He was the last person in the world I'd give that number to because his idea of an emergency was a little too fluid for my liking. Like, When are you coming home for a visit? Are you safe? I miss you. Where did you leave the waffle iron?
Mark nodded at me. "I got your message."
Then why are you asking what I'm doing here? I wondered.
"So is this how it's going to go?" he asked. He ran a hand through his hair. He'd recently had it cut and it looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. It was a good look on him, one I'd have enjoyed if he'd tried it while we were together. The faintest unease sneaked through me, the wonder if he was seeing someone else.
I had no right to wonder that. Every time, I'd been the one to leave. Even if I'd recently had an epiphany that his refusal to call us off, his insistence on waiting for me, was controlling and less loving than – well, controlling, I still felt for him. If he was seeing someone, that was fine. I was living with someone who knew more about me than Mark ever would. I'd betrayed him a lot more than just physically.
I was here to break off the engagement.
It still bothered me. I'm a fairly controlling person myself. Of course I am. I'm a cop, a black belt, I go undercover all the time which cuts me loose from the rules of the police department even as I'm still working for them.
Or I had been.
And in the flip side of my life, I kneel naked to a billionaire of undoubted brilliance but perhaps questionable sanity and call him Sir and let him do things to me.
All of which flashed through my mind with the speed of thought. None of which helped quell the anger. "Is what how it's going to be?"
Mark gestured around as if I'd done something to the apartment. I had, but it was only to start collecting those few possessions I wanted to take with me. Now I was wondering if someone else had been here, with him, the petty part of me was starting to think I needed everything. Every item that was mine. Everything in the place I'd purchased.
It was stupid. It was petty. It was human. I didn't need or want a waffle maker. I'd bought it because Mark liked waffles. Why should I leave it so some other woman could make him waffles using it?
Because you don't like waffles and you don't want Mark?
I licked my lips. "I'm in town to quit PD," I said and instantly knew I'd started at the wrong point. There was hope, even now, flashing in his eyes, and even if he used his dogged devotion to control me, he still cared.
Damn it.
"You're quitting?"
I sat down. I'd been standing with my legs spread, my hands in my pockets, my stance aggressive. Now I sat. "Mark. I'm moving to Las Vegas and going to school."
"With him." He said it flatly and for a second I thought he meant was I going to UNLV with Cole St. Martin before I realized he meant something different.
"No. I'm not with him anymore."
Mark sneered. My sitting down had done nothing to even things between us. "Then why go to university there?"
"Because I'm through here," I said gently. "We're not together anymore, Mark. Not me and St. Martin. Not me and you. You can see that." Can’t you?
"So that's it?" His face was incredulous, his eyes big and dark, his mouth uncertain. "You're just going to go?"
Pick one, I thought. Either why am I here and do I think I still have the run of the place, or please don't leave you.
"I have to," I said. "I've been too lost. I need to find myself." God, that was a cliché if ever there was one. "I've put you through so much. It's time to let go. You can't keep waiting for me, Mark. Because I'm not coming back." Probably I never had been.
He sat down beside me on the couch. We'd spent so much time there over our years together, when I was home, in his arms, I was aware how much muscle he'd put on. One hand slid over my cheek, then wrapped around the back of my head, pulling my mouth to his. I balked, for just a second, because this wasn't how it was meant to go. Then I relaxed into the sweetness of the kiss. Everyone is allowed to say goodbye in whatever way works for them. I kissed him in return, only sliding my tongue over the lower lip I used to like to bite softly.
I started to break the kiss.
And he didn't.
"Mark," I said. It came out muffled, his mouth hard against mine. "Mark, stop."
But his hand was on my breast, squeezing painfully hard. I tried to brush it off then grabbed his wrist and tried to pry him off me. Instead he tightened his grip so hard I made a sound of protest and started to pull away from him completely, pushing back to create distance between us on the couch so I could stand.
That's when he threw himself at me, pinning me to the couch. His leg came down between mine, forcing them apart. He started to grind against me, his mouth on mine turning to mostly teeth.
For a second I almost let it go. I'd had sex with Mark a billion times over the years. We'd done it outside, inside, in his parents bed which seemed like a big thing to him though they were in Europe at the time and we washed the sheets afterward. We had sex in all positions and sometimes he had cuffed me using my own cuffs, or played rough.
What would it matter? Let him have this last hollow victory. Given what I'd gone through when kidnapped by Vincent and when given to Claude by St. Martin, what would this matter?
But it mattered. I mattered. I mattered enough for someone to want to enslave me to my passion and his. I mattered enough that he'd come to rescue me when I needed it and beaten me later when I felt strange about it all. He'd pulled back when I needed freedom, despite knowing I might never return.
Mark? Mark had endangered my life and my career by calling the instant he got my emergency contact. He called about my father, which I needed to know, and which was the only reason we stayed together after that. He'd stayed with me despite my job and I was figuring out just how much that was actually control. He was sleeping with someone else, I was pretty sure now, someone he was willing to hit the gym for which he hadn't with me. Maybe that was just the difference in where he was in his med schooling, he had more time to do nonessential things, but I didn't care.
He wasn't getting this. He'd had me committed to a mental hospital, working with my father to do it because he was jealous that St. Martin could help me and he couldn't.
And there was one more thing. One more that flashed through my mind fast and exploded in perfect clarity. I'd never known what I was capable of until I learned I was kinky. I'd never known I could order a man killed until St. Martin gave me that option but not the option to go and take them down myself.
What was Mark capable of? Even St. Martin, a "career sadist" for lack of any better terms, didn't trust himself right now with the rage over some of the things that had happened to me at the hands of those other men.
Why in the name of anything would I trust Mark to only want to fuck me?
He'd pinned me and his weight was keeping me down. I could feel his erection pushing into me. I didn't flex, didn't move, I just considered as fast as I could each of my limbs, my center of gravity, my feet and hands, my teeth. I considered how he was holding me and that his knee grinding between my legs was horrible and distracting but ultimately unimportant.
The other things were more important.