23. Claim #3
Shit. Something’s wrong. It’s not just the sex, either. She seemed to enjoy it, the same way she’s enjoyed it every time I’ve let her take control of me. Damn it. I knew something was off when she first approached me tonight, but I allowed my own need for her to blind me to it.
I take a deep breath, shudder it out, then try again. “Unchain me, wife. If we’re going to have this discussion, it’s only fair if you do.”
Somehow, I get through to her. We keep the handcuff key on a pushpin stuck into the wall. It’s near enough that I can see it, but not reach it, and it’s another element of control I gladly gave my wife. Hesitating only a moment, she grabs it, then quickly removes both of the cuffs.
I pop up like a fucking Jack in the Box, wrapping my arms around her because, fuck it, I have this sudden vision of her flipping me the bird and leaving me.
She can’t leave me. She’s my wife. She let me fuck her…
and, yet, my biggest nightmare seems to be looming right on the edge of my consciousness despite the fact that I’m wide fucking awake.
Haven lets out an oof. For a heartbeat, she’s as still as a statue, but right when I feel like my goddamn heart is breaking, she does, and it’s infinitely worse.
She collapses against me, heart tears burning my bare chest as she clings to me.
She doesn’t push me away. She clings, and since I’m clinging to her right back, I refuse to let go until she finally stops.
Only then do I pull back, tucking my finger under her chin, forcing her to look at me.
“Talk,” I tell her. I don’t know what I’ll do if she won’t, but I need this almost as much as I need her. “You talk to me, Haven. You tell me what that was about. Because if you don’t…” My voice cracks. “My heart won’t be able to fucking take it.”
She shudders in my hold. “Connor…”
It’s weak. It’s rough. It’s Haven, and I squeeze her arms. “I’m here, baby. What’s going on in that head of yours? Used? You’re not Used. You’re my Offering, Haven. You’re my wife.”
And that’s when she surprised the shit out of me with the amount of venom in her voice as she spits out: “You never Claimed me.”
What?
Did my dick fuck with her memory or something. I release her arm, finding her left hand. With my thumb, I tap the wedding band that sure as hell is still there. “Of course I did. I Claimed you in August. I know you remember that.”
Haven folds her fingers into a fist. “I remember that you forced me to marry you.”
I did because if I had given her the choice? If I had asked to Claim her? She would’ve refused me and there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen.
“Of course I do,” I tell her, “because I fucking love you. Don’t believe me? After all this time? After what we just did? Fine. I’ll Claim you every way that counts—”
Her head pops up. “Yeah? Prove it, Connor.”
Happily. Only—
“How do you want me to do that? Because I’ll do it. I swear to fucking God, Haven, I’ll do anything for you.”
Her hands come up. No longer fisted, she lays them on my bare shoulders. “Then Treat me like a lover and a wife, not a captive.”
It hits like a punch to the chest. What she’s asking of me… that might be the only thinking I can’t do.
“You’ll leave me.”
“You have to trust me enough to believe that I won’t. Just like I have to be able to trust you not to hurt me.”
Shit.
This is the worst possible time for us to have this conversation.
I don’t think Haven is so manipulative that she would fuck me just to earn her freedom.
Then again, this is the woman who tried to poison me with foxglove.
She stabbed me in the ass. Tossed me down my own stairs. Nearly slit my throat… maybe she did.
No. No. She loves me. She might not realize it yet herself, but she loves me. Does she love me enough to stay?
She’s right. If she can trust me enough to let me inside of her body, I need to prove that I trust her to choose me. Only one thing: I’ve promised countless times that I would never hurt her on purpose.
Haven’s never promised that she won’t leave me.
Can I risk it? If I don’t… I think I’ll lose her anyway.
Fuck.
“Okay. But, first, let me say something. Is that okay?”
Haven bites her bottom lip, then nods.
Good.
“I’ve only ever loved you. I can survive a knife to my throat.
I can survive you poisoning me. After all, true love is poison.
It works its way inside of you, stopping your heart, stopping your breath.
It hurts. It can eventually kill you, but if it doesn’t, it’s the most blissful fucking high ever, sweetheart.
I’d do anything for a hit like that, but you know what I can’t survive?
You leaving me again. I just want you to know that.
I’ll trust you because that’s what you ask of me.
But if you go…” I wrap my arms around her again, pulling her into my lap. “I won’t survive that.”
Her hand goes up again, this time to my hair. She strokes the sweat-dampened strands.
And then, in a voice so soft and gentle, I barely recognize it as Haven’s, she whispers, “Oh, Connor… where else would I go now?”