, just a steady, irritated heat.
“I’ve been texting you all morning,” he says, “calling as well, and I got nothing. That’s rude.”
I blink at him, incredulous. “Rude? I skipped one day of responding to your constant harassment, and you broke into my apartment?”
His mouth quirks at the word harassment. “You really putting it like that?”
“What else am I supposed to call it?” I ask. “You cornered me twice, you put your hands on me, and then you show up here like you own the place because I didn’t answer your texts for a few hours.”
He yawns, completely at ease, like we’re having this conversation over coffee and not on my mattress. “You ignored me,” he says again. “That pisses me off.”
“I don’t owe you responses,” I shoot back. “I’m not your friend. I’m not your… anything.”
He smiles slowly, and it’s that cold, private version that has nothing to do with charm. “See, that’s where you’re wrong.”
I swallow, suddenly very aware of how close he is, how his body heat seeps through my thin shirt. “You have no claim over me,” I say, but the words sound weak even to my own ears.
His expression shifts, and the lazy, amused edge drops away. What’s left is focus.
Without warning, he pushes me down onto the mattress; it happens so fast my brain doesn’t have time to catch up.
One second, I’m half sitting against the headboard, and the next my back is flat on the mattress.
Dominic is over me, pinning both my wrists with one hand while the other slips around my throat.
A startled sound rips out of me on instinct before I just… stop. There’s a moment where my body could choose. Push, shove, kick, or scream.
I’ve been trained in self-defense; I know the angles. Dean’s office seminars and those campus safety pamphlets have drilled them into our heads: knee to the groin, thumb to the eyes, twist your wrist, and break the grip.
I don’t use any of it.
I freeze instead, breath coming fast, heart pounding so hard it feels like it’s trying to jump into his palm. His weight is solid over my hips—not painful, just there—heavy and anchored, and his face hovers above mine, close enough that I can see the individual streaks of blue and gray in his eyes.
“This is what I mean,” he says quietly. “You say one thing, but your body—”
“I’ll call the police,” I say, even though my phone is on the nightstand and his weight has me effectively pinned.
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “No, you won’t.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” I insist.
“I do, actually,” he says, and there’s a new edge in his voice now.
Darker. Less playful. “If you were going to call them, you would’ve done it yesterday.
Or the day before. Or anytime between watching me kill a guy and letting me put my hand on your throat while you made the prettiest little noise I’ve ever heard. ”
Heat burns up my face, humiliation and anger tangling in my chest. “That wasn’t—”
“It was exactly what it was,” he cuts in. “And you fucking know it.”
My face burns so hot I feel sick. “Stop talking about that.”
“I’m not shaming you. I’m telling you the truth. You liked it, and you like this. Me over you, holding you down. You can call it fear all you want, but I’m not blind, Brendon.”
I squeeze my eyes shut because if I keep looking at him, I’m going to give away even more. “You’re sick.”
“Probably,” he says lightly. “You’re still the one lying here underneath me instead of shoving me off the bed.”
A part of me is humming with relief at being pinned, at not having to stand on my own two feet for once, at feeling someone else’s weight making the decisions.
My whole life has been about control. About forcing myself into a mold. Now there’s this terrible, traitorous part of me that wants to hand all of that to the worst possible person and say, “Here, you deal with it.”
Dominic dips his head a little closer. “Here’s what’s going to happen from now on. You listening?”
“I don’t—”
His hand tightens around my wrist hard enough to remind me who’s in charge of this conversation. “You listening?” he repeats.
My throat bobbles on a swallow. “Yes.”
“Good boy,” he says. “Rule number one: you answer me every time. If I call, you pick up. If I text, you respond. Maybe not in the same minute, I’m not a complete dictator, but I don’t get left on read, and you don’t disappear.”
“I’m not your property,” I say, because I feel obligated to say it.
He hums thoughtfully. “Not yet.”
“Dominic—”
“Rule two,” he cuts in, ignoring my protests.
“You don’t cancel on me. If you need to reschedule a session, ask.
You don’t make that decision alone and then hide under your covers.
You’re supposed to be helping me pass; you don’t get to fuck up my timeline because you’re having a crisis about your dick. ”
Shame explodes in my chest. “That’s not—”
“Yes, it is,” he interjects. “You’re spinning out because you liked what you thought you shouldn’t. Welcome to adulthood. You don’t get to drag me down with you because your father gave shitty sermons.”
I flinch at the mention of my father. He watches that reaction, then his voice softens by a fraction.
“You take on everyone else’s shit. Professors, students, and family. You do everything they want, and then you act shocked when someone demands you take something for yourself.”
“That’s not what this is,” I whisper. “This is you… pushing. Taking. For fun.”
“Yeah,” he says, unapologetically, “and you respond to it. So here we are.”
I swallow hard against his hand. “What happens if I don’t follow your rules?” I manage.
He considers me, eyes dark. “The next time, we won’t be having a civil conversation.”
A pathetic shiver runs through me at that threat. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll answer.”
He tilts his head. “All of it.”
“I’ll answer your calls and texts,” I force out, the words bitter on my tongue. “Happy?”
His eyes search mine, as if he’s testing how much of that is real and how much is survival.
After a long beat, he nods, pushing off me with an ease that suddenly makes me aware of how much he’s been holding back.
The mattress springs up a little as his weight leaves, and I suck in a breath like someone loosened a band around my ribs.
“Yeah,” he says, straightening and running a hand through his hair. “I’m satisfied for now.”
There’s something terrifying about that qualifier, but I don’t have the energy to push him on it. I just watch him move around my room, eyes tracing the way he takes everything in without touching much.
He walks to the bedroom door and rests his hand on the knob, glancing back at me. “I’ll see you later,” he says.
He turns the knob, and panic spikes suddenly in my chest, an instinctive flare that hits before I can name it.
The thought of him walking out and leaving me alone with the wreckage he just stirred up feels unbearable, the edges of it too jagged to hold by myself.
Before I can stop myself, my mouth moves.
“Dominic.”
The word comes out barely louder than a breath, but he hears it. He freezes, hand still on the knob, then turns his head slowly to look at me. The smirk that spreads across his face is slow and viciously pleased.
“Yeah?” he asks, voice drifting back across the room. “You need something, Little Sin?”
Fuck.
I don’t know what to say now that I have his attention. I don’t know what I expected him to do. Apologize? Reassure me? Promise to be gentle? That’s not him. That’s never been him.
He lets go of the knob and walks back toward the bed, then stops at the edge of the mattress. When he’s close, he leans down until his face is inches from mine.
“You don’t get to bait me and then go quiet,” he murmurs, hand braced on the headboard beside my head. “That’s not how this works.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. I don’t have an answer that doesn’t damn me.
I don’t know how to ask for space and closeness in the same breath.
I don’t know how to explain that I want him out of my life and off my chest and away from my thoughts—and at the same time, I don’t want him to take his eyes off me.
Words fail me, so I say nothing. There’s a spark of hunger lighting up in his eyes, and it makes me feel like a rabbit watching a wolf realize the chase is going to be fun.