Page 37 of Burden of Proof

For a while, neither of us said anything, and it was too much for me to sit through any longer. I shoved the pillow onto the couch between us and leveraged myself onto my feet, but Hunter moved fast, grabbing my wrist and pulling me back down.

“I was just gonna go,” I explained.

“Is that what you really want?”

I shook my head.

“Then don’t.”

I situated myself back on the couch, and Hunter returned the pillow to my lap.

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, standing up and turning away from me so fast the movement almost gavemewhiplash. He walked out of the living room and disappeared down a hall, whether to throw himself out a window or what, I wasn’t entirely sure.

I didn’t know what I’d expected coming over, but it definitely hadn’t been anything this deep. I mean, I’d expected things to get deep, but not conversationally.

Exhaling a long breath, I leaned over and grabbed my glass from the table and finished it in one swallow. Hunter was gone for well over five minutes, plenty of time for me to stand up and get halfway to the door, turn around, sit back down, and repeat it a second time before giving up and sitting on my hands. My stomach was in knots, violent churning waves of a dozen feelings I didn’t have a name for.

I was being an idiot.

I’d set out to find someone to dominate me to see if I liked it as much as I thought I did. What I ended up finding instead was a person I actually liked. For whatever misguided reason, Hunter cared about me, and I was so caught up in my own shit I was going to lose out on that entirely. And at the end of the day, wasn’t that what I wanted in the first place?

I was jealous of Silas and Marshall, their closeness, their exchange, and somehow I’d stumbled onto a Covington brother of my own offering me the very same things. There might be more complicated layers about the dominance and submission, but it could all be taught. It could all be learned, right? It wasn’t even like I knew what I really wanted from Hunter in that regard anyway. Because I found the thoughts of kneeling and having him kneel equally appealing for very different reasons.

Hunter finally came back to the living room, and I glanced over the back of the couch in time to watch him flex his hands into fists before shaking them both out and closing the spacebetween the hallway and the couch. He sat down next to me, eyeing my empty glass before clearing his throat and looking me in the eye.

“I’m back,” he announced, and there was no way of stopping the laugh that bubbled up in the back of my throat and burst out of me at full volume. I doubled forward, covering my mouth with both hands and laughing so hard my ribs hurt. Tears streaked down my cheeks, but this time not from sadness or confusion, but absolute astonishment over my situation.

“Sorry.” I sat up, wiped the tears from my cheeks and swallowed back another bubble of laughter. “Sorry, I’m good.”

“Was that particularly funny?” Hunter asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“I’m back,” I repeated, trying my best to affect the matter-of-fact tone he’d used, which was enough for his mouth to finally spread into a full-on smile.

Fuck, he was even prettier than before.

“I haven’t been being fair to you,” I said, giving my face one last wipe. I dried my hands on his pillow, which he watched but made no comment on. “I’m just. It’s very messy in my head right now, and you’re trying to be nice about it, and I’m not helping the situation.”

Hunter studied me, that poker face of his back in place, making it impossible to decipher the small changes in his features. I tangled my hands together nervously, wringing them until he reached out and put his hand over mine and sent me into stillness.

I closed my eyes and let out a trembling breath. I relaxed.

“I don’t know much about the things you like,” he said quietly, stroking his thumb across my knuckles. “I know how to play a role, but it’s not supposed to be a role. At least, I don’t think it is.”

“What…” I cleared my throat and blinked open my eyes, staring down at his longer fingers and the way they wrapped over my hands. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a responsibility. Being a dominant.”

“Sounds like you know plenty,” I murmured.

“It’s a big responsibility, and it’s okay to…not want to be responsible all the time,” he said.

“Only some of the time?” I asked, hating the way my voice cracked.

“Only some of the time.”

The way Hunter looked at me was somehow the best and the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Even if he didn’t have words to say what he saw, I definitely got the impression he sawme. Like, he saw me in the ways Silas saw me, and that was…

A lot.