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I look at her lips. “No consent in this fantasy of yours?”

Her gaze slides, and she bites her lip. “I…don’t usually care to have the proper course of things in my daydreams. You bought me. I was yours. What right would I even have to object to anything? I know my place.”

“It sounds like your place is as the soulmate of a draconic prince.”

“King. But.” She peeks at me. “Maybe.”

I kiss her—without asking—and prod her gently on. “More.”

Flushed, she takes me in, gaze traveling from my face, down my chest, toward the cave of blankets settled around my hips. “You told me in exchange for my heart, body, and soul, you’d grant me anything.” She swallows. “You…your hand was…” Careful, she slides her touch down the arm I’m not using to support myself and guides it to her waist.

I stroke my thumb against her, and her lashes flutter closed.

Lowering my forehead to hers, I say, “What’s your wish, my love?”

The softest swear leaves her then. Shakily, she says, “I asked you…to be rough.”

My hold against her solidifies.

Before my mind can catch up, she continues, “I begged you to tear me apart and leave scars wherever you touched. I said I’d become yours, in every way, if you promised to never—ever—be gentle with me. If you could do that, then I would relinquish more than my heart, body, and soul.”

Swallowing sandpaper, I utter, “And…? What did I say?”

December refuses to meet my eyes. “Nothing. You just did as I asked… I was planning to end the scene whenever we passed out from exhaustion, but I couldn’t fall asleep, because I kept shivering, and it was too cold for me to be in the bed of a man who controls flames. In short, it was miserable.”

Well.

A long swear sticks in my brain as I look down at my December who runs off to live in stories of me when life is too often plagued by reality. I feel the places she’s touching me—my wrist, my leg—acutely. I soak in her warmth. I say, “Can’t any man be rough with you? Doesn’t it take a better man to be gentle?”

“I don’t like gentle. I don’t want controlled. I don’t want a calculated business man who wrinkles his nose at the idea of getting dirty. I don’t want the polished picture I’ve been fed my entire life. I want desperation. I want love to be everything. I want it to take precedence, especially when it’s delirious and consuming. I don’t want tender or careful. I want a heart that breaks like a bomb. I want to be rendered useless in the explosion.” Peering up into my eyes, she stretches and cups my cheeks. “Break me, Wynnter Winslow. Please.”

My heart settles firmly in my throat as breath abandons me.

Merciless, she charges on, “Trust that I know exactly what I want when I look at you, and it is not delusions of better or good or gentle that fill my head when I do. You are the first real choice I have ever made.” Circling her arms around my neck, she pulls herself up, and teases her next words against my lips. “Will you honor that? Or will you, like my parents, lie awake wondering how you can change things to fit with whatever you think is best?”

Shaken, I slide my palm to her back and support her weight. “I…” Words turn to ash in my throat. “How did you know?”

She smiles, so perfect. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. Your phone doesn’t even vibrate at this time, but you came right to me, because you were still up.”

My fingers close into a fist.

“I know you, Wynn. How could I not? I’ve loved you for years. Right now, you’re trying to figure out how to fix something you didn’t break, because that’s what you do. Right now, you’re beating yourself up over how your actions have impacted this situation. You’re rationalizing. Struggling to make peace. Contemplating how you can even hope to mend a relationship that truly shouldn’t have anything to do with you yet. You’ve been thinking about it all night. You’ve been wrestling with the knowledge that you own me but shouldn’t allow yourself to take advantage of that. You’ve probably wondered if it’s right to feel relieved that I’m here, with you, when I’m hurting because of it. Am I right?”

She’s right. Of course she’s right. She sees me for everything I am, and she always has. “Yeah,” I offer, hoarse.

She hugs me. Her arms pull her close as I melt down, lowering us until we’re pressed to the sheets together, embracing. Near my ear, she says, “I don’t want right or proper. I don’t want to be fixed. I’m not another job for you to take care of. I’m your wife.”

My muscles quiver, constricting around her.

“Mess me up, Wynn. Break me. And when crap happens and life hurts me, punch it.”

“That’s not really healthy, is it?”

“Did I ask for healthy?”

I swallow, word harsh, “No.”

“No,” she echoes. “I’m not certain I ever have.”