I can’t help but to think there are answers in my subconscious. Answers in my dreams.
But I can’t remember what I drew that day.
Instead, I keep drawing the same thing, the house from the photograph in the hall. It’s quaint and small, with rustic features. It’s definitely a backroad setting but there are other houses beside it. Close to each other.
The brick was old, and the mortar seemed even older. The weeds that grew up the side of it felt as if they belonged there like nature was intent on reclaiming the structure.
Whoever took the photograph captured the beauty of the home perfectly, but why does it call to me? Why do I keep drawing it and only changing the flowers that grow around it?
“There are four steps.” Carter’s voice breaks into my thoughts and I glance up at him, not registering his words. He takes his time rolling up the crisp, white sleeves of his dress shirt. I can’t help but admire the corded muscles under his tanned skin and remember how his hands gripped me last night, leaving bruises on my hips that still ache to the touch.
He gestures to the drawing. “The front porch had four steps.”
It takes me a moment to comprehend and I offer him a small smile before asking him, “This was your house, wasn’t it?”
He nods and adds, “You make it seem more alluring than it was.”
My heart tugs and a small knot forms in my throat as he returns to his laptop. Maybe if he grows to care for me, everything can be okay. It can be made right.
What a naïve thought.
“What are you thinking?” Carter’s question brings me back to the present again.
“I keep drifting into thoughts I shouldn’t,” I answer him without much conscious consent. Maybe I’ve rested so much that the sleep refuses to leave me, making me drowsy and my thoughts hazy.
“Like?” he prompts.
“Like, wondering why I love this house so much,” I answer him cautiously although my gaze stays on the paper.
“I hate that house,” Carter says after a moment and I move my eyes to his. The coldness in his eyes is ever present and it sends a chill down my spine.
“You hate everything,” I tell him absently.
“I don’t hate you,” he says pointedly, and his rebuttal sends a warmth flowing through me.
“How do you feel about me then?” I ask him and busy my fingers with the piece of chalk.
His words are softly spoken and it’s the first admission from him of any kind. “The very idea that you’re mine makes me feel as if there isn’t a thing I can’t conquer. But actually having you is… everything.”
I don’t know if he realizes how powerful his words are. How intense he is. Just being around him is suffocating. Nothing else can exist when he’s with me.
“What do you remember about last night?” he asks me, and I blink away the trance he held over me.
“Everything,” I answer him as if it’s obvious. “You came home. We had a conversation and then more on the kitchen floor…” I trail off and my teeth sink into my bottom lip at the memory. “And then you took me to bed.”
Carter nods slowly as if gauging my response. “You don’t remember what you told me when we got to bed? Do you?” My heart flickers once, then twice as I try to remember.
But I don’t.
“I fell asleep,” I tell him as if it’s an excuse.
It’s quiet for a long moment and an uneasiness washes through me. Like I’ve said something that I should regret but I don’t know what it was. Swallowing thickly, I steel myself to ask, “What did I say?”
But he doesn’t answer me, he only tsks in response.
A pounding in my chest and blood makes me feel on edge until Carter rises and stalks toward me. He looms over me, owning me with his presence as he likes to do. My eyes close as he lowers his hand to the crown of my head gently and then twirls a lock of hair between his fingers.
My heart races with his touch and I don’t know if it’s from fear or lust.
“All I want to do is fuck you until there’s no question in your mind who you belong to.” His admission forces my thighs to clench and that tender ache returns.
The tension and fear dissipate with each small touch he gives me.
“If you gave yourself to me, everything else would fall into place.”
His fingers trail lightly along my collarbone and up my chin then move to my lips, tracing them with a tender touch that I would have once found difficult to believe belongs to Carter.
“Is that all? Just give myself entirely to you to use as a fucktoy? That would solve everything?” My comeback is weakened by the gentle way the words flow, the flirtation that I can’t deny in their cadence.