Page 91 of Dignity

He pulls me into his arms again. “You’re staying with me, regardless. That’s a given.”

“But what about Shae?”

“That’s up to her. I can’t force her to stay married to me if she doesn’t want to.”

“Will she want to? Stay married?”

“Willyouwant me to?”

Those green eyes. I study them, their darker depths, which in this light turn the golden flecks a deeper brown.

“What if I do? What if I like what we have at that point and don’t want to change it?”

“That’s up to her.”

“But you own us.”

He groans, resting his forehead against mind. “Kev, I ownyou. She’s mine, yes, but I don’t own her the way I own you. She might try killingme if I even went there.”

Except… I’m pretty sureIalready own her like that now, and have maybe since that first weekend she spent with us in Florida. I feel like an idiot for not realizing it until now. In ways big and small, I see that more every day. The stricter I am with her, the more control she willingly cedes to me. “I…I just thought—”

“She’s my submissive, my lover, my friend, myfuck-buddy. But she isn’t myslave.” He closes his eyes, our foreheads still touching. “When Shae and I first started this, before she decided when she wanted to run for president, I gave her an open-ended standing offer that I told her then washerdecision, and hers alone. I told her if she ever wanted to bemorethan my submissive, she’d have to bring it up and ask me.”

I think about her thismorning.

About her on her knees and softly asking me to to accept her as myslave.

About how she’s awaiting my answer.

“But you’re marrying her.”

“That’s not the kind ofmoreI’m talking about.” He opens his eyes, tipping his head back again. “Shae is her own person. Marrying her, in this context, is a business arrangement. I don’townher. We protect each other’s secrets, and we don’t sleepwith anyone but each other, and now you. That’s it. She’s never expressed an interest in me ‘owning’ her outside of the bedroom. Honestly? Emotionally, I don’t think I could have before you came back. Now? With you in my life? I’m still not sure I could.”

“What do you want me to do?”

A lopsided smile quirks his mouth. “Yourchoice, baby. I give her toyou.”

“Chris, she’s a person, not a puppy.”

“Oooh, puppy play—”

“Chris! Focus, please?”

He laughs. “Your choice, baby.”

I think about this—reallythink about it. “Yes, but only if you and I are still doingthisbetween us. You in charge and on top. I can’t lose this with you.”

He kisses me. “That doesn’t change, then.” He kisses my jaw, up to my ear, placing a nip there that makes my cock ache. “How sexy would it be to leave you a lovenote on her ass like that, and then that night you send her back to me tasting like you in reply? Or you put her on her knees to watch me taking you down and fucking your brains out, and she isn’t allowed to so much as move if she wants to be rewarded later. I might be her husband, but I’m stillyours.”

It nearly makes my knees weak, thinking about how sexy those images are.

Yeah, I’m twisted,all right.

“It’d be really fucking sexy,” I admit.

“So…we good?”

I pull him in for one more kiss. “Yeah, we’re good.”