Chapter Eleven #3
I try to avert my gaze, but he cups my chin, forcing me to look at him.
His grin is wicked and it’s in that moment, my jaw in his hand and my body instinctively supplicating that I realize Graham was not completely honest with me.
Or perhaps my research into him at The Pink Flamingo wasn’t thorough enough.
This man isn’t a Submissive, at least, not always.
Graham Rosales is a switch, and he can flip it on and off as easily as the title represents.
And right now, he’s trying to Dom me, to make me submit and stay with him by using the most intimate fact between us.
“I’m the only one who can make you come, mi reina,” he tells me, as if I can’t still feel my own slick mingling with his between my thighs. “You said it yourself—”
“I never—”
“Your disbelief said it all. No other man has done to you what I’ve done tonight. There’s no way you would actually want to fuck anyone but me.”
Filling my lungs, I lift my chin. “You presume too much.” Yanking my face from his grip I snap my fingers.
Instantly, the switch flips, and Graham drops to his knees.
Grabbing him by the hair, I yank his head back and he grits his teeth through the pleasure of the pain.
“I can and will fuck whomever I please. You are not my Sub, I do not claim you. This night never happened.” I yank just a little harder, leaning in to growl.
“And don’t you ever try to Dom me again. Do you understand me?”
He swallows, his pupils blown wide in the dark. “Yes, mi reina.”
“Good boy.” I release him quickly. My head is pounding and I still need to find my purse so I can call an Uber. “You stay here until you hear me leave.”
“Sí, mi reina.”
Unsurprisingly, he does as he’s told, allowing me enough time to locate my phone, call my ride, and get the fuck out of his apartment. I don’t look around, I don’t take it in. I don’t care how Graham Rosales lives because I never plan to enter his personal space ever again.
???
When I get home, it’s only the ass crack of dawn and just like every day since Thanksgiving, I find Cristian sleeping on our couch.
He’s polite about it at least, doesn’t snore and folds his blankets.
What’s not normal for him is the number of beers on the coffee table.
Cristian never drank heavily before all of this.
Cleaning them up for him, I find one he didn’t finish and swallow the last quarter.
It’s become a habit for me to check Nelly’s room before hiding away in mine.
Most of the time I find her asleep. But then there’s mornings like this one when I open the door to find her sobbing into her pillows, gripping her chest, holding back gut-wrenching cries of agony as if her heart is being torn from her chest.
I make my way over to her quickly, setting my purse on her bedside table, next to half-drunk bottle of wine. “Nelly,” I whisper, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Oh, Nelly, baby it’s alright. It’s okay…”
I try to calm her, try to whisper comfort in her ear until she can fall back asleep but it’s like she can’t hear a word I’ve said.
Her sobs are relentless, her pain inconsolable.
She’s being torn in half day by agonizing day she’s forced away from her soulmate.
Because that’s what Elias is for her. They belong together, complete each other.
Elias keeps my wild friend grounded and she allows him to embrace all the parts of him that Vivian forced onto a shelf. I was so happy for them, and now…
A warm hand lands on my shoulder, and I look up to find Cristian, still half asleep, standing over me.
“I’ve got her,” is all he says and I back away from the bed to give him space.
I watch with tears in my eyes as Cristian crawls into bed behind Nelly- keeping her blankets between them- and wraps her in his arms as if he can protect her from all the great and terrible things in their little pocket of the world.
They’re in this together. For once, Clara and I are not enough.
We don’t understand this situation, God forbid we ever do.
This is something only Cristian can help her through because he too is suffering her fate.
A contract marriage. An entire life forced into each other’s orbit until it shattered them both.
Soon they will be man and wife, and this is how they will go to bed every night. Blankets between them, him protecting her and her… Crumbling before our eyes…
Taking my purse from the bedside table, I steal the half-drunk bottle of wine and recede carefully from their bubble where I am not only useless, but unwelcome.
Clara is standing in the hall, tears sliding down her cheeks.
I sigh, raising the bottle to my lips for a drink before holding it out.
She shakes her head, wiping her nose on a sniffle.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders, leading her into my room.
She curls up with me in bed while I head into my bathroom to shower, taking Nelly’s wine with me.
I scrub Graham off of me with boiling water and enough soap to dry out my skin, but I don’t care.
I need him off of me. I need to erase every moment of this night before I can face either of my friends again.
I finish the wine, tossing the bottle and only when I’m sure I can no longer smell his cologne do I join Clara in my bed, holding her tight in our futility until we both fall asleep.