Page 48 of We Own Each Other

“I want to be with you.”

I blinked, unsure if what I had just heard was truly what he had said or if it was just some hallucination from my innermost wants and dreams.

My confusion or disbelief must have been apparent on my face as he repeated himself, leaning in a bit more across the table for emphasis.

“I want to be with you.”

Okay. I had heard him right, and though my heart was finally growing lighter, soaring in my chest so high that I was growing dizzy, that lingering guilt was still tethered to it. Anthony’s face flashed across my mind’s eye.

I wasn’t quite back down to reality, but I was steadily falling.

Shaking my head, I tried to do the right thing, my voice shaking right along with it.

“You can’t be with me. I’m a monster. You know that.”

Corin’s crimson eyes flashed.

“I’m a monster, too.”

“What?”

He smiled, reaching across the table, his palms facing up and inviting me to reach for them. I did so out of reflex, but as soon as my hands were settled there and his fingers squeezed around them, something made my hair stand on end. As I met Corin’s gaze again, I realized why.

His eyes were burning with the intensity of a full-fledged Dom, but set in the face of a soft, angelic visage, just begging to be dominated. He was the perfect mixture of a Dom and a Sub, but all of the energy coming off him now was of an insatiable predator.

And I was the prey.

“I’m a monster, too. I want to destroy, just like you. I want to ruin and humiliate, just like you do. If you feel guilt and anguish, good. Let me be the one to punish you. If you don’t want to be with me because you’re a monster, too bad. I am a monster, too, and I won’t let you get away from me.”

I felt like a puddle of melted ice cream.

I couldn’t move.

I could barely breathe.

And I certainly could not break eye contact with my Dom before me.

Our waiter must have noticed, as out of the corner of my eye, I watched him attempt to approach our table, only to stop, mid-step, stumble, and then slowly back away. Corin chuckled, then, in a voice as sweet as candy, commanded:

“Pick up your shit. You’re coming home with me.”

Part Ten

Corin

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TEARS WERE STREAMING down his face. I lapped at their trails as they slid down his face, leaving sloppy kisses in their wake. I adored this side of him that I never could’ve imagined existed — this pitiful, weeping version of my bold and confident Luke.

And this sad, pitiable creature was all mine.

He called himself a monster, but if he could see in my head, it would no doubt reveal who the real monster was between us.

But he had begged me to punish him, and I was going to do just that.

I shoved him into my apartment. His feet stumbled beneath him, and unable to catch himself, he ended up crumpling down onto my apartment floor. His bags of stuff, which I had haphazardly stuffed to give back to him, burst open, sending the contents scattering across the floor.

Admittedly, it was much more chaotic than he had left it initially, but seeing his stuff in my space felt right. It was meant to be here, just as the man lying on my floor, teary-eyed and whimpering, was meant to be under me.