Making The Rules

I didn’t run down the stairs this time. I walked. And walking out on someone was a whole lot different than running out on him, I found. Not that it didn’t still feel bad. It felt worse, in fact, because there was so much more dream to lose now. But at least I’d maintained a little dignity this time. It was cold comfort, but it was comfort.

I should have taken a different route back to the hotel, but I’d been so angry and sad and disappointed, I’d barely been able to point myself in the right direction on the Rue St. Honore. I’d imagined myself getting lost in the wagon-wheel spokes of the Paris boulevards, of wandering, tearful and sore, through a foreign capital late at night. And I wasn’t going there. I wasn’t going to be that girl.

So I walked, and I didn’t cry, and I did my best to shove the entire episode aside. Tonight wasn’t the night for thinking rationally. I’d think about it tomorrow, when I was flying back across the Atlantic. Even if I had to max out my credit card to get back. I couldn’t do anything about the suite, or the day, or what an idiot I’d been to believe…

No. Tomorrow. I moved with the knots of chic Parisians, still out in force even this late at night, wandering back from their own dinners. Lovers walking hand in hand. Friends laughing, talking, gesticulating. And a few souls walking alone. One foot in front of the other, back to the hotel.

One moment, I was staring blindly into the window of the Omega store and not registering a thing, and the next, a hard hand was clamping my upper arm and swinging me around as pedestrians veered to avoid us.

“You don’t walk out on me.” 

Hemi’s face was set in its hardest lines as he loomed over me. He’d never seemed bigger, and I’d never cared less. 

“No?” I looked right back at him. “And yet I could swear I just did.” 

He stiffened more, if that were possible, his body going as rigid as his face. “It’s a piece of paper. It doesn’t matter. It’s peace of mind, and we’re done.”

I didn’t want to talk about this again. I’d said what I had to say, and all the same, I was answering. “If it doesn’t matter, why do it? And what kind of peace of mind would there be for me in that? You want me to put that kind of trust in you, to put myself and my…my safety into your hands, when I know you don’t trust me? Not even in the most…the most basic way? Maybe you’d decide you wanted to hurt me after all, and then where would I be? How would I defend myself?”

He looked a little stunned at my force. “You must know I wouldn’t do that.”

I began to walk again, moving faster now, and he kept up with me easily, striding right by my side. I wasn’t going to outrun him, but it didn’t matter. I needed to move. “I thought I did,” I said. “I thought I was beginning to know you. That’s why I didn’t ask you to sign a piece of paper in spite of everything you’ve said to me. I took your word. Why won’t you take mine? Because somebody did it to you before? But I’m not that somebody. Don’t you see how…how un-special you made me feel?” The tears were pricking behind my eyes, but I refused to give into them. “I guess I should thank you for being up-front, for keeping me from making a mistake. So thank you. Thank you very much for everything, in fact. No harm done. Go find another girl to sign your paper. Buy her some shoes. She’ll probably love it. But this isn’t for me.”

“That’s it.” He was pulling me around again, backing me into a recess leading to an interior shopping street, its gates closed now, until I was against a column and he was over me, one hand braced against the wall. “All right. No bloody paper. But we’re both going to get a promise.”

“Oh?” I was trembling, but I wasn’t going to let him run over me. “Who says?”

“I say.” The other hand come out now, so he had two palms against the stone, trapping me. “And I don’t want another girl. I want you.”

“And if I say no?” I stared up at him, every sense alert for the truth.

“Then I let you go, and we’re done.” He stepped back, dropped his hands, and I studied his face for long seconds. “And I’m…” He looked away for a moment, and I could see him swallow hard before he looked back at me again. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t ask him how often he’d said that. I was pretty sure I knew the answer. “What’s…” I had to stop and try again myself. “What’s the promise?”

I could hear the breath leaving his lungs. “I promise not to hurt you. And you promise not to hurt me. And we make up the rest of the rules as we go along.” 

“I thought you made the rules,” I managed to say, even though my knees were shaking, and I needed the column to hold me up. Relief, and more, something I didn’t want to examine too closely. “I thought that was the idea.”

“Oh, no.” His hands were back on the wall again. “We make the rules together. That’s the way it works. I’m driving, and you’re drawing the line. Everything I take, you’ve given to me. You’re giving me the power, and you can take it back any time. All you have to say is ‘Stop.’” 

“I could make you mad again,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure I will.” 

He took a step forward, narrowing the distance between us. “Then,” he said, his voice dropping, another kind of promise, “I may have to give you a spanking.”

I was trembling again, but it wasn’t from anger this time. “No…” I cleared my throat. “No pain.”

“I heard.” Another step, and his lower chest was brushing the tips of my breasts. He was so close. So close.

“All right,” I whispered. 

The moment the words were out of my mouth, his hands had dropped to my bottom, and in one swift movement, he’d lifted me off my feet, had taken that last step, and every hard inch of him was pressed into me as I stood against the stone column.

He shoved an arm more firmly under me, wrapped the other hand around my head, cushioning it, and then, at last, his mouth was on mine.

When he kissed me, there was nothing gentle about it, and nobody had ever kissed me like this. Nobody had even come close. Hot and hard, dark and deep. He didn’t hurt, didn’t bruise. He just took my mouth completely, like he meant it, like it was his. I was making some noises—protest, or surprise, I hardly knew—and he was paying them not the least attention. My legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a mind of their own, and his fingers twisted in my hair as he tugged my head back, almost hurting, but not quite. His mouth went to my throat, moved to the spot just under my ear, and when his teeth closed over the tender skin there, I moaned. My hands were gripping his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles shift as he held me, as his teeth moved over me, and I felt every bit of him against me. Threat, or promise, or both.

“Bloody hell.” He wrenched his mouth from my throat. “Come on.” He took my hand in his, and we were walking fast, not talking, because there was nothing left to say. Nothing but needing this. 

He dragged me through the door of the hotel, punched the button for the elevator, then waited, his eyes on the indicator, until the doors opened. He was punching the button for the third floor, then turning and looking at me, his gaze so intent it burned. I could sense the calculations going on in that mind. 

He walked down the corridor beside me, and when I opened the door with my keycard, he reached out and plucked it from my hand. 

“Wait for me,” he told me. “And don’t take anything off. And no, that’s not a request. You know what’s going to happen tonight?”

“What?” I managed to ask. 

“I’m going to take your virginity.” 

The thrill of it was an electric shock, even though I knew it was wrong, that it wasn’t his to take. But that only made it excite me more.  

“So go inside,” he said. “And wait for me to come and do it.” And he left.