Page 102 of Give In

Standing suddenly, Damien grabbed my hand and pulled me up, too. “I know your opinion of me is low, but is it so low that you’d think I’m cheating on a wife,” he gestured around us, “in our home? That I’d spend the last however many months obsessed with you, driving to a strip club in the middle of nowhere to see you, jacking offdailythinking of you, all while I went to bed at night with another woman?”

I shook my head, flustered and embarrassed. “Not, like,marriedmarried. Separated or whatever.”

“I’m not, nor have I ever been, married.” He ran his palm down his face. “What other bullshit have you filled your head with?”

“Excuse me?” I put my hands on my hips. “And by that, I mean, I heard exactly what you said, and I’m giving you the chance to rethink your question.”

“I spent the day going out of my damn mind waiting until I could see you again. Feel you. Taste you. You clearly spent your day building your walls back up. So, I’ll ask again, what other bullshit have you come up with?”

My heart slammed in my chest, panic making my legs tingle with my need for flight. Turning, I headed for the living room and my stuff. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His chuckle was practically in my ear, but he didn’t touch me to stop my escape. “I know a damn lot more than you.”

I whipped around. “Why? Because you’reProfessor Caine, the almighty? Professor Caine, getting off on his power while he bangs his way through his students?”

His voice was even and scarily low. “I’ve never, Eden, in all my goddamn years as a teacher, been tempted by a student. Not. Fucking. Once. Not until you.”

“Then why do you like when I call you Professor Caine?”

“Because it’syoudoing it. With your sweet voice, and that…” He shook his head. “I tell everyone on the first day of class to call me Caine. Did you listen? No. You never fucking listen.”

“Because I’m not a dog! I don’t have to listen to you. I don’twantto listen to you.”

He chuckled, but it was harsh. “Who’re you trying to convince?”

“You?” I’d meant for the word to be spoken confidently, but even I heard the lilt of the question at the end.

Hell.

There was a triumphant raise of his brows, a small smirk playing at his lips. “You love it as much as I do. The only difference is I’m not a coward, hiding from what I want—who I am—because of some preconceived notion of normality.”

“I—”

“Don’t bother lying.” Reaching out, he ran his thumb across my bottom lip, and before I knew what I was doing, my tongue moved out to taste his skin. An inferno blazed in his gaze as he stared at my lips. “Almost every word from your fuckable mouth is a lie. A half-truth. You can lie as easy as you breathe, but your body can’t. If I bent you over the back of the couch and made your ass red with my hand or belt or a crop, your pretty pink pussy would be so soaked, your sweet juices would drip down your thighs.”

Clenching my jaw so tight, I worried my teeth would crack, I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. My blood boiled.

Because he was right.

I wanted all that. I wanted to give in to him, begging for all he had and more. I’d ripped the cover off my mind’s mirror and had faced the truth. I’d unleashed the darkness that lurked inside me, the secrets that should’ve stayed locked in the farthest corner of my psyche.

I’d acknowledged the lies, and I was so tired of carrying on the deceit.

But memories, self-preservation, and my own damned stubbornness refused to relent. Iwasa coward.

So I lashed out.

“I swear to God, if you come at me with a crop, it’s not me who’ll be red and bloody. I have no clue what made you the way you are, but stop projecting your… your… fuck-upped-ness onto me.”

His brows lowered, his head tilting to the side. “What made me how I am?”

“You know.” I gestured up and down. “Whatever happened that made you think acropwas an appropriate foreplay device.”

That time when he laughed, it wasn’t harsh. It was toxic, seeping into my soul and poisoning me with regret. “You want to know my tragic backstory, is that it? The traumatic event that shaped me, molded me into a controlling bastard? And then what, Eden? Will you cure me with your tender care and sweet pussy?” Damien moved closer, one of his arms wrapping around me so his hand gripped my ass cheek. His other cupped the back of my head. “Do you want to be the angel who saves the sinner?” he asked, his voice rough as he stared at my parted lips.

“I just want to understand,” I whispered.

“Then I’ll tell you.” Storming midnight skies met my gaze, so intense I’d have turned away if I could. “I wasn’t neglected as a child. I wasn’t abused. My parents are retired now, but mom was a loving kindergarten teacher and my dad an architect who coached all my little league teams. My older sister can be annoying as hell because that’s how siblings are, but she’s a successful lawyer. My upbringing was loving, if not a little boring, in middle class suburbia. I was captain of my varsity baseball team, did decent enough at basketball, and was on the student council, but only as VP because I didn’t care much about whether the vending machine had name brand chips and whatever other BS decisions we were thrown. Nothing tragic or traumatizing happened.”