I suck in shaky breaths. It’s like I’m asphyxiating.

He bites the shell of my ear, “Answer me.”

“That you won’t leave me.” My lips tremble.

“I changed my mind.”

“Y-you changed your mind? You’ll leave me?”

Why the hell is my heart shrinking into itself at the thought?

“I’ll never leave you, sweetheart.”

“But…” I breathe in the leather scent of the sofa. “You said you changed your mind.”

“I won’t leave you, but I’ll make you pay for every time I stopped myself from ripping his heart out.”

“Aiden…”

“Did you mistake my silence for approval?” he whispers in hot words. “Did you think you could provoke me and just walk away?”

My breathing deepens with each of his words.

I’m so fucked.

“I gave you a chance to be smart and get back in the game. I gave you the chance to make the right move, but you don’t want that, sweetheart, do you? You want me to make the move for you.”

“I wasn’t cheating. It’s not cheating if we were over.”

“Wrong answer. I guess we have to do it my way.” He yanks my skirt up.

“I didn’t cheat!” I cry out. “I never let him touch me.”

“But you did.” He licks the shell of my ear before he bites down.

“Get off me,” I shriek.

“Be smart, Elsa. If you pay like a good girl, you get what you want.”

I remain motionless for a while. I didn’t do anything wrong to pay, but if I say that, if I provoke him right now, then I have no idea what his demons will do.

Fine. If he wants sex then I’ll consider it a charity.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I nod.

He gets off me and cold air causes goosebumps to rise on my naked thighs.

I swallow, fingers clenching on the sofa as I wait for the inevitable.

Five seconds pass.

Ten.

Twenty.

I glance behind me through my tangled blonde strands.

Aiden sits on the chair, leaning on his elbow and watching me intently.

I stumble to a sitting position, smoothing my skirt down. “Now what?”

“Now.” He tilts his head. “I’ll fuck that mouth, sweetheart.”

16

Elsa

I’ll fuck that mouth, sweetheart.

My lips part in stupefaction as Aiden stands up. He rolls the cuffs of his shirt to his elbows, revealing a hint of his arrow tattoos. They ripple with the strong veins of his forearms.

He motions in front of him. “Kneel.”

No way in hell.

“Do you want me to make you?” He raises an eyebrow. “Is that it?”

One second passes.

Two.

Three.

“Last chance, sweetheart.”

If I bow to his command, he’ll have me at his mercy all over again. He’ll step on me just like before.

I promised myself that I’ll no longer take what he offers while I’m lying on the ground.

I’ll give back what he takes.

“Tell me something about you,” I blurt.

“Something about me,” he repeats still wearing that poker face.

“If you want to fuck my mouth, then you’ll tell me something no one else knows. I want the real Aiden, not the one hiding behind a facade.”

“You seem under the misconception that this is a negotiation.” He approaches me. “I don’t remember giving you a choice.”

It takes everything in me not to scramble back on the sofa and hide. That’s equal to admitting defeat before even starting. If I want to be equal to Aiden, then I need to have his level of confidence.

Or as close to that as possible.

I lift my chin. “I’m the one giving you a choice, Aiden. Either tell me or force me and fuck the mouth of a shell.”

His left eye twitches.

Aiden doesn’t like to be threatened, but it’s the only way I can think of to get to him.

The real him.

I expect him to force me and push me to the road of no return. Since I already don’t trust him, if he does this, I’ll really start disintegrating from him.

And for some reason, my chest aches at the thought.

“I’ve had insomnia since I was a kid,” he says in a quiet voice I can barely hear. “I spend my nights playing chess, swimming, or working out in the gym.”

I process the information.

Now that I think about it, every time Aiden and I spent the night together, I always wake up to find him either watching me or running a bath for me.

I figured it was because he always woke up first. Does that mean he never slept on those nights?

Wait.

“You were deep asleep the first time you spent the night in my room.”

“That was one of the times I collapsed.”

“Collapsed?”

“If I spend two or three days without a wink of sleep while working out, swimming, and practising football, my body shuts down and I collapse. That’s the only way I get to sleep.”

I watch him intently. He never appears tired. Hell, he doesn’t even have dark circles like most insomniacs. If he didn’t tell me he had insomnia, I would’ve never guessed it.

I wonder why he can’t sleep.

Then I recall a text he sent me that night.

Something about…

My head snaps up. “You said you see a ghost when you close your eyes. Is that why you can’t sleep?”

Something flashes in his gaze before he completely seals it behind the poker face.

“You said to tell you one thing no one knows, and I did.”

“Cole, Xander, and Ronan don’t know?”

“They suspect it, but they don’t know for sure.” He points at the ground in front of him. “Now, your turn.”

When I don’t move, he says, “A deal is a deal, sweetheart.”

I wish I could extract more from him, but I already cornered myself. If I don’t respect my part of the deal, he’ll never open up again.

With one last deep breath, I scramble to my knees in front of him.

I want to think that he’s making me. That even if I struck a deal, this is a form of a violation. At least those thoughts will make me hate him.

But is it a violation if I’m impatiently waiting for his next move?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s impossible for me to hate Aiden.

That thought terrifies me more than any I’ve had before.

“Good girl.”

Aiden’s eyes soften at the corners.

My heart jumps, beating so loud, I can hear the thump, thump, thump...

It’s so rare to see him softening. He usually fakes it before he strikes. Aiden’s softening is the frightening type, not this heartwarming, almost reassuring type.

Am I imagining things?

He unbuckles his belt and frees his hard cock. Keeping eye contact, he grips himself and strokes up and down, not so gently.

My thighs clench.

There’s something so utterly masculine about the rough way he touches himself.

He points his dick at my mouth. “Open.”

“If I do this.” I meet his gaze. “You’ll tell me what I want to know.”