“You think me tying you up is going to help me?” I ask. She’s close now, within reach.

“I think if you know I can’t touch you, you’ll let yourself go.”

“How do you know what I need?” I breathe as her body stops just inches away from me.

Turning her eyes down, she whispers. “I just do.”

I can’t take it another second, so I yank her body against mine by the back of her neck. Crashing my mouth against hers, I notice the way she holds her hands behind her without me even having to ask.

My hands roam the landscape of her body, drifting down to her ass which is barely hiding under this silk nightie. My hands squeeze the bare flesh as I press her against the wall of my kitchen. She moans into my lips.

“Tie me up,” she gasps, and I pull away, looking toward the table where I dropped the rope.

She’s panting now as I return, ready to bind it around her wrists. Suddenly, I stop. This seems crazy. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m not one of those freaks who needs something bizarre to get him off. I shouldn’t be doing this to her just because I need it.

Her parted lips wait for me, and my head feels full of fog. I can’t think straight. Why am I doing this? What good could possibly come from this? I can’t be her boyfriend. She can’t heal me. No matter what she tries, it will never change what I am, and when she figures that out, she’ll regret every second of this.

Not to mention...I’m supposed to be asking her about Ezra. That’s what I really need. Not trying to figure out a way to get off.

I press the rope into her hands. “Go home, Shelby.”

“But—” she protests, but I don’t give her a chance to fight me. I walk to the door and open it, waiting for her to leave. This isn’t an expression of dislike. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m doing the same thing I did ten years ago, giving her an opportunity to avoid something she’d regret.

She stares at me in shock for a moment, and guilt washes over me when I take another glance at her silk dress. She went through a lot of trouble to do this for me, but I’m too fucked up to give her what she wants.

Finally, after a moment, she stomps out the door just before tossing the rope to the floor without so much as a glance in my direction.

Shelby

I’m such an idiot.

I just put my own head in the guillotine and for some reason act surprised when the blade came down. I must be really horny.

What was I thinking? That if I seduced him enough he would give in and all of the trauma the blonde girl clued me in on would just go away?

And why? Why do I even care? Because the sex would be good? Because I believe deep down that two people who hate each other can screw as passionately as ones who love each other?