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I shoved at his chest, pushing him back. “Wow, I almost fell for your heartfelt words for a moment. Shame on me.”

“They were the truth.”

“Sure they were.”

“Why are you doubting that? I don’t lie.”

“You’re spouting all of this in some strange attempt to stop me from befriending somebody else, out of what appears to be jealousy. Or, more like, you not wanting to share yourtoywith anybody else.”

“That’s not it.”

“Then what?”

“Inciting harsh reactions in you from my harsher methods is the only way to elicit anything from you. The only time there’s a reprieve, however brief, from that numbness you put forth to everyone and everything.”

“So, making me hate you is better than nothing? Is that what you’re actually going with?”

“Before this, there was nothing, so you tell me.”

I stared at him for several moments.

“I’m waiting,” he pushed, getting agitated by my lack of a response when he clearly needed one. Badly, it seemed.

“And you’re going to remain waiting.”

“What if the blackmail wasn’t a factor? What if I told you that it never really was?”

I scoffed. “Seriously?”

“You still would have succumbed to me either way. The moment I touched you. Isn’t that right?”

“Your arrogance really knows no bounds.”

“This isn’taboutme. It’s aboutyou.”

I shoved a hand through my hair. “What we’re doing here… it’s sick and twisted.”

“And you’ve loved every moment of it.”

When I went to rebut, he held up his hand. “Speak the truth. For once, don’t cower.”

How fucking dare he?

I was about to bite back, when emotion dripped from his voice as he implored me, “Not about this, Ari.”

Our gazes clashed.

Intensity flared until I could barely breathe through it.

And that internal war I’d been raging for so long, especially since this weird development between us had come to pass lately, trapped me in its merciless grip.

He was pushing toward a kind of intimate closeness that was far beyond the confines of the depraved sexual play we’d both immersed ourselves in. A closeness that posed a whole lot of issues.

“I wanted it. I wanted everything you did to me. I could’ve stopped you at any point, you know that.”

“But you didn’t. It didn’t even cross your mind, did it?”

“No. I wanted to experience those things, to explore that, and I wanted to get lost in it. I wanted tofeel.”