And technically that man stood before me right now, his lean back gold and black in the acidic sunlight streaming in through the windows of Cosima’s kitchen. He was Elena’s ideal; smart, classy and eternally composed. Hell, he even wore three-piece suits on a daily basis. They were practically meant for each other.
And yet, I was watching a completely different man cook me breakfast. There was boyishness in the chestnut hair curling over his ears and gentle humor in the way he rolled his shoulders to the beat of Meagan Trainer’s All About That Bass. He had laughed when I blasted it from the speakers, shaking my booty so that the bare skin winked at him from under the tail of his dress shirt. I could count the number of times I had heard Sinclair laugh on my fingers but this was the best yet because he kept laughing as he reached out to tug me into his arms. I smiled into my coffee at the memory.
This man, the kind that only laughed at the really good stuff and looked at me with a heady mixture of authority and awe, was my kind of man.
“I better be the reason behind that gorgeous smile, siren.”
I looked up to see him looking at me, his electric eyes sparking with mirth even though his lips remained smooth and impassive.
I shrugged one shoulder as he slid a plate laden with bacon and avocado studded scrambled eggs in front of me. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”
His eyes narrowed. In less than a second, the soft Sinclair, the one with the boyish curl and the wide, almost awkward smile, was gone and in his place was Sinclair the Dom. He wore his icy control like a king’s mantle across his shoulders and when he moved around the island to stand before me, the liquidity of his gait froze the air in my lungs.
He didn’t touch me but he may as well have. The thin slice of space between our bodies vibrated with palpable tension and set my body’s rhythm to his like a tuning fork.
“What would you say then?” he said in that quiet voice that echoed through my entire body.
I swallowed hard before answering. “You’re more than the reason behind one smile. You hold the lease on my happiness.”
The tick in his jaw was the only sign of his shock. He stared at me for a long time, caging me against the island with his arms braced on either side of me.
“I want to own your happiness,” he said, finally.
I sucked in so much air my lungs expanded to the point of pain.
“I want you to own me,” I whispered.
We had never been this forthright and even though it felt good, scary and good, scary good, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
Sinclair shook his head and a piece of his newly shorn hair fell across his forehead. My fingers itched to smooth it back but I resisted because despite our sexual proclivities we didn’t have the casual kind of intimacy that came from dating.
So instead, I watched the battle in his eyes as he fought between taking me right there on the stool and storming out of the apartment, never to return. It was overdramatic maybe, but in a situation like ours, nothing was understated.
“I do,” he said, in a tight voice because there wasn’t enough air in his lungs.
Hope – the scrappy kind that you fight for with every pounding beat of your heart – can leave you breathless like that.
I shook my head, mute with emotion, but he pressed a finger to my lips.
“I own you in the dark. The moment you turn off the lights, I own your thoughts and your body. I dictate your touch.” His hand skimmed too lightly down the exposed skin between the panels of my shirt. “When you touch yourself it is because I want you to. You’re only echoing my thoughts in the dark, reading my will from across the city. So perfectly obedient. And after you come, my name on your sweet lips like a prayer, you’ll dream of me because the entire night is ours and I won’t give you up for one second of it.”
I was hot and cold with arousal but tears still pressed at my eyes. “I’ll still wake up alone.”
His eyes softened and the hand that had been tickling the upper swell of my breasts moved up to take a firm hold at the base of my neck. It was almost scary how both actions brought me utter calm.
“Greedy girl,” he teased, but when I didn’t smile, his grip flexed tight. “There isn’t much more of me to take.”
Only the part of you in Elena’s grip, I thought. But even that poignant reminder didn’t hold the same weight it had as little as two weeks ago. I was turning into a different kind of person, one that didn’t care about the consequences of my desires. I couldn’t tell if it was devolution or not. Only the fittest survive, and only those with the selfishness to go after their ambitions succeed.
“Your eggs are cold.”
He ducked down to press a kiss above his grip on my neck, right on my jumping pulse, before releasing me.
I stared down at the yellow curds without thinking while he cleaned up in the kitchen and came around to sit beside me with his own breakfast. His hand fell heavily onto my thigh, jerking me out of my trance, but when I looked up, he was focused on his tablet, rapidly reading and responding to a deluge of emails. The hand was a reminder of his authority, his presence lest I forget it, and it released me from my worries the way nothing else could.
Happily, I dug into my cold eggs.
We ate silently and even when I squirmed to relieve the tension at my pleasantly raw core, he only had to squeeze my leg to relay his satisfaction with my discomfort and his will for me to sit still. It was the intimacy of our secret tryst merging seamlessly, beautifully like a watercolor sunset, into something more mundane but just as meaningful. It felt really, really good.