Page 73 of Dignity

Chapter Twenty

I would like to say that I’m not a petty, jealous man, especially over Lauren and the man who is now my boyfriend, but I’d be lying.

By the time Chris returns home over anhourlater from a fifteen-minute round trip, there are still ten minutes on a chicken that was smelling damned good.

I meet him at the front door. “What thehellwasthat?”

I find myself slammedagainst the door with a hand around my throat. “That’s twice you said ‘I love you’ to her while she was here,boy.”

“You got me for the first time.”

“I’m talkingupstairs. That’s three times, total.”

My eyes widen as I realize what he means. “You followed us upstairs and eavesdropped?”

He leans in. “What part of you areminedidn’t I make clear?”

“You realize this is veering into creepy abusiveboyfriend territory, right?”

Just like that, his hand disappears and he steps back, hands on his hips.

I…actually miss the hand on my throat.

ButthisChristopher… It’s scary how fast he can flip back and forth between Sir and normal guy. “This is who I am. I’m not apologizing. Maybe if you’d grabbed Christopher version 1.0 from twenty years ago, I’d be a cuddle bunny right now. I watched youmarry her and tell her you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her when you wouldn’t so much as send me a text, or an e-mail, or a goddamned Facebook message to at least say, ‘Hey, sorry, changed my mind, but thanks for a great week, man.’ Here I went falling inlovewith you and felt like the world’s biggest asshole for my trouble. So forgive me if I’m a little rough around the edges,but I have fucking trust issues with you.”

My face burns because yeah, I deserve that. Every bit of it.

And yeah, hedidwarn me. Besides, I can’t blame him for feeling like that when I spent the last two decades pining for him, too.

But he’s not done. “So tell me to stop now, and I’ll walk away.”

Ooooh, that hurts worse, though.

Way worse.

I shake my head.

“No,what, Kevin? No, you don’twant me to stop?”

I make myself say it, because I have to. Forme. “No, I don’t want you to stop.”

He grabs me, spins me around, and pins me face-first against the door with a forearm across the back of my neck and my left arm again painfully wrenched behind my back, putting me up on the balls of my feet.

“Then this isme, Kev. No, I won’t be like this all the time, but I warned you I’d putyou through hell at the start of this. I have some rage issues I’m going to work out so we can move forward. Besides, youlikeit when I get rough, don’t you? Yes, or no?”

I want to say no, except that would be a damned lie, and he knows it. “Yes.”

I let out a cry when he forces another bit of give out of a joint I’m pretty sure isn’t supposed to bend in that direction, and now I’m up on mytoes.

“Yes,what?”

“Goddammit, yes, you asshole!”

He chuckles and licks the side of my face. “That’s yes, you asshole,Sir.”

I start laughing. I can’t help it—apparently I have zero self-preservation around this man. “Yes, you asshole, Sir.” I’m still laughing.

Without releasing my arm, he reaches around me with his other hand and palms my cock through my jeans.