Chapter 12
Reagan
I’m shaking so badly I might fall if I don’t sit down, but I refuse to move while I watch Tiago argue with his ex-girlfriend. He’s so harsh. I’ve never seen this side of him. If he ever treated me like that, I would leave and never look back. It’s making me panic.
But in this moment, something makes me stay. I think about Ryder’s reaction to the news. When he’d joined us in the foyer, his initial reaction had been similar to Tiago’s: complete disdain and mistrust. This is what’s keeping me rooted to my spot.
I will let Tiago explain because I’m in love with him.
I didn’t fully let myself think those words until now, and I sure as hell won’t say them out loud under the circumstances.
But knowing he has this side of him I’ve never witnessed has freaked me out and forced me to realize how much I want what we have to be real and genuine and long-lasting.
I’ll be devastated if we can’t get past this.
Tiago doesn’t look at me as he passes me in the entryway. He pauses beside me, takes a breath, and calmly says, “Please go upstairs so we can talk in our room.”
“Okay.” I shut the door and follow him as he continues through the mansion. When we reach the library, he stops at the entrance and barely glances at me before pointing toward the kitchen. “Upstairs, baby. Now.”
I hate how his command affects me, making me tremble with need like it always does.
Right now, I’m mad at myself for getting so turned on when he bosses me around.
I’ve begun to understand that I’m submissive; I crave a strong Dominant topping me.
I’ve done some research on it at night when I’m alone.
It’s scary and unnerving. I had no idea I would like a man to so totally command me.
But I do. And not just any man. It has to be Tiago.
I like the fact that he’s older than me. I like his confidence. I like it when he corners me and kisses me until my brain is scrambled. It makes me so hot when he narrows his gaze and orders me around.
I don’t want this to end. I want this to be the beginning. But I’m scared out of my mind after what just happened.
Tiago steps into the library, but when I hear him speaking a few seconds later, I stop moving and listen.
Everyone else is in the library. Dallas, Ryder, and Claire.
“Everything okay?” Ryder asks.
“No. I need to talk to Reagan. She’s freaking out, and it’s my fault. Will you please get hold of Lydia and find out what she knows about Silvia? Silvia said she found out about me being in Wilde from Lydia.”
“Any chance that kid is yours?” Ryder asks.
“No. Definitely not, but that’s not the kid’s fault. If Silvia is desperate for money, and it’s affecting that child, I’ll make sure she has what she needs. I’m sure Lydia can help set her up with resources.”
I cover my mouth to stifle my slight gasp. My heart flips over. After what I just witnessed, this is unexpected. Tears pool in my eyes as I hurry down the hallway, aiming for the stairs.
I rush into the blue room, leaving the door open. I’m pacing a minute later when Tiago joins me.
He shuts and locks the door before crossing to the deep navy velvet armchair. He sits, rests with his elbows on his knees, and stares at the floor.
I’m surprised by the words that come out of my mouth so fast I can’t stop them. “You’re going to have to spank me for disobeying you, but I didn’t go upstairs immediately when you told me to. I heard your conversation with Ryder.”
He leans back in the chair, runs a hand down his face, crosses his feet at the ankles, and finally meets my gaze.
I stand a few yards from him, rubbing my hands together. Waiting.
He draws in a breath. “I owe you an apology.”
I startle.
“I shouldn’t have behaved like that. Not in the foyer or out by her car.
It was uncalled for; it’s put a wedge between us I do not like one bit.
It’s my fault. When I heard she was at the door, I lost my mind.
I knew she came here for money. I knew it in an instant.
She heard about the will and my inheritance and thought she could get a chunk somehow.
I was stunned to realize she would stoop so low as to invent a kid, and I reacted out of anger. ”
I take a few steps back until I bump into the bed and then pull myself up to sit on the edge. I’m afraid my knees might give out if I don’t.
Tiago continues, “When I was dating Silvia, I was a damn fool. I thought I loved her. I thought she loved me. The truth was she was cheating on me with more than one person.”
I purse my lips and stay silent.
“I was working long hours in those days, preparing for an art exhibition in New York City. I sometimes slid into bed late at night, exhausted and uninterested in sex. I blamed myself for a long time, thought that I was the reason our relationship suffered. It took me a few years to realize it wasn’t me.
It was both of us. We weren’t right together.
I never even loved her. I know that now more than I did back then.
Until I met you, I had no idea what real love looked like. ”
My breath hitches, and I fight back the tears that try to fall.
He holds my gaze. “There will never be a single moment in the rest of my life when I won’t be thinking about being with you, holding you, being inside you, tasting you, inhaling your scent, stroking your skin, listening to your breath hitch…
Nothing else will ever seem as important to me.
No art exhibition or other job could compete with how I feel about you.
I would never feel too tired or uninterested in being inside you.
That’s how I know it wasn’t right with Silvia. ”
I can’t breathe. There’s no oxygen in the room. I can’t even blink. My chest is tight. My heart is struggling to beat.
Tiago swallows. “Silvia was so busy fucking other men that she doesn’t even realize she was not fucking me during the time she must have gotten pregnant.
In addition, she doesn’t know this, but I saw her three months after we broke up.
I went to a bar with some friends and saw her on the dance floor.
I remember it well. She was wearing a tight-fitting halter and a jean skirt that barely extended from under her belly button to the bottom of her butt cheeks. She was not six months pregnant.”
I say the first thing that pops into my mind. “Why do you remember what your ex wore four years ago?”
He shrugs. “Baby, I didn’t become an overbearing Dominant the day I met you.
I’ve always been this way. I might not have had any control over Silvia because she never submitted to me, but I still didn’t like it when she let other men see parts of her that should have been reserved for me alone.
When I saw her on that dance floor, her outfit reminded me why she and I were not the least bit compatible. ”
I glance down at my bare legs sticking out from my skimpy shorts. He hates them. I’ve been taunting him with them all week. I feel bad. He’s held his tongue on the issue from the first day, and now I understand why. He’s been waiting for me to submit to him.
He won’t force me to bend to his will, but he craves my submission on a level I didn’t fully understand. Now, I get it.
I look back at him, slide off the bed, and pad toward him. When I get close enough, he spreads his legs for me to step between them. His hands come to the backs of my thighs, and he tips his head back to look at me.
This is the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen Tiago. His heart is in my hands. He’s asking me to trust him, to take a chance on him, to submit to him.
I want everything. “Okay.”
He’s breathing heavily as he stares at me. “Okay?”
I nod. “All of it. I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m also sorry I wore these shorts all week when you’ve made it clear you hate them.”
He gives me a slight smile. “I love those shorts, baby. I just don’t like other people also loving them.
I want to own you. I want to smother you with nothing but me.
I want to lock you in our room and never let you out so I can have you anytime I want and have you to myself.
I’m intense. I’m demanding. I’m so dominant you haven’t even seen half of what I want you to submit to. ”
I’m panting. My nipples feel like hard points that will poke a hole through my lacy bra and tank top. My pussy is soaking through my panties and the thin strip of denim between my legs.
I lean forward and set my forehead against his. “Okay.” I’m scared. This is huge. He’s going to take over my life. I won’t recognize the old me. Except in many respects, he already has. I don’t know the girl I was before he came to town already.
The crazy thing is that she was an impostor.
The old Reagan was just going through life in the wrong skin.
She didn’t fit in anywhere. She didn’t even know why.
Now I do. Now I see it’s because I needed something no one ever offered me.
I needed a man to dominate me in ways I never knew.
Not just any man. I’ve been waiting for Tiago.
He’s my everything. I’m attracted to his age, his dominance, his bossiness, the way he touches me, the way he looks at me, and so many other things that I can’t even count them all. I’m scared out of my mind, but I need to stop fighting against him and see where this goes.
When he slides his hands up the backs of my thighs and tucks his fingers under my shorts to tease me along the elastic of my panties, my breath hitches. “Do I really have to agree to marry you before you’ll have sex with me?”
“No.”
A burst of excitement fills me. I grin and lean closer. Thank God .
“You have to actually marry me, Reagan. Not just agree to it.” He chuckles.
I gasp and lean back, eyes wide. I swat at his shoulder. “You’re insufferable.”
His fingers slide up farther, stroking my butt cheeks over the satin of my panties. “I want all of you. I’ll wait until you’re ready. Not patiently, mind you, but I’ll wait.”